Customer Reviews

Creative Journal Writing: The Art and Heart of Reflection

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As an editor I get tired of asking my authors to practise their writing. Some like to play the victim, `But I don't have the talent. It just doesn't come easy.' And I have to remind them: even the writing of seasoned writers doesn't always come easy. As with any skill people have to practise. In my mind there's no such thing as a natural-born writer. Or if there is, it's only because they've written thousands of pages, and they now finally write with ease.

Many of my would-be writers purchase books about publishing. They favour titles such as How to Get Published or How to Get off the Slush Pile. As an editor and writing teacher I never suggest such books. For good reason.

This is because getting published to me is like coming to the end of a very long road. You have to get bindies in your feet and collect experience along the way, before you get to your destination. And to state the bleeding obvious, to be a writer you have to write. And you have to write a lot before your sentences sparkle.

But many authors have trouble getting past the first page. They often say to me, `But this is going to be my magnum opus, my Great Australian Novel.' No wonder they fail! From page 1 they place enormous pressure on themselves to write this great thing. If I had a dollar for every poem, short story or novel that I read starting with `The white page is mocking me' I'd be sporting diamond-encrusted flip-flops, sunning myself on the beaches of the Mediterranean.

This is why I often suggest to authors that they read and work through Stephanie Dowrick's Creative Journal Writing. Dowrick challenges people (not just writers) to reframe that blank page as an invitation. She calls it `a door or window opening or falling away'.

Once people see the page as a place to free emotions and thoughts, new adventures can arise. Then you no longer have to be the writer, the great composer, the brilliant anything. You can just be yourself. In a journal the writing is not for publication, competition, or public consumption.

Journal writing is the perfect place to start your journey.

But what do I write about? You may be crowded with a thousand thoughts. Or perhaps you put your pen down, and then your mind turns to mush. Dowrick's book is filled with ideas for writing, topics, tricks, ideas. Each chapter contains simple exercises that any person can do. So for example Dowrick includes a free-association exercise. She offers up the suggestions of catching a lift and focussing on a smell: perhaps someone walking in with a coffee, or someone is wearing your aunt's favourite perfume. What do these smells evoke in you? What memories do they bring up?

When you read Dowrick's book you realise that it's no longer just you and the blank page mocking you. She presents a whole host of ideas that would spark even the most unimaginative person to fill a book.

If you're going to write for others you first need to write for yourself. Throughout the book Dowrick entreats us to `retire the inner critic', which I think is sound advice indeed. Too many people I find, start to write novels then get bogged down in the first few chapters. They go back, edit them, go back again, edit them some more. Then they simply can't move on. (I have shelved two books in this way, so trust me, I know what I'm talking about.) When writing a journal, there's no need to go back and edit. It is what it is, how you were feeling at that time, in that place.

Dowrick writes, `Journal writing is all about process - not goals or outcome. It is freeing - not constraining ... how you write, what you write, matters only to you. You are writing to please no one but yourself. Celebrate!'

Sometimes I hear people say that if you want to learn about good journal writing you should read the greats like Anais Nin. I think this kind of argument is deeply faulted. Most ordinary people are not inspired by great writers to write. They simply fold up their laptop and think well, it has already been done, and how! They get trapped in that inner critic, the self-talk that says `you'll never be as good as her'.

But Dowrick's book is not like that. It's inspirational, easy-to-read and practical. It tells anyone who opens its pages, `You can do this.' It does at times touch on great writers and their examples, but it does not cower in their presence.

Dowrick uses the journal writings of everyday people to show that not only great writers keep journals. People keep them for very ordinary reasons, to get over a break up, to help them get through each day. In the hardest moments a diary or journal can be like a friend, listening without judgment, helping ideas evolve, helping heal the pain felt through life's injustices. Dowrick celebrates the ordinary, as well as extraordinary.

In the end we feel that writing is not just the province of the great novelist or the story teller. You and I can go there, and we can potentially create something wonderful. But at the same time if we just produce something ordinary, but it helps us in other ways, this can be beneficial too. It doesn't really matter in the end. Journal writing can be a means and an end within itself. No more trying, no more striving. Just you and the page and Dowrick's exercises.

I will have to admit that I am a much better reader than I am a writer. Reading has always been my love. I have tried to keep a journal, but have never been very good at following through with it. This book may be my turning point.

Stephanie Dowrick has put together a book that will help even the most reluctant journaler, like me. She divides the book into 5 parts: Getting Started, Free to be Creative, Writing the Facts, Your Life in Your Journal, and Putting it all Together. Throughout the book are excerpts from other journals, so that you can really see what it is she is talking about. It's one thing to read about it, but another to see a real-life example. Also scattered throughout the book are timely writing quotes.

At the very beginning of the book is a half page note from Stephanie titled, How to use this book. I think it's pertinent to share with you.

"One of the essential ingredients of creative journal writing is freedom: freedom from judgments, freedom to write as you wish and only about what interests you. How you will use this book is, necessarily, entirely up to you. But my humble suggestion is that you first read it through like a conventional book, stopping only if an exercise here or there grabs you by the ankle and pulls you to the ground. Stop here. If that doesn't happen, experience the ideas and the many wonderful stories as a whole, and only then go back to work your way through it far more personally, engaging with all the exercises that you want, at the pace you want, and in the way you want.
Pleasure is the other essential ingredient of journal writing . So use this book in the way that will give you the most pleasure: reading, writing, pausing, setting aside, returning, all at a pace and in a rhythm entirely of your own making.


The way she suggests is exactly the way I approached this book. I simply read for pleasure, taking in all the stories, key principles, suggestions, instructions, etc. My goal now, is to go back, a little at a time, and take it all in as I put the suggestions, hints, and ideas into practice in my own journal. Included with the review copy of this book was my very own Creative Writing Journal, but any journal you choose could be used.

My favorite part of this book were the 125 possible topics to write about. Stephanie suggests instinctively choosing a number between 1 and 125 and just writing about it, whether you like it or not. I will definitely be going to the list more than once as I embark on my journaling expedition.

Creative Journal Writing is a great way to get started with journaling, or a way to dig deeper into your journaling experience. Whether or not you're a writer, I encourage you to give it a try. You never know, you might like it!

Writing should be at least as pleasurable as reading and yet for so many people it isn't. This is a book that seems set to bring back some of the joy in writing that many would-be everyday writers have lost. It is filled with stories, exercises, writing games, humor and insight across all the many areas of journal writing. It is particularly strong on how to write "freely" in ways that I know would help other kinds of writing - creative and "workplace". The author has taught writing and worked in publishing for many years and is a successful writer herself. She is confident that virtually everyone can learn to write more expressively. Given how stuck, forced or dried up many would-be writers feel out here in the real world, these liberating writing techniques are essential to what most us seem to want to discover. This book is about finding "your own voice"- and trusting it.

Creativity = freedom in these pages. More important to my mind is that it is journal writing in particular
that more than any other kind of writing will let you discover your own voice and your own way to write and express without fear of any outer or inner critic telling you how you should be writing. I loved the variety of experiences shared here. The many quotes are mostly from ordinary journal writers whose snapshot views of the world and of the place of journal writing within it vary from Dieter who sees his life through numerical correspondences (amazing number sequences), to Jessica, who uses her journal as a way out of the prison of panic attacks, Michele, an artist with Crohn's disease whose journal writing helps in managing chronic illness and Helen who writes of the solace that journal writing has given her following a marriage breakdown. There are also many examples of using your journal to help you make decisions and review options and generally for "left-brain" strategies, planning etc. I particularly appreciated this! Others may love the sections on
learning to record and "see" your own spiritual story.

The bestselling author has written a rich, well-crafted how-to manual for creative journal writing. My criticism lies only in its conspicuous bias toward the feminine perspective although to be fair she has made the attempt to include examples from a masculine voice. And yes, she does offer a wealth of exercises/prompts which all appear to be stimulating and potentially productive. Her thesis becomes worn with its repetition and how many pages does it take to understand that a personal journal can take any form its writer desires? I used the book to jumpstart my own habit and as a stimulus I can't complain -- although I think it could have been done quicker. Perhaps down the road I may consult it as a reference but, for now, once completed I haven't opened it since. On the other hand, a woman to whom I gifted a copy thinks it's top flight. There you go.

If you are looking for something to help you learn to keep a journal, keep looking. The Kindle sample was promising, so I sprang for the $9.99 for the book and never finished it. It is written with a female readership in mind, and that doesn't help me much. Bland, boring, and entirely unhelpful unless your journal entries are of the "I sat on the porch and watched the leaves" variety. I'll keep looking.

If you have never really written before, then this book is an ideal guide on how to jot down those internal thoughts and feelings. It is an easy read, and has various headings throughout so that you can quickly reference something should you need to revert back to a piece of the books advice.

I enjoyed this book and now am the proud author of my own journal.
I have set myself the task of recording my adventures in life for the whole year, so far I have only missed a couple of days and the entries vary from information documentation to doodles, dates phone numbers reminders, rants and rambles, I look forward to having a read of it at the end of its time.
The book helped me to expand my understanding of what a journal could be and the sheer joy of having the journal as a constant companion.

I've been writing since I was in junior high, writing short stories and poetry - and keeping a journal. Any writer - no matter how old you are or what you like to write - can benefit from keeping a journal. This book gives you the inside scoop on journaling: it's not what you write, how you write it, or even where you write it - the main objective is that YOU JUST WRITE. The book gives examples of real peoples' journals and lots of helpful insights and tips. I love this book!

As a previous reviewer suggested, leave it on the train. this was the most disappointingly bland and banal commercial lot of waffle that could have been written in 10 pages and represents all the ways that i hope i never write. i was hoping for something with passion and guts and honesty but was sadly disappointed. one star is a generous rating.

The title and cover of this beige and butter-soft book hit me in the solar plexus when I first saw it on the bookshelf and the cover and title made me think of Anais Nin's art and heart of journal-reflecting such that I knew I had to have it.

Once I had the book in my greedy hands, what I soon discovered, however, was that there were no discoveries to be found here.

The book stands on the strong shoulders of a great many other how-to books on journal-keeping (especially, "The New Diary" by Tristan Rainier). Pretty much so, Ms. Dowrick's talents lie in excavating, coalescing, collating, and stealing that rich mine of prior diary-writing advice into easy, catch-all phrases that are lightly garnished with the psychotherapist's whisk of sanction.

The advice and instruction here is written in that perfect commercial blend of stock phrases, standard English, New Age cliches, and sentimental religious coinage such that anyone who admires "Highlights for Children" magazine or "Junior Scholastics" for its clarity will assuredly have just oodles of fun feeling welcomed into the clique made out of Stephanie Dowrick's aura -- "number one bestselling author" and compassionate psychotherapist.

This work is, after all, published by Jeremy Tarcher, a publisher known for its woo-woo esotericism at its most comprehensible and digestible levels: "higher powers" brought (and explained) (down) to you, the democratic and universal man or woman -- painlessly and effortlessly. Thus, Stephanie Dowrick will speak to you about your Inner Wise Man, for example. (Fresh notion, no?)

The book's path of instruction doesn't actually begin until page 66. By page 245, you discover the entire book is completely summarized in "Key Principles" and "Key Hints," the last four pages of the book.

The examples or illustrations of journal entries from both famous and civilian journal-keepers that are the main filler for this chubby paperback (I almost wrote "paperhack") are totally in keeping with the author's bland, harmless approach and style for the whole book.

Each writer's voice, in nearly each and every example (and there is one example on every page of this 258-paged loaf of paper), whether young or old, famous or not, is unequivocally without tone, without voice, that is, without that eccentricity or raw uniqueness of personality, and is undifferentiated, "nice," average, domesticated and unchallenging, palatably unoriginal.

Since the author chose just these excerpts over many other possibilities and better selections, it was dismaying to find May Sarton and Anais Nin sounding positively prosaic and tonally bland on the one hand, while also finding them sounding totally alike in both voice and quality of perception on the other hand, like interchangeable beings -- as if to highlight and emphasize the fact that there is no difference between them and you, dear reader, whether "you" are a beginning journal writer, an experienced one, whether you are 16 or 82.

Hooray for Joan Didion and Virginia Woolf whose journal excerpts successfully resisted Ms. Dowrick's attempt to sacrifice them to the god of Demos! The uniqueness, superiority, and voice in their writings stood out in this crowd of average, plain prose journalkeepers and examples.

What I'm striving to say, in summary, is that this book is offering the reader a myth, a lie -- that creativity has nothing to do with originality, that you or I are equal to the famous, and that by following Ms. Dowrick's advice, you, too, can "let yourself be surprised" with living your life -- as if you need her permission or any permission to experience surprise whenever it happens -- every day!

I also found the author's psychotherapeutic perspective on writing, that is, the consistent utilizing of a kind of phony balance between negative and positive "energies" while writing a sentence (this is not her advice, mind you, but is her actual practice on the page -- even in her chosen examples) was alienating to me as a potential collaborator in journalkeeping and was disingenuous in her professional capacity as a psychotherapist. The writing here is not an art, it is a contrivance, a deliberate, artificial strategy.

Having gotten all the negatives about the book out of the way, and to bring this review up to its positive conclusion, I want to suggest that Ms. Dowrick's advice is NOT really wholly useless or awful as this review might suggest (though some of it actually is --- like the advice to write (an essay, really) on the topic of freedom and what reflecting on what freedom means to you might mean for you regarding your desire to free yourself up, not so much with a desire to write better (of course!), but as to your desire to write more "freely"). However, much of the advice is totally available in other, better written and more enjoyable-to-read books and is also completely summarized on pages 250 to 256. You don't need to buy this book.

My disappointment with this book was strong enough to want to title this book review "Just leave it on the train," as some other Amazon reviewer recently stated in her conclusion to a review about one of Stephanie Dowrick's other, nonfiction books published just prior to this one.

Near the end of "Creative Journal Writing," Stephanie Dowrick hints that her next book will be on Rainier Maria Rilke, the great modern German poet!

That's an event I'm definitely not looking forward to: seeing Rilke brought down to Stephanie Dowrick's level of understanding; this will be the equivalent of watching a hit-and-run or a mugging in a dark alley-- if her demogogic advice on journal writing is any kind of indication of what's next.