Customer Reviews

Keeping a Journal You Love

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book contains solid material for the person who has some experience in keeping a journal. For reasons set forth below, however, to the absolute beginner I would recommend _Journal to the Self_ or _The New Diary_ as a first book on the subject, not this one.

The book has three sections:

1. The short opening section offers seven exercises (involving five senses and two literary devices) to limber up the journaling muscles, so to speak. They are well-presented.

2. The main body of the book offers extended excerpts from the journals of published writers demonstrating both techniques within the journals that the author recommends to us, the readers, and those published writers' use of journal materials to generate published works.

Depending on one's temperament, the quoted excerpts can be either discouraging or downright intimidating. This book for this reason is not a suitable first book about journaling. In addition, in some cases the length of the journal excerpts in proportion to the amount of commentary and guidance that Ms. Bender was providing was somewhat excessive.

On the other hand, the excerpts can also be inspiring, make no mistake about that. I found Robert Hellenga's journal entries describing the thoughts and experiences that eventually formed _The Fall of a Sparrow_ to be particularly strong.

3. The book concludes with its best section, a short one modestly entitled "add-ons." It contains a number of additional strategies for journal entries, most of which I had not seen elsewhere, and a chapter on creating journal-keeping groups and communities.

Verdict: worth buying if you're a serious journaler; not the best single reference if you only have one book on the subject.

I can usually tell a good book by the number of tabs and yellow markings I have made during the reading. KEEPING A JOURNAL YOU LOVE is riddled with my yellow lines like a broken-trail map depicting my progress through the territory of journal writing. The markers could be porcupine quills poking their way out of the pages. Here I found advice like: "Keeping a journal is a form of mental and emotional exercise. It helps keep the mind limber and the soul supple, the better to get at the root of your own curiosities and obsessions as a writer." Or "I like the instant gratification. I like seeing my thoughts put into words; I enjoy the sense of accomplishment when I complete a good writing session."

One will find not only excellent REASONS for journal writing, but also a multitude of IDEAS and STRATEGIES for keeping a journal that best fits the personality of the writer. It is a book to be enjoyed repeatedly as one seeks fresh ways of observing life.

Journal writing can open up a whole new world to every type of writer. No matter what your writing experience, Keeping a Journal You Love shows you how to get the most out of your journal.

Each page contains advice on how keeping a journal can lead to enhanced writing. You'll also sample real journal entries from 15 respected fiction and non-fiction writers. At the end of each journal entry, instructional exercises are provided so you can capitalize on your own journal.

You'll learn how to create story ideas from your own life experiences and develop a deeper sense of your own writing as well. Journaling examples show you how a simple log of one's daily life can spawn complete novels.

There's also a special section filled with strategies you can use in your journal entries. Plus, a bonus chapter contains informative tips on how you can create journal-keeping groups and communities.

If you're currently keeping a journal, this book will bring a whole new level to your writing. If you're just beginning a journal, every exercise will help you develop page after page of beautiful words.

As someone who writes for hours every day, I am challenged by adding to my writing "chores" with personal journaling. Then along comes Sheila Bender with a provocative book that actually makes me want to grab my journal and write for my own purposes. Sheila has stitched together a quilt of prompts, observations and samples that will convince even the most reluctant writer to pour her heart out in a journal. While Sheila's book is invaluable for those of us who write, it's equally useful for those who want to write or those who want to take a more active role in learning to record memories. In fact, I'm using her book to help me improve my young son's writing. Sheila's methods for explaining common writer's techniques are so clear and compelling that even a 12-year-old can grasp immediately what she suggests. All in all, this book is a winner and deserves a place on every thinking person's bookshelves.

I want to thank the author, Sheila Bender, for this book. I have just begun to write after a career that was very focused on oral communication. Ms Bender's presentation in this book of journal writing is most encouraging to me as a novice in "written" communication. The book is well organized, clear, and beautifully written. I was especially moved by the description of the "enjoyment of solitude" and how it relates to journal writing. Ms Bender's own joy of writing shines throughout the book.

This author likes extravagant phrasing and wants to coach you in how to write "writerly" writing. She loves the extended metaphor and gives lots of suggestions for writing fancy. Tom Robbins can take metaphors to ridiculous heights (or depths), so read one of his novels and you'll get an idea of how to do it, and maybe why not to.

This emphasis on learning style over content made me as frustrated as a two-year-old playing with his big brother's Tonka truck fire engine but not being able to figure out how to raise the ladder because there's a little catch he needed to release, but if his mom hears him crying and brings over two soft chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk in his favorite little Winnie the Pooh cup, he feels better -- hey, people this kind of exercise isn't why I write a journal.

However, there are redeeming elements. The author has excerpted several interesting journals from successful writers, and their passages provide a peek into the creative mind, though the "exercises" following each one tend to reduce them to formulas. She'll take Pam Houston's letters -- which pop out as long, fully formed essays, rather intimidating if one doesn't write that way oneself -- and asks you to copy the format, then "when you feel finished, try for an ending like Houston's where she lists details and images from her Texas trip, saying in each moment that she sees her love for her correspondee. What images and details will you list? How do you see your love in them?" She doesn't say at the end, "Now compare your writing to Houston's, which you read before you wrote your own entries, and feel like an utter failure."

As writing instruction, this book falls in the river and drowns. As a collection of themed essays by good writers in journal format, it's slim but worthy.

The most interesting part of this book is the exerpts from other writers' journals. There's not a whole lot of content otherwise, though. Each excerpt is followed by some suggested exercises (most of which I found boring) and some examples (written by the author) of how you might do the exercise...which are surprisingly uninspiring.
Still searching for a straight-forward and practical book on this subject....

I have kept an extremely informal journal for about 12 years now, and was looking to expand into the realm of real writing... This book would not be my very first suggestion for someone in a similar situation.

Honestly, her writing reminded me a bit of a professor I had that thought her writing was far more instructive and valuable than it truly was. I have no doubts at all about her sincerity and zeal for the subject of journaling, and some of the journal entries from the other writers were inspiring in their own way, but I struggled through her metaphors. Other reviewers have said 'a bit wordy' and I agree. Nothing terrible, I just wasn't as inspired as the title had led me to hope for.

The journal samples chosen are so dry and uninteresting. The author tries to teach the obvious which an average educated adult reader would know. This is kind of book you pick up in a bookstore and read 5 minutes or 10 you would put down and move to the next. Since I bought this book, I obliged myself reading it from time to time for several days; not a single time I found it intriguing or instructive in anyway. If you think yourself a person with adequate education, you would know how to write and keep a journal without using this book.

I stumbled onto this book. Because I'm not into "journaling" I probably would never have picked it up in a bookstore. But recently, while looking for ways to sharpen my descriptive writing for my fiction, I came across a mention of Bender's mentioned in another book. I borrowed it through inter-library loan and before I was halfway through the borrowed copy, I'd ordered a used one through Amazon. This is a priceless guide for taking the world (the real one, or the one you've imagined) and recreating it on the page. Every starting fiction (or creative nonfiction) writer should read this!