Tuesday, October 4, 2011

keeping a journal

I'm reading through some old journals to find gems for my memoir An Unfinished Woman. In Oct. of 1998 I attended an excellent workshop at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health with Angeles Arrien.
One of the question we were asked to reflect on and write about was "What has softened in me this year." I invite you to write . . .

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great idea. Just reading that brought several people and event to mind. Good things to use in my story. Thanks. from Sheila

Laura Kepner said...

I could write a whole book on this subject. The softness time offers is such a gift.

travel tales said...

Sometimes I think I may be too soft. It makes it hard to add villains to my story. Maybe I should journal about what has hardened me.

Jan Golden said...

good idea Travel Tales - tat was going to be the next question to ponder and write about.

Virginia said...

I have a problem in that I wrote too much for this month's assignment WRITING A LETTER. Once I started writing that letter I just couldn't stop. It is up to 655 words already. Has this ever happened to you? . . And if so, what do you do about it. Everything in it seems so important.

It seems like what I write is either too short or too long.

Any insight on this would be a big help.

Jan Golden said...

Good question, Virginia. The reason revision is so important is to remove unnecessary words. What makes 'unnecessary' is the big question.

A good place to start is to read your story aloud. Does every line do something to reveal character or advance the action.

Go line by line and see if taking out a word or phrase hurts the message the story is telling. It's a good start.

Hope that you're coming Sat. to Safety Harbor Workshop 1:30 - 4:30. I'll be going into more detail.