Tag Archive for 'Journaling'

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Happy National Nurses Week !

Published on May 3, 2010 in Author Blog, General Information, Health and Wellness, writer blog, writing, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling. Tags: , , , , , .

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It’s been over 30 years since I practiced nursing, but it has been said that once you’re a nurse, you’re always a nurse. Occasionally, I still receive phone calls from loved ones (especially my children) requesting medical advice for themselves or their friends. Plus, along with Errol Norwitz, M.D. from Yale University, I also recently updated my book, Your High Risk Pregnancy: A Practical and Supportive Guide which was initially published in the 1980s.

In many ways I feel quite removed from the profession, well, at least until the month of May between May 6th and 12th, when nurses are honored nation-wide. May 12th is Florence Nightingale’s birthday and May 7th is mine, so I had a couple of things in common with the mother of nursing. I was really born on Mother’s Day; can you imagine me as a Mother’s Day gift? Never mind that was too many years ago to reminisce, but I would like to offer a few words about the important role of nurses.

Nursing is aptly described as an art and a science. The profession embraces dedicated people with varied interests who wear many hats, from staff nurse to educator to nurse practitioner to nurse researcher. Regardless of their specialty, I can promise you that nurses have a passion for their profession.

As a journaling advocate I have a ‘Google Alert’ set for the word “journaling.” I was delighted that it showed up on a nursing site. The writer, Gail Guteri, discussed a book called Inspired Nurse, by Rich Bluni, RN that explores what nurses can do to maintain the needed passion and interest in their profession. As a former director of nursing in a chronic care hospital, I know this to be an ongoing problem—unfortunately burnout at some point of their career is inevitable. I think all helping professions experience some degree of burnout and now with economical changes, nurses have been hit hard. Bluni makes a number of suggestions on reducing stress and reconnecting with one’s passion for nursing. One which resonated with me was therapeutic journaling. I bow to Bluni’s suggestion.

This year, the American Nurses Association, the largest nursing association in the United States salutes nurses with the theme: “Nurses: Caring Today for a Healthy Tomorrow.” Nurses have always been at the forefront of patient education, but with healthcare reform, their role will become even more prevalent. Although there are pros and cons to the law, in many ways it will help build a healthy tomorrow in that Americans will all be blessed with health care. Nurses will have to grow and adapt to changes and preventative medicine will become an even more essential part of life.

Now more than ever, I feel compelled to inspire others to nurture their own health and nourish their bodies on both a spiritual and physical level. Some of my heart strings are pulled as I write about health issues, because nurturing health is at my core and the task can be so challenging to face. National Nurses Week symbolizes my gratitude to everyone who helps nurture and inspire wellness.

To your health, and thanks to nurses, everywhere!

The New Journal – Author Blogging

Published on April 26, 2010 in Author Blog, inspiration, Journaling, Journals, Musings, Passions, writer blog, Writers and Their Notebooks, writing and Writing, journaling. Tags: , , , .

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Dear Reader ~

The art of being an author means that it is no longer enough to craft a compelling manuscript and submit to an agent or publisher. We are now told that no matter what the size of our publishing house we need to do our fair share of marketing.  We must now be excellent promoters of their work and with this revolution comes the relatively new interface of the author blog.

Over the years, my journals have been a conglomeration of personal and impersonal—

scribblings which sometimes lead to published work, but other times include lists of things to do and books to read. Now that some of my scribbles have gone public, I find myself a little more reflective. I try to keep my blog entries general enough so that those who are not authors will also find them stimulating, but those particularly interested in the writing life will gain some personal insight into their chosen field.

In general, there continues to be an intrigue and mystique associated with the writing life. I learned this while editing my last book, Writers and Their Notebooks (The University of South Carolina Press, 2010), and how fascinated readers are to hear about how the writer’s mind works. Even though we don’t get paid much, many people still say they would love to be a writer if they had time. In fact, yesterday I had lunch with a dear friend whose son asked her, “Mom, if you could be famous for anything what would it be?” She turned to him and in spite of working in a completely unrelated field, said, “I would want to be a famous writer.”

Surely everyone else’s grass looks greener, but if you love to read you probably would be proud to call yourself a writer. OK. I’m veering from the subject of blogging, but also making a point that there are different types of author blogs and it’s beauty is that it gives you a chance to ramble and muse. Alas, I have made a promise to my readers that my blog will never exceed 1000 words, and most often they hover around 700. Long blogs will loose readership. We simply all have too much to do.

Many authors already have blogs, but if you are considering one, here are some things you should know about the different types of blogs:

Daily Blog – Even though at first, this may seem like a wonderful idea because it inspires regular writing, these types of blogs are very difficult to maintain over a long period of time. The idea is that writing your blog should not be a chore, but something you actually look forward to doing. You also want to make them stimulating and interesting to read, unlike the journals you kept as a young child. In your first draft, you can start by writing, “Dear Diary,” and write from your heart, write about what really interests you and chances are it will also interest your readers. Then go back and cut what might not be interesting.

Weekly Blog – This is what I do, because a week’s time frame presents itself with enough material to filter through and find something captivating to write about. If nothing happened or sparked your interest in the past week, then write about something in the news which interests you. Write about what you’ve read. Write about a movie you saw.

Subject-directed blog – This is a good type of blog, particularly if you are a nonfiction writer who specializes in a particular topic, whether you’re a politician, scientist, activist, photographer, fashion designer, medical practitioner, painter or filmmaker. These types of blogs stir up the most controversy and will probably get the most comments.

Group Blogs – This is a good way to go if you are unable to make the commitment to a weekly blog. You might want to gather a group of authors together who write similar books and take turns blogging. If you choose this route, make sure you have a list of guidelines laid out in the beginning. In addition to my personal blog, I am a guest blogger and columnist on a few other blogs and I enjoy the occasional and refreshing nature of this arrangement.
What makes a powerful blog? This is an important question because unlike diaries, there’s really no use for a blog without readership. I suppose we should ask our readers, but many of mine have told me that they were just thinking about the subject I blogged about, which I guess means that my blogs are very timely. So here are some tips I live by which might help you:

1 – Have your finger on the pulse on the times.

2 – Let your personality shine through. Readers are attracted to passion in writing.

3 – Write well and compelling text. Sometimes a good writer can make an uninteresting story or life sound very interesting. It’s all in the writing.

4 – Update regularly. My readers expect my entries on Monday.

5 – Stay ahead of yourself. Typically I am one week ahead, just in case and I cannot blog on a Monday, I always have an entry in the hopper.

And the best news of all, (before this blog entry gets too long), is once in a while we hear that blogs can sometimes lead to a book contract – now wouldn’t that be a perk?

Happy International Women's Day !

Published on March 8, 2010 in Author Blog, General Information, inspiration, Uncategorized, writing and Writing, journaling. Tags: , , , .

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Today, we celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women and  indeed, we have so much to celebrate.

First and foremost, how wonderful it was to see Kathryn Bigelow make history last night by being the first female director in the 82-year history to win the Academy Awards and on top of that it was for a war movie. Bravo Bigelow! Yesterday also marked the death of the oldest living person in the United States, Mary Josephine Roy, who was a sports-loving, card-playing woman and if you can imagine, was born before Henry Ford built his first car. In the end, she outlived her husband by forty years, had two sons, eight grandchildren, thirteen great grandchildren and five great-great children. Now that is quite a legacy, don’t you think?

International Women’s Day has been celebrated since 1911—even  before women were allowed to vote.

Today, in my journal I am going to take some time to reflect on the most influential women in my own life, both alive and dead.

TO ALL YOU MALE READERS– I just read that in Great Britain, male cosmetic sales are growing at twice the rate of those in the female market. There has been talk about males wanting to keep up and keep young. Perhaps you are all getting ready for your big day – International Men’s Day to be celebrated November 19 — so don’t fret, you will have your turn!

Namaste!

Why We Write

Published on February 22, 2010 in Health, inspiration, Journaling, Journals, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling. Tags: , , , , .

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As a journaling advocate who has been writing for over forty years, I have often reflected on the reasons why people have chosen writing as a career. My journaling habit has served as a foundation for my life as professional writer. I have a lot of gratitude for those little red diaries with lock and key that my mother gave me each birthday during my childhood.

There are many reasons why writers are compelled to the page, including having a story to tell and the desire to bridge the gap of loneliness. In order to sit down and put words on the page, writers must submerge themselves in a zone which ignites their creative energy and spirit. Sometimes this requires the simple act of closing an office door, making an escape to a writing retreat, or going to a local bookstore or café. In other cases, it might take a more profound removal from day-to-day life. Sometimes darkness is brought on or initiated by something real in the writer’s life.

According to Margaret Atwood, in her book, Negotiating With the Dead: A Writer on Writing, (2002), “Writing has to do with darkness, and a desire or perhaps a compulsion to enter it, and, with luck, to illuminate it, and to bring something back out into the light.”

Marguerite Duras, in her book, Writing (1993) says, “Finding yourself in a hole, at the bottom of a hole, in almost total solitude, and discovering that only writing can save you. To be without the slightest subject for a book, the slightest idea for a book, is to find yourself, once again, before a book. A vast emptiness. A possible book. Before nothing. Before something like living, naked writing, like something terrible, terrible to overcome.”

The childhoods of writers are thought to have something to do with their chosen vocation. Although many are quite different, what they’ve often contained, were books and solitude. My own childhood had all the vital ingredients to provide a lifetime or writing. When I was a child, there were no films or theatres and the batteries in the radio always seemed to be dead. Yet, something ever present was books. I had a shelf above my desk and there was also another big one in our living room.

I learned to read at an early age. My mother was an avid reader and inspired the same in me. Each week she took me to the public library and I’d leave with a stack of books reaching all the way up to my chin. Margaret Atwood also spent a lot of time reading as a child. “My mother liked quietness in children, and a child who is reading is very quiet,” she writes.

As a child, journaling was the only place where I could visit myself and be alone with my thoughts as I tried to make sense out of the world around me. William Faulkner argued that there’s a more profound reason why writers write. “An artist,” he says “is a creature driven by demons. He has a dream. It anguishes himself so much he must get rid of it.” That’s why many of us working on longer projects can get by with very little sleep. The demons just won’t let us stop until they are satisfied and there’s no telling how long it will take them to be satisfied.

In many ways, writing and psychotherapy are both healing and could be thought of as a modern, guilt-free replacement for confession. This might be one reason so many people are drawn to writing memoirs and personal essays. Writing about real life experiences is like a snake shedding its skin and leaving a former self behind. It’s easier moving forward when the baggage from the past is dropped.

Soren Kierkegaard describes what it is to be a poet: “A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music….” The way I look at it is that we are all blessed to be writers.

Joan Didion in her essay, “Why am I a Writer,” says, “Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”

As expressed by these exceptional writers, in essence, we write to know ourselves. Even our darkest—or unknown—thoughts, memories and fears can transform to reveal value and meaning for us. And with any luck, for others as well.

Journaling About Inspiring Moments

Published on January 19, 2009 in Africa, inspiration, Journaling and Poetry. Tags: , , .

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 Whenever a writer moves on, I believe we should take a moment to reflect on their work and I have made this my own particular practice. Even if you were not a great admirer of their work, I believe it is important to stop and examine not only their contributions to the literary world, but also what drove them to the page in the first place.

In yesterdays’ newspaper, I learned that the confessional poet, W.D. Snodgrass had died of old age. I had not read a lot of his work, but with the click of my Google finger it was easy to read some of his most popular poems. Even though Snodgrass wrote more than 30 books, the book of poetry which brought him his Pulitzer Prize in 1960 was called Heart’s Needle. This particular book grew from his apparent heartbreak of losing custody of his daughter in a very bitter divorce.

Even though many have credited Snodgrass as the founding member of confessional poetry, he disliked the term, believing it had too many religious connotations and he was not religious. I tend to agree, although the term for me denotes a certain amount of intimacy and an invitation for the reader to enter into the poet’s life.

Most authors are compelled to the page because of an inciting incident, something that may have happened early in their lives. I have always been fascinated by studying these inciting incidents amongst my peers. For me, personally, the incident which drove me to the journal and a lifetime of writing was the suicide of my grandmother.

Reading about Snodgrass’ life inspired me to journal about inciting incidents. What about you Are you able to identify what has drawn you to the written word? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

Journaling to Happiness

Published on November 30, 2008 in Journaling, Musings, writing and Writing, journaling. Tags: , , .

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Although I never took part in the practice of Buddhism, I have always been fascinated by it. Last week I went to a lecture given by a Buddhist Monk who used to be a middle school teacher. He began with a basic meditation which involve a breathing exercise where we were instructed to breathe out the black smoke of negativity and inhale positive energy in the form of a bright light.

I learned that the message of Buddhism is that the more you love, the happier you will be. As I took notes in my journal, I began describing all of the people in my life who were happy. It suddenly occurred to me that those who were indeed the happiest were those who opened up their hearts and were able to love. Conversely, those who were unhappy, were those who were selfish and unable to love complexly.

The lecture summarize what I already knew, but it was nice to have a refresher and something else to muse about in my journal. It’s nice being reminded that a world without love is a miserable place and that if we allow positive emotions to over power negative ones, the world would be a much better place.

What do you think?

Journaling For Gratitude

Published on November 24, 2008 in General Information, Journaling, Musings and Writing, journaling. Tags: , .

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Thanksgiving has and always will be my favorite holiday. Like everything else, many of our deepest passions plant their roots in childhood. As the daughter of an agnostic mother and a father who survived the Holocaust and in the cradle of a weak marriage, Thanksgiving was the only holiday they could agree on to celebrate.

So in mid-November, when most families were considering the height of that year’s Christmas tree, my house became decorated with fall colors and leaves. Our Thanksgiving table was decorated with chocolate turkeys, cranberries and orange ornaments. The aroma of turkey roasting in the oven early in the day still brings with it an unexplainable sense of calm.

Thanksgiving is the holiday I’ve also focused on with my own three children stressing that it is the day when they they need to express gratitude–either to one another or on the pages of our journals.

These days when we are surrounded by insecurities and uncertainties, we should make this a regular practice–not only on Thanksgiving but every day we are alive. In honor of the Buddhism philosophy, those who are truly the happiest are those who appreciate what they have–even life’s simplest pleasures need to be celebrated–such as driving to the coffee shop i or carefully examining the center of a budding flower.

What have you done today to show your gratitude?

Make Love (Not War) With Your Notebook

Published on October 18, 2008 in Anais Nin, Journaling, Journals, Musings, Notebooks and Writing, journaling. Tags: .

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“Make love with your notebook.”

Lately, this has been my motto. And there are two reasons why. First, I’m preparing for a one-hour radio interview on WCUF to promote my new poetry collection. I have been making notes about my mentor and most-admired female writer, Anais Nin. Second, as I mention in the book’s preface, Nin has taught me the importance of having love in my life.

Ever since my first journal entry at the age of ten, I have made a habit of writing about those people who have brought joy and love into my life.Many people turn to journals to record their troubles, I believe it is equally healing to write about all the good in our lives. This is particularly important during moments like this when there is so much uncertainly and anger circulating in our country.

So let’s join together for a moment, stop what we are doing and write about all those people who brighten up our day with love and positive energy.

Old Journals — Destroy or keep?

Published on October 13, 2008 in Journals, Notebooks, Uncategorized and Writing, journaling. Tags: , , .

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I just returned from Atlanta, where I facilitated a workshop called, “The Healing Notebook,” at the Wellness and Writing Connections Conference. The group included bright women from many walks of life, including mental health professionals, medical writers and poets. After lecture and writing exercises, we tossed around many ideas about healing notebooks, but one woman raised the most interesting question which stirred an enormous amount of interest.

“Do you believe journals should be burned?” she asked. The woman was referring to where those journals we write for cathartic reasons to help us navigate through a difficult time. After healing and recovery sometimes we simply rather not revisit or readdress the issues of that time and might not even want the volumes around.

After going back and forth on the subject, the consensus was finally, “No, all journals should be cherished.” The reason is that you never know how they might come in handy in the future and once they are destroyed they will be gone forever.

What do you think? Please share your comments with me.

My Love Affair With Moleskins

Published on September 2, 2008 in Journaling, Journals and Notebooks. Tags: , .

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Unfortunately, I can no longer locate my favorite Kahlil Gibran journal used in the 1970s, but that’s okay, I’ve developed a love affair with Moleskins. After all, they fit all the criteria of a perfect notebook—they lie completely flat, the lines are well-spaced, the gel pen glides smoothly along the page, they have pockets for memorabilia and they were used by famous artists and authors such as Hemingway, Chatwin and Picasso.

I got really excited after attending this year’s Book Expo Association (BEA) in Los Angeles and visiting the Moleskin Booth. I learned that before the end of 2008, the company will release an entire new collection of Moleskins in every color of the rainbow. My appetite is already wet. Today, I wandered into Barnes & Noble and noticed the red notebooks are already on the shelves. I must admit, I do occasionally yearn for those Kahlil Gibran’s journals with sayings on top of each page, but these are almost as enticing.

PS. If you know where I can get my hands on old Kahlil Gibran journals, please write me, ASAP !!


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