journaling

A collection of 53 posts

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A Year in the Life, Week 33: Shopping

Today’s prompt from A Year in the Life was to write about a store you went to as a child. I didn’t write much about a particular store, but about my memories of shopping with my mom. I wrote for probably an hour, which is about twice as

journaling

Writing as a Spiritual Practice - My Wishlist

I’ve been asked to help start up some kind of writer’s group at my church. I already have a great critique group for my fiction, and I’m a little burned out on writing activities that are “goal” and “audience” oriented. So I’m exploring the idea of

6

A Year in the Life, Week 31 - Your Perfect Opposite

This week’s prompt referenced the Griffin and Sabine books, which I meant to read once upon a time but which kind of fell of my radar. In particular, it talks about how the symbolism in Griffin’s letters implies that he is searching for his “perfect opposite” so he

6

A Year in the Life, Week 29 - A Recipe

The prompt from A Year in the Life for this weekend was “a recipe” — that is, how do you put together something you know how to create well? It was ironic because I got this prompt when I sat down to write the night I finished my Once a Month

6

A Year in the Life, Week 28: Each Side a Balance

Today’s A Year in the Life prompt asked me to take a common object and write about it alternating the lines, “I love you for …” “I don’t love you for …” I looked up, and there sat my water bottle, and a journal entry was born. My dear Water

6

A Year in the Life, Week 27: Own a Place

This week’s A Year in the Life exercise was about “owning” a place. I wrote it while taking the Amtrak from Minnesota to Milwaukee for the Call To Action retreat. How strange that I always get these prompts that are very place specific when I am traveling. As I

6

A Year in the Life, Week 26: Self-Reflection Week

Can you believe it? I feel like I Just posted my quarterly review yesterday, and it’s already time for my six-month review. It went all right, although I think I may have gotten a little too snarky to my boss near the end. Think she’ll keep me around?

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A Year in the Life, Week 24: This is a Story About ...

Although I’ve been keeping up with my Year in the Life journaling, the last two exercises, which I wrote while on my trip to Puerto Rico, were not especially inspiring. Now that I’m home, today’s exercise helped me crystallize the experience in Puerto Rico. I find I

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A Year in the Life, Week 19: Before and After

Yesterday’s A Year in the Life exercise was to write about a “before and after” experience. I wrote about getting married, which is the most recent dividing line in my life. Before I got married, I thought a part of myself would become lost, that I would be swallowed

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A Year in the Life, Week 14: A Walk in City, Town, or Village

I didn’t get a chance to post my Week 14 Year in the Life writing from August 2, because extra shifts at the library where I work have been eating away my precious writing Fridays. The prompt was to describe a walk in a place you went often (or

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A Year in the Life, Week 13: Quarterly Review

Last week’s A Year in the Life exercise was to give myself a quarterly review about my successes and shortcomings as a journal keeper, in direct response to my conditions of hiring at the beginning of this project. My supervisor and I 😉 pretty much see eye-to-eye on things, so

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A Year in the Life, Week Eleven: Prescience

This week’s exercise in A Year in the Life was to write about a word we’d learned from someone else, and the context in which we’d learned it. I wrote about the word prescient, which I learned from my best friend, Katrina. I was sitting at my

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A Year in the Life, Week 9: My Motto

Today’s “Year in the Life” exercise asked me to write a “motto” for my life right now. I went for the first thing that came to my mind (because these exercises are supposed to be about writing, right, and not sitting there thinking of what to write?) The first

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A Year in the Life, Week Five: Spring

Today’s exercise in A Year in the Life was to write about the current season. I waffled over whether May 31 should be considered spring or summer, and I went with spring. This was one of those exercises that had me writing until my hand got sore, which is

A Year in the Life

A Year in the Life: Week 3 - Letter to a Columnist

This week, the writing exercise from A Year in the Life was to write a letter to a columnist giving “advice” about something you’ve been through. Since so many people seem preoccupied with finding “the one,” I wrote about how my romantic life blossomed after I’d decided to

creativity

My New Guitar -- and the Importance of Writing it Down

Last night, my dad and my sister presented me with a new guitar they had made as a belated birthday present. My dad did the assembly and staining, and my sister did the woodburned artwork. The photos don’t do it justice, but she took kind of a “collage” approach,

blogging

My Last Day of One Job, Embarking on Another

Yesterday was my last official day as Teen Services Librarian for the Marshall-Lyon County Library. My heart is sort of breaking over it–I loved that job so much, but it was a two-hour commute, one way, once a week. I’m still processing all of that, and might blog

brainstorming

Writing Groups, Critiques, Scrivener, and Long Drives

I’ve had an incredibly enriching weekend for my writing life. On Friday I put my dog in the back of the car and made a 7-hour trek up to my old stomping grounds in Duluth, Minnesota. Along the way, I stopped to visit a friend that I met at

Catholicism

New Year's Writing Resolutions 2013

Well, I hope I’m not jumping the gun too much when I say that the world didn’t end in 2012 — which is great, because it means I have more time to write (and even to write about the world ending!). So without further ado, these are my writing

honest writing

Writing My Way Toward Wholeness

Last weekend, I had the good fortune to do something I haven’t done since I was a teen — attend a writing retreat. The retreat to mark my long absence from writers retreats, workshops, and conferences was Writing Our Way Toward Wholeness, an exploration of writing as a spiritual practice.

Catholicism

NaNoWriMo: Week Two

I’m finally crawling out from beneath a pile of laundry and trying not to be too dismayed by the fact that only half my to-do list is accomplished and that I haven’t earned a single penny today (except for some residual income from Demand Studios — thanks, Demand!). I’

critiques

5 Ways Marriage has Improved my Writing

I was terrified of getting married. I’ve always placed a high premium on my independence, and I think part of that was to protect my writing. Relationships take time and energy — and any time and energy given elsewhere is time and energy taken away from writing. I’d seen

article writing

My Changing Reading Tastes and What It Means for My Writing

Over the past year, I’ve noticed a distinct change in my reading preferences. While Young Adult and speculative fiction (even better, both!) used to be my genres of choice, now I find myself more compelled to read memoir and other non-fiction genres. And while I used to regularly read

blogging

Where I'm Writing . . . and Where I'm not

Dialog and posts have unfortunately declined on the Young Adults Catholic blog in the past year or so. The blog is completely run by volunteer editors and writers, and it’s no surprise that all of us have pretty busy lives. I’ve been doing pretty well at keeping my

benefits of writing

Writing Makes me Cry

. . . and I consider that a good thing. I’m not always the greatest at being in touch with my emotions, which usually comes back to bite me. I went for a period of about five years in my life when nothing could make me cry, no matter how sad I