Sharon and I have been friends for a few years now. She’s a fellow Montrealer (though I have no idea if I’m allowed to call myself a Montrealer yet), fellow clothes-swapper and paper-goods lover. Just over a year ago she started her hand-bound journal business, Soundless Soliloquy. Sharon has a great story that brought her to start the business that hopefully I’ll get her to share another time. It’s about not being all that happy with her circumstances and taking a risk to change them. Sharon’s journals are gorgeous little creations that, like her motto says, helps me write my soliloquy. She has kindly offered up one of her journals for a give-away. They’re obviously sweatshop free and cruelty free because she makes them by hand and uses acid-free paper so your precious writing will be preserved for a long, long time.
The Rules
All entries go through Rafflecopter that tallies them for me (yay!)
Sharon is giving away your choice of plain colour half-page journal or any quarter-sized journal including cut-out covers.
I haven’t been reading many articles thanks to having a novel to write. I missed out on last week’s because of a busy weekend writing and hanging out with friends. So here’s two weeks-worth of pretty interesting articles and links. The next week is going to be filled with frantic writing to make sure I hit my 50,000 word goal with Nanowrimo. Also, starting tomorrow I have a fun surprise! Come back tomorrow to see what’s happening!
According to PsychCentral, the benefits might be as minimal as reduced stress or help you manage your emotions. The article indicates journaling can help:
Clarify your thoughts and feelings. Do you ever seem all jumbled up inside, unsure of what you want or feel? Taking a few minutes to jot down your thoughts and emotions (no editing!) will quickly get you in touch with your internal world.
Know yourself better. By writing routinely you will get to know what makes you feel happy and confident. You will also become clear about situations and people who are toxic for you — important information for your emotional well-being.
Reduce stress. Writing about anger, sadness and other painful emotions helps to release the intensity of these feelings. By doing so you will feel calmer and better able to stay in the present.
Solve problems more effectively. Typically we problem solve from a left-brained, analytical perspective. But sometimes the answer can only be found by engaging right-brained creativity and intuition. Writing unlocks these other capabilities, and affords the opportunity for unexpected solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems.
Resolve disagreements with others. Writing about misunderstandings rather than stewing over them will help you to understand another’s point of view. And you just may come up with a sensible resolution to the conflict. (article).
Write out difficult experiences
Whereas Psychology Today goes much deeper. They spoke with Dr. James W. Pennebaker who is a social psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin. He talks about how writing can be tremendous therapy for people who have experienced traumatic events.
“When people are given the opportunity to write about emotional upheavals, they often experienced improved health. They go to the doctor less. They have changes in immune function. If they are first-year college students, their grades tend to go up,” he says.
I have definitely experienced all of the bullet points listed above from Psych Central. What about you? Have you been able to keep a journal long enough to find benefit in it? Leave a comment by clicking here.
Pep talks are key to my success. Business leaders or others might call it ‘casting vision’ for what you’re about to do. To make meetings less boring I (try to remember to) remind my staff why this meeting is important. It’s not just us sitting here for an hour and a half wasting our time, it’s because the decisions we will make in that hour and a half will impact our achievements that week and could change the course of our year entirely. That hour and a half could change our jobs, it could impact the world.
I don’t think we can have success in very much without pep talks or vision. Without being reminded of why we’re doing things, it’s so easily to get lost in the what or the why does this suck? of present reality. This is why I loved this pep talk by Chris Baty, the founder of Nanowrimo. It’s a bit long, but it’s worth the read. The last few days I’ve been feeling my novel is crappy (it was never meant to be published), more than crappy, I still had 30,000 words to write and very little plot space left to achieve what I wanted. I made some changes, but the writing was ARDUOUS at best. At the beginning, I was pumping out my daily 1,667 words in under an hour. Yesterday it took me THREE.
I needed someone to remind me that it will get better. Because it does. While this could be a pep-talk for life as well (it usually does get better), I’m reminded of the importance of vision and having people around me to encourage me, who are rooting for me to succeed. Do you have those people?
Here’s Chris’s pep talk:
You’re watching a movie. And halfway through it, the hero crumbles.
He or she is lost. Surrounded by zombies or forsaken by love or separated from their favorite wookiee. They stare forlornly at the mess their life has become, hope fading that things will ever be put right again.
Screenwriters call this moment “the long, dark night of the soul.” Every Hollywood movie has one because we love seeing our protagonists pummeled for a while before they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and head out to kick some ass.
NaNoWriMo participants go through their own long, dark nights of the soul halfway through November. If you haven’t experienced one already, you will very soon.
I say this with certainty because we’ve spent a lot of time and money making the middle stretch of this year’s adventure especially difficult.
We don’t have the costumes or the makeup budget to send a convincing-looking group of zombies to your door. Instead, we’ve relied on smaller, cheaper things to demoralize you mid-month. We’ve convinced your bosses and teachers to heap projects on you at the last minute. We’ve gotten your family to pitch fits when you need to get caught up on your word count. Most insidiously, we’ve paid your novel’s cast to stumble through their scenes with all the eloquence and charm of a baked potato.
Why? Because we have to do something to make your novel-in-a-month endeavor a fair fight. Which it isn’t. Look at you! You’re a fantastically gifted individual, with fierce courage and an imagination powerful enough to knock out a dozen books in November.
If you don’t believe me, just scroll back through all you’ve written so far. That’s more than most people achieve in a year, and you did it in two weeks. It may be less than you’d hoped, and the quality may be crappier than you’d envisioned. But first drafts are supposed to be rough, and I guarantee you’re too deep in the process right to recognize all the great stuff you’ve put on those pages. Despite our meddling, you’ve achieved a truck-load of literary goodness. And it’s just a taste of what’s ahead.
Because the second half of this noveling marathon is when things really begin to move. For starters, the NaNoWriMo-funded interference will end. This is partly because we’ve realized the whole “fair fight” thing was a dumb idea, and partly because we blew all of our harassment budget on yesterday’s spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to crash every word processor in Manitoba.
Shenanigans aside, the back half of NaNoWriMo has always been a place where writers get their second winds. As long as you keep working, your potatoes will turn back into charismatic protagonists, and your imagination will build a path right out of these mid-month doldrums.
You can help build that path faster by hitting your writing goals for the next three days. This may sound like a small thing, but little, consistent writing achievements open the door to huge writing breakthroughs.
If you’ve fallen behind on your word count or lost the thread of your story, you may think no breakthrough will be big enough to save your book. Take heart: There are 300,000 of us out there right now living that exact same movie. We’re all struggling to balance our books with the crazy stuff life has chucked at us these past two weeks. We’re all wondering if we have what it takes to see this thing through. And we’re all about to stand up, dust ourselves off, and go kick some major ass.
The long, dark night is ending, my friend. The homestretch lies ahead.
I’ve had a few people text me and leave comments to congratulate me on starting to run. I’ve also had people tell me I’m crazy for doing both at the same time, which is not all that far off, perhaps. Aside from being sick last week and this week which affected my runs, things have been going well. I managed to desire to get up and go, but just take it a little easier, which has been good.
Why am I doing two things that require so much discipline at the same time?
It’s a good question. I think part of it is is that it doesn’t feel like it’s requiring that much discipline, but here are a few more reasons.
These are two things I want to build into my life as habits. Natural responses, things I do automatically.
My morning routine had been going quite well so it didn’t feel like too challenging to add the writing challenge.
My husband has night classes three nights a week, which means I have plenty of time to write and not feel like I’m neglecting our relationship. He was the one who encouraged me to do it, anyways.
I wanted meet people outside of work who had similar interests to me.
So far, I have runs scheduled into my week and I look forward to them. The days I’m not so sure I want to go, my husband reminds me that I’ll enjoy it. I always do, so that’s a big win. I’m ahead of schedule so far on the novel in terms of word count. I’ve got nearly 10,000 words which is 1/5th of the book (obviously). I feel confident because I have lots to write yet in plot development etc. I should be able to finish no problem unless life just suddenly goes crazy, which is totally a possibility.
Two blogs I follow that have been helpful for both productivity and goal achievement are Time Management Ninja and Michael Hyatt. Both have written a few articles on journaling.
My first journal dates back to age 10 when I recorded my thoughts on our family trip to PEI. As an extrovert and external processor, I’ve found that writing out my thoughts acts in a similar way to talking things out. Sometimes things are important or personal enough that I don’t want to share them with others until I understand them better.
Gather Your Thoughts. Journaling is a great exercise that lets you write down your thoughts. It doesn’t matter whether you write down things you have done, things you want to remember, or things you want to do. Your journal can be a place to simply collect your thoughts.
Hold Yourself Accountable. When you write down your goals, you are much more likely to accomplish them. Seeing your dreams in writing can be powerful, and seeing your goals in text can be daunting. When I look at my journal, it motivates and drives me forward.
Capture Ideas. Journaling can be a powerful experience in “emptying your head.” The ideas just start coming. I often find myself adding things to my to-do list while journaling. Tasks that are important yet intangible in day-to-day life are spotlighted when I write them down.
Hear Your Inner Voice. Writing in a journal is like having a conversation with your inner self. You get in the zone, and your inner thoughts just start flowing. Sometimes you don’t even know what had been on your mind until you write it down.
Ponder What’s Most Important. Journaling lets you confront what is most important to you. Internally, we know what is important. But, sometimes it takes putting it down in our journal to make our priorities clear and apparent.
Process previous events. What happens to me is not as important as the meaning I assign to what happens to me. Journaling helps me sort through my experience and be intentional about my interpretation.
Clarify my thinking. Writing in general helps me disentangle my thoughts. Journaling takes it to a new level. Because I am not performing in front of a “live audience,” so to speak, I can really wrestle through the issues.
Understand the context. Life is often happening so quickly I usually have little time to stop and reflect on where I am in the Bigger Story. Journaling helps me to discern the difference between the forest and the trees.
Notice my feelings. I understand feelings aren’t everything, but they also aren’t nothing. The older I get, the more I try to pay attention to them. They are often an early indicator of something brewing.
Connect with my heart. I’m not sure I can really explain this one, but journaling has helped me monitor the condition of my heart. Solomon said “above all else” we are to guard it (see Proverbs 4:23). It’s hard to do that when you lose touch with it.
Record significant lessons. I’m a better student when I am taking notes. Writing things down leads to even deeper understanding and, I hope, wisdom. I want to write down what I learn, so I don’t have to re-learn it later.
Ask important questions. A journal is not merely a repository for the lessons I am learning but also the questions I’m asking. If there’s one thing I have discovered, it’s the quality of my questions determine the quality of my answers.
What do you think of these lists? Do you journal? What kinds of things do you write down?
I’ve had a few people text me and leave comments to congratulate me on starting to run. I’ve also had people tell me I’m crazy for doing both at the same time, which is not all that far off, perhaps. Aside from being sick last week and this week which affected my runs, things have been going well. I managed to desire to get up and go, but just take it a little easier, which has been good.
Two blogs I follow that have been helpful for both productivity and goal achievement are 