the self and the persona and fragile trust

I had already been thinking on this a lot but maybe didn't have the words for it, the situation and the context, or their relationship, their versus, their roles in all of this. Bruce had told us in class an anecdote about a guy wanting to write these memories, and one of them is his going to a vintage store to buy a bowling shirt with his friends at a young age. And it strikes him to write this, but that is just the situation, and it is not enough to have just that, one must also have a context, or an occasion for telling a situation. In a successful essay one cannot survive without the other. Like a chestnut tree you must plant two to see production.

Gornik goes on to talk about the relationship of being trustworthy and creating a persona. In a genre in which one must be honest above all else, how do we remain on the good trusted side of our readers? How do you remain there? How do we stay there when we are admittedly narcissistic, suicidal, sexually ambiguous, drug experimenting, cheaters? (Sometimes one, none, or in my case all of the above. ha) I have no idea. Has anyone read WILD? I am Cheryl Strayed fan. But she does it, doesn't she? She is all of these things and yet her memoir was wildly (hahah) successful. Is it the Orwell persona, the humanizing indictment of the self? And through that the reader knows you, and therefore trusts you, even if you have proven to be not a trustworthy person to others. Do we not trust wholly the person who comes to us as a confessional? "We believe the narrator is telling us all he knows."

So, how do we find "the narrator who can serve the situation and find the story," while keeping mind of their trustworthiness? How do you find that slice of you that is both, other and wholly yourself, at the same time? Who is the right version of you to play matchmaker of story and situation? The you with a keen eye, and clear memory who is gifted at selecting the perfect detail and delivering it all with a smoothed tongue and perfect pitch to language. Where is he/she? Have you met her yet? Glanced at your reflecting and seen him staring back at you if only for a second?

I am not entirely sure but it feels like all of this has a lot to do with the idea of how many selves we have or have been. Can the same idea be constructed and accumulated through our writing years and self the same way it can in life? Is there a self for every essay? Can you recycle your persona? How far away is my persona from myself? And is that only a version of the truth? Warped glass and blind eyes? Is the persona is so far from you then is it still considered being truthful?

To tie this around to Feel Me, See Me. Hear Me. Reach Me. I am interested in how we see these questions enacted. I am curious about you guys think in regards to how much of this feels like a situation, and when or if, it starts to cross into context and story territory. Also, do you trust her and why. For me I think it has a lot to do with the way she opens and her brief admittance to failure in dating, I a immediately in a space of empathy and understanding and interest because of this small moment. But, are you? And why? Do we naturally trust until proven otherwise?

Who you gonna call?

I have to admit that about the time Dr. Venkman, er...Dr. Tucker took us over to his Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPs), where some of their top ten hits, such as "Mystical Experiences in Epilepsy" and "Investigation of Mediums Who Claim to Give Information about Deceased People" (I would think someone by now should have gotten a little insight into where Huey Long left the "deduct" box the day he was murdered), were being shown off, I was humming....."Well there's something strange, in the neighborhood, who you gonna call?" I was waiting for someone like Uri Geller to pop in to the story and to actually demonstrate the bent spoons - I've always wanted to see that trick up live and personal - but no such luck.  Instead, we have  this Harvard/Iowa Writer's Workshop-trained essayist taking on this "former life" story for Harper's.  (Now, I'm imagining William Hurt and Andie McDowell, writing for the National Mirror, heading off to rural Iowa to see the archangel Michael, presumably skipping the Iowa Writer's workshop, where Hurt's character - on his way down, down, down, and also the skeptic's skeptic - presumably could have picked up some tips).  But no matter, Leslie Jamison takes us on a tour of the fantastic - the bona fide possibility of reincarnation - even as she keeps an objective eye on what might be truth and what might be extremely creative con-viction. I give it up for Giving Up the Ghost, which could have been either too coldly logical or too much the puff piece.  For me, Jamison conjurs up a good story.  I like the way she brings us into her mind.  She doesn't really start until 2/3's of the way through p. 66, with "My own sense of Tucker is....", which leads into her first non-para normal excursion with Tucker to meet Carol of the rotary phone.  Phrases like "Tucker's skepticism makes him more credible to me..." also make her narrative more credible to me, and also Tucker more credible to me, as I can see some of her doubts and her validations.

As our own Professor assuredly planned, if I can read his mind on this matter, Picturing the Perfect Essay is quite complementary to our life after death essay.  This one didn't start with a two-year old channeling (or reliving) a WWII pilot, but with  a squiggly drawing a two-year old might have created (presumably channeling, or reliving,Picasso) the figure I might well have drawn myself during an evening w/a bit too much of the bubbly. Being a visual person - I actually like white boards and flip chart pads - who likes pictures, this article resonated with me.  He took what could have been a quite technical article and embroidered it with rising and falling (mountain-like) arrows, right and wrong stair steps, whorls for goodness sake - fun to try to pronounce, things that look like barbed wire - and more!

I can only take a quick crack, to get the conversation going, as to which of these "shapes" Jamison is closest to in "Ghost".  The "dipping into the well" metaphor, perhaps, makes some sense to me.  Her story goes along and then she reflects, then goes further, and then she'll reflect some more.  Honestly, this reflexivity is what I enjoyed most about the essay because listening to this successful writer actually speculate on matters that many of us might dismiss offhand got me to thinking too.  What shape do you think Jamison was closest to in her essay?  Not to leave anyone out, what shape was Bascom's?

"Coming Full Circle",one of Bascom's "shapes", was appropriate, I thought, as Jamison brings us back in her essay just so, to where she started, talking about a child "crying out". Kind of spooky, this former life stuff, isn't it?  But it could be true.  As I revise this at 4:30 in the morning, in the dark, I can only think of one thing....

...I ain't afraid of no ghost....

All You Can Do with an Essay

Both of the readings this week left me completely spent, and I loved it. Doyle is right to celebrate the flexible nature of the essay. Yet, where Doyle’s essay is an enthusiastic declaration on the freedom of the genre, I feel that Rankin’s essay is a lesson on how to powerfully wield it.

First of all, both authors challenge the established rules of Standard English grammar and syntax in their writing. After reading many student compositions, and after experiencing a few of my own epic failures,  I have determined that this ability--the ability of an artist to know when and how to  break established constructs effectively--only comes after the artist has mastered them. (Have you seen Picasso's early works?) When done right, these choices complicate and enrich the reader’s overall experience.

Doyle’s repetitive sentences of praise for the essay roll on and on, leaving me nearly breathless by the end. Rankine uses the same tactic in her writing, but she is more frugal in her choice of when and where. Her timing, combined with her subject matter and imagery, not only took my breath away, but elevated my pulse at the same time. Thank goodness both authors serve their chunks of prose small enough to be swallowed whole without choking, and thank goodness for breaks that allowed me the chance to come up for air.

What I found to be so effective in “Citizen” was how Rankine used two styles, or forms, of essay to prepare and influence my reaction to the subject matter. Her first section contains chunks of  lyrical prose that rise to the top of each page. Each chunk captures an experience of casual racism. These chunks are full of imagery and run-on sentences that decide the speed and emotion of the read, and create a slight sense of confusion. I felt that the use of “you” in these chunks invited/challenged/dared me to almost approach the experiences as a participant.  Moment after moment, page after page of casual racism led me to wonder if there was no end. Later in her writing, Rankine compares racism to “a low flame, a constant drip” that builds until someone breaks. Her form reflects her intent, and it left me completely worn out.

With this form, Rankine emotionally prepares her audience. By the time the I have arrived at the more straightforward essay on the racial injustices against Serena Williams, I have been sufficiently emotionally contextualized.

Narrative expectations in the personal essay

Hi all.  I'm working up a talk for AWP next week on "narrative expectations" in nonfiction:  What expectations readers bring to "real" stories, and by implication, how these might different from reading fiction.   I could use your help.  Here's a thought experiment:

Imagine a scene in a story in which a famous actress, in the midst of filming a scene in a New York apartment, trips and accidentally falls out of an open window and falls eight stories.  She is not the point-of-view character (or narrator).  This is simply a dramatic moment in a story. If this were a work of fiction, what would you predict happens to the actress?  Would you have the same prediction if it was a work of nonfiction?  In either case, would you entertain the possibility that the actress survived?

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this, and any other ideas you have about particular expectations we bring to reading stories that we know are "true."

Placing Our Experiences on the Altar

In ancient times, humans transferred their sins—their misdeeds and dark secrets—to the souls of sacrificial beasts, placing said beasts on altars for all to see, and then slaughtering them then and there.  It could be argued that the act of “casting sins upon sacrificial animals" is still being practiced today by creative nonfiction writers.  Yet our sacrificial beasts are not sheep or oxen, but artifacts and form.

 

Miller used a table of figures to reveal her sexual history and a needlepoint and muslin to sort out her thoughts on pregnancy and miscarriage.  Christman used a sloth to express her grief, Simpson’s bear was a catalyst for addressing marital fidelity, and Jamson used medical acting and case studies to study herself.  This week’s essay by Monson not only used an experimental form (outline essay) but also used the copper mine as an outer, concrete image to lead to the idea of mining the past for experiences.  (The outline form itself has this mining feel to it, as though the reader is digging deeper and deeper, zigzagging left and right, yes, but always chipping away, digging deeper into the material.)

Miller wrote, “I know it can seem a paradox: that writings imbued with qualities of what we recognize as ‘honest’ or ‘brave’ may actually be so strong because they focus away from that material directly. […] Instead of facing your ‘stuff’ head on, you turn away from it, zero in on something that has fluttered up on the side, and see what angle it gives you.”

I’ve been thinking about the final essay I’ll be submitting for this class—the experience I’ll write about and also the form and the artifact I’ll use—the sacrificial beasts of the essay.  It got me wondering how you all go about crafting your essays.  Do you begin with an experience in mind and then mine for an artifact:  a concrete image, entity, or sensory input—a catalyst for some greater purpose?  Or does an artifact strike you first—something interesting, unique or even mundane—and then do you find an experience and/or meaning to pull from that artifact?  Furthermore, are personal experiences always necessary in an essay?  Are artifacts?

And must we write only about provocative topics or harrowing experiences for us to be considered brave or courageous essayists?  Or is our bravery determined by, as Miller asserts, our attention to the words, sentences, and significant details we provide?

Painting Passages

            I talked with a friend today about what we do when we can’t seem to work on any of our stuff. She writes short stories. She called them short stories, but I’ve read some of them and know that they are very short stories, flash fiction. I told her I write pages of freewriting that sometimes comes out as weird little essays. I hadn’t yet done the readings for the week or I might have confessed to writing essaykins. I think of them as nothings, throwaways, practice on the way to bigger, better, more important writing—my real writing. I don’t even reread them most of the time—but sometimes I do and sometimes I’m secretly pleased, but I still think of them as nothings.

            I enjoyed writing the segmented essay I experimented with for class—mostly because it was done in short bursts—I started with a list of thoughts and memories then wrote each one, not worrying about how long it was—of course they were all meant to hang together around specific themes, not stand on their own, but I still enjoyed the permission I felt to write these short vignettes and wonder that I haven’t thought of it as a legitimate form before.

            In “Of Fire and Ice” Moore comments on the appropriateness of short pieces for the “digital domain.” I admit that when scrolling through Facebook I’m much more likely to read something short than a longer essay. The online format crimps my attention span. And short pieces are ideal for blog posts. The field is ripe for flash non-fiction, in fact it is already happening—perhaps it is the lack of a name, the fact that is has not been designated as a clearly defined category that I have not considered these little pieces to be real writing.

            What are your experiences with reading and writing flash non-fiction? 

Christopher M on Didion

I think I read, The Year of Magical Thinking, ages ago and honestly I can’t really remember—it more like a fond notion than memory as the details are completely obscured by time, so I am only left with a familiar scent that reminds me that I liked the way she writes. Reading, “Goodbye to All That”, brought back all the good things I remembered but also allowed me to reflect on her writing with fresh eyes and take note more critically.

What I loved before and still am enamored with is her ability to construct long, descriptive sentences that are essays unto themselves. Lines like the ones below are something I hope to aspire for in my own writing. Everything is there, the details, the reflection, the prose, the literary quality—it is complete.

To an Eastern child, particularly a child who has always has an uncle on Wall Street and who has spent several hundred Saturdays first at F.A.O. Schwarz and being fitted for shoes at Best’s and then waiting under the Biltmore clock and dancing to Lester Lanin, New York is just a city, albeit the city, a plausible place for people to live, But to those of us who came from places where no one had heard of Lester Lanin and Grand Central Station was a Saturday radio program, where Wall Street and Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue were not places at all but abstractions (“Money,” and “High Fashion,” and “The Hucksters”), New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself.

I love how these lines are somewhat lyrical and how they compact so much energy and information into a small space. As a writer (and reader) I find myself drawn to long complicated sentences like this, because I feel they evoke a memory response the same as if it were my own and this engages me and holds my attention. I wonder if any of you appreciate this sort of writing and if you do now or have attempted to extend your sentences in a similar fashion? What are your thoughts on the effect it has on the reader? 

What I did find somewhat distracting was Didion’s use of telling phrases that seem to be unnecessary or superfluous to what she is trying to say. Here are a few examples:

                  I remember once,…

                  You see I was in a curious position in New York:…

                  Which is precisely what we were

                  In fact…

                  I suppose…

If were editing my own paper I would most likely cut those lines as fat, hoping to stream line things a bit and give the essay more room to stand on its own. I am sure it is more of a personal aesthetic, but I am wondering what everyone else thinks about these kind of phrases in your own work? Do you find them purposeful or do you cut them? What do these kinds of phrases do to the piece rhetorically, does it situate the information differently? Is this just a case of being verbose or is it a calculated stylistic choice?

"Entirely Ordinary"

What I want to say about this week’s reading has to do with the way we make meaning, the ways we find significance and relevance in our activities, how we decide what is important and what is not, and how we do this in writing. What I love about this piece is that July was writing—or rather trying to finish—a screenplay, and it wasn’t there—there was nothing there for her, the words and characters and ideas were not coming, so she followed what was there, what did have her attention, what seemed like procrastination to begin with—calling people from the Pennysaver. The result is fascinating and seems not like an offshoot of her “real” work—but rather the writing she was meant to do all along. So there are several things that I could say about this—at times something seems like a distraction or a tangent to what we are trying to do, but if that is where our energy is, it might just be best to surrender to the pull and follow, or at least get curious about why it has our attention.

I’m also interested in the line on the last page, the beginning of the story about Andrew and the bullfrog tadpoles where she says “And because I was refused by the majority of the people I called, the ones I met with did not feel random—we chose each other.” So I’m interested in the concept of randomness in relation to the subjects we choose to write about. After they are written, just like these stories by July, they do not feel random, but almost “meant to be.” And so often I hear people say that about life, that something was meant to be—always after the fact. When a thing or event comes together in a way that is pleasing we can look back and say it was meant to be, as if it were fated, even if when we began it seemed random or like a distraction or maybe even a mistake. I think this also has some relevance to our discussion about the past and how it functions in the present, how the past is restructured as we access it in the present—past events take on new meaning and relevance in relation to the way things unfold in the present. July’s first phone call to Michael takes on a kind of significance when she meets him and he agrees to share his story. The leather jacket gives her a head-rush and leaves her a little star-struck even though it is “entirely ordinary.” The people and events and objects take on even more relevance as she crafts it them into story.

A third thing this got me thinking about is how our writing, particularly creative non-fiction dove-tails with our lives. I was talking to a friend the other night who is writing a book. She’s in the final editing stages and talked about how the writing impacted her daily experience and her daily experience impacted her writing. We can see this in July’s Pennysaver stories—the writing guided and shaped her experience and her experience guided and shaped her writing.

I’m curious about the ways we weave living and language, the way we make meaning retrospectively, the way a good story can give ordinary things a kind of power and make events seem fated. 

"A license for vagueness,,,"

To read the opening of Purpura's "Autopsy Report" is to be audience to a jazz performance.  Listen to the improvisations:  "I shall begin...I shall stand...I shall touch...I shall note," all opening riffs of strangely archaic, willful language.  And then we hit a segment in which the verbs suddenly disappear for a few sentences:  "The twenty-eight year alcoholic before us, a businessman.  All the prescriptions for his hypertension, bagged and unused near his black-socked, gold-toed foot."   Next more conventional scene leading to a new segment, a report from inside her head:  "What I thought before seeing it all: never again will I know the body as I do know.  And how exactly is that?"  With that question, the narrator signals her intention in the essay, and off she goes.

"Autopsy Report" is an example of a so-called "lyric essay," a species of the essay genre with a slippery definition. It is a form that might invoke lyric language, one in which ambiguities remain so that "the meaning must be completed by the reader," and one that often experiments with form. Phillip Lopate, whose collection The Art of the Personal Essay is required reading for any fan of the genre, is impatient with the lyric essay, complaining that it is a "license for vagueness."

I suppose we might lodge that complaint against Purpura in this essay, particularly on p. 174 in the passages that begins "If looking, though, is a practice..." and ending on the next page with "a gesture of ease."  Here she tacks away from dead bodies to examine how, as a child growing up in a household with two parents who were artists, the "forms spoke" and that this was "the silent part of my life as a child."  Then there is a reference to God, which might provide some explanation for the ineffability of what she saw in paintings, but seemed, finally, too "pushy."  Purpura ends that paragraph this way:  "A call to jettison the issue, the only issue as I understood it: the unknowable certainty of being alive, of being a body untethered from origin, untethered from end, but also so terribly here."  What does this mean?  I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Then there is the matter of structure, which Root addresses in "What do the Spaces Say."  Purpura's use of segments, the creation of a mosaic, seems exactly what Root was writing about.  Does he provide a useful explanation for why it works (if it does)?  What do the spaces say in "Autopsy Report?"

Form and Style

I’ve read Jamison’s “Empathy Exams” before, and I really really loved it (and her). This time, I read to examine form and her central question. It’s hard for me to look at this essay critically, for I love her writing style, her unwavering honesty and vulnerability, and the universality of the message, so I got a bit lost in her writing. Enjoying it instead of analyzing it. Oh well. This time around this essay seemed especially meaningful to me.

My initial response to what her central question is would’ve been to say that she is exploring empathy: its definition, use, and so forth. But I think now that it’s more than just defining and/or categorizing of empathy. She seems to me to be exploring her own conception of empathy, and to be really critiquing her own uses of it. This distinction is important. She is bravely admitting her own flaws in her emotional responses and the responses she demands from others. In this way, we as readers can even look at our own responses and expectations in emotions beyond empathy. We can, along with Jamison, question why we empathize and what we get out of being empathetic. I think her ability to be ruthlessly honest helps us to do that.

In terms of form/style, I found myself especially interested in the shifts to second person in the “Encounter Dynamics” on pages 13 and 24. These segments seem to be another way to be self-critical and to examine herself in a different light. It feels more vulnerable to me. I feel like those shifts – and the imagined tape recording on 18 – are even more honest and naked. I decided I really like what she is doing in those places.

I have been working on a lyric essay for a while now that shifts back and forth between first and third person. In the third person segment, I am still speaking about myself, but I think I decided to use that point of view as a way to separate myself (as writer) from a super vulnerable and naked self (as character). I used this form as a shell, but I have convinced myself that it works for the essay – probably because I’m too chicken to just use a regular first person narrative to explore the stuff I do in those segments. So I think that shifting point of view or maybe even tenses is a way to play with style and form, but it also gives us a new way to keep asking the central question – if we do it *right*, that is (what is right? I have no idea).

I’m curious to know what the rest of you think about those sorts of shifts within essays. Do they strike you as more or less authentic or honest? Do you think they usually work? Or are they more for the writer – a way to write about something tough and use form to make it a little easier?

I have owned notebooks over the years—just for notes about various fiction projects I’m working on and for random to-do lists, etc. I haven’t kept one for a couple of years—since I’ve been working on a novel—and I have not felt anything is missing. Of course, this could be different from you. These days I tend to write into the page and assemble my notes and thoughts there, deleting and adding as my work develops. Don’s daybook seems quite ominous to me, like there’s a lot of time planning a project, scheduling writing times, etc. without getting down to the hard work of actually writing a novel. I don’t know. Maybe this helps Don. I don’t know who he is or if he got his novels published or even written. But then, when I Google Don Murray, I see he wrote a dozen books, won the Pulitzer Prize, etc. That he writes out of his notebook, seems to fit his writing process. Writers I’ve talked to or in interviews seem to have different processes and strategies in order to get the work done.

Didion’s essay about keeping a notebook is a beautiful mediation on the purposes and psychologies of keeping a written record of notes, thoughts, and observations. It elicited several questions in me: For a nonfiction writer, what is it you want to remember? Impressions? Details? Is the notebook utilitarian? Or expressive? Is about others or selves?

I’m still finding it hard getting back into notebook mode? How about all of you? What do you think of the daybook? Or Didion’s ideas about why she keeps one? Do her speculations resonate with you?

The Emotional Work of Writing

 

To study creative writing is to study craft.  That's the premise on which virtually every workshop course is built, and it makes sense.  This is an apprenticeship like any other.  And yet the more I've thought about it, the more I've come to believe that it is understanding the emotional work of writing--not the craft--that makes the most difference in a writer's success.

There are many ways to talk about this emotional work, but the one that makes the most sense to me is the tension between two impulses, both of which are essential to writing well:  the impulse to suspend judgment and the impulse to criticize.  Because I teach freshman writing, I encounter lots of students who "hate" writing, students who would avoid it if they could.  These students are often hard on themselves, and from this emerges victim narratives:  stories of writer's block, of missing writing genes, or tales of resistance to school writing.  While these may not be particularly thoughtful perspectives on their own abilities, they certainly are emotional accounts.  I can see it in their faces. There are, of course, many reasons for this lack of faith, including the evidence their own writing provides; it can be pretty rough.  But there is one thing these students share: They only write when forced to.

I remember, many years ago, the first student I had in a creative nonfiction class who was far more talented than his teacher.  This is not false humility.  It's happened a lot since then.  I remember saying to Dan at the end of that semester how much I admired his talent, and I encouraged him to submit his work.  "Some of this is publishable," I said.  As far as I know, he never did, nor did very many of those supremely talented writers I've encountered in my classes over the years.  Clearly, knowledge of craft--and these students had it -simply didn't make much difference in the end.

Here's the one thing I do  know about getting better:  You have to write a lot.  This is as true for an MFA student as it is for a first-year writer in a composition course.  Writing a lot is the thing I've struggled with over the years, and some of this is easily explained by the many competing demands on my time.  I am more teacher than writer, and always have been, something I've only recently admitted to myself.  But this is a weak excuse for not writing because there is always time to write, at least a little. The problem with not writing enough isn't really about lack of time or some deficiencies in understanding of craft. The problem is an emotional one: the fear of failure.I don't think I've ever met an aspiring writer who doesn't wrestle with this.

In a psychological sense, I think of writing as a difficult marriage between two selves, each inclined to antagonize the other. There is a playful, wondering, curious self who relishes crashing through the underbrush in the wild pursuit of meanings.  The other self--the one who is inclined to judge--is thoroughly impatient with this recklessness. He finds it naive and inefficient.  His favorite two words are "so what?"--a question that can seem indifferent, or even contemptuous.  And yet, depending on the day, I trust him.  Sometimes I find myself in awe of what he can do with a knife, shaping and shaving sentences, paragraphs, whole essays. That self is the one who makes me feel like a good writer, which is one of the best feelings I know.  Just as often, however, he makes me want to quit. Managing these two selves is the emotional work of writing.  .They must cooperate somehow, and part of this is knowing when to put one--or the other--in charge of the work  But deeper still--and this is the hardest emotional struggle of all--is knowing that for many of us the critical self is the most dangerous because it ferociously protects the memory of failure. In some ways, this has little to do with writing.  To be overly self-critical is a psychological problem that many of us share. But it can be fatal to writers when it short-circuits the doing of the writing because this eventually undoes the desire to do it at all.  

Over the years, I saw that a partial resolution to this was finding faith in the usefulness of my"bad" writing--the stuff that won't see the light of day anywhere but in a journal, on a manual typewriter, or in the scribbles on the blank side of a recycled page. This is a solo performance in an empty auditorium--no need to show how smart I am and no reason to be anything but honest.   I needed a reason to write that had nothing to do with anybody else, This, above all else, is what has made the difference for me over the years,

Lots of benefits of writing our stories...

In the NYTs this morning.  http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/writing-your-way-to-happiness/?smid=fb-share

So perhaps we can consider our class as therapy - mental, emotional, physical (perhaps spiritual) - as well as three credits, skill building, or a calling.

Keeping Journals - Brain Pickings

Brain Pickings always has great stuff for writers and readers. Worth subscribing to the free newsletter. Since we will be talking about journaling and I saw this, I'm passing it on FYI.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/04/famous-writers-on-keeping-a-diary/