"About Keeping a Journal"

Aug 04
"I am a writer from Thailand with 3 books published. I now live in Canada. Since I came here seven years ago I stopped writing for a living but I picked up some brushes and paint instead. I am still writing a journal. In 1996 I start writing morning pages, 3 pages every day as advised in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It feels good to reread them. My advice to Ana Raquel is to write the present moment, describe what is in front of you, what you hear, feel in the senses, the taste in your mouth, the shapes, colors and texture of what you see. The thinking in your head and the feeling in your heart. If you have that moment you never run out of what to write about."

Ariane Goodwin, from Robert Genn's Artists's Newsletter page:
I recommend that you try something called left-handed journaling (if you are right handed). Ask your inner teen a question with your right hand, switch the pen over to the left and let the left answer. The idea is that the dominant hand represents the dominant side of our personality, which often overrides the ignored though vital aspects of our whole self.

Think of this as a reunion with that part of yourself who cherished and nourished your creative fire. She will open a doorway you closed and take you into a magnificent garden.

Some tips:
1. You want to start out with the same gentle courtesy you would extend to a new acquaintance, or an old one you haven't seen for a while, with those "how are you, what's up" questions that can bridge to the deeper ones, like, "What was really going on when you trashed all that work?"
2. And, since the left handed writing tends to be quite awkward, I switch the pen back to my right hand and legibly print out a word above the scribble so I'll remember it later.
3. Make sure you have quiet and uninterrupted time to do this.
4. Don't try to do it all in one sitting. Create a practice. (For example, all through graduate school, before I wrote any papers on teen development, I connected with my inner teen for ideas and did it through left-handed journaling. I'm not sure how many people nail an A+ at the doctoral level, but with her help it became part of the scenery.) Reunion with neglected parts of our self is the deep nourishment of the soul.