Writing From Life

I tend to write more from my life than about my life. Journal writing is a way to be in conversation with all that is going on around us and inside of us. That’s one reason I don’t leave home without a field notebook. Often my blogs (as you have likely come to realize) are about what is happening right now, what I’m figuring out or encountering at this time. This is how I’ve written most of my books and now how I am approaching my novel.
I have developed what I call a Conversational Arc that helps writers explore a question and theme. ​Because life at its core is conversational, anything that keeps us engaged in this conversation helps us achieve our creative intentions. (I have an upcoming retreat/writeshop on Staying In The Conversations: A Transformational Writers’ Writeshop FRIDAY, January 11th.)

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Reality is conversational, interactive and dynamic.

My field notebooks are a bookmark of what I am questioning, investigating and noticing. I jot down my ideas and later transfer them to my larger journal. I intentionally hand write some of my process to help engage my full brain and to increase the ideas in my creative process. I recommend that all my writers keep a pocket field notebook and take some time to hand write ideas and scenes into a larger journal. I then take material from my field notebooks and journals and write my blogs and manuscripts. All 11 of my books have been written in this way.

A great article on the creative power of keeping field notebooks (from a favorite on-line newsletter, Brain Pickings) is:  A Peek Inside Notebooks.
Write on all, and keep notes.