Creativity & Spiritual Life Coach
New Mexico Book Awards Finalist
Notes from journaling presentation at Writers to Writers, June 2009
Seven ways writers can use a journal ( and of course, there are dozens of ways to journal)
1. Grasscatcher or poets' journal: Goes everywhere with the writers, collects fragments of dialogue, ideas for form and structure, provides a place to play with words, images, phrases. Poeets often capture first lines and do rough drafts. Novelists may prefer to diaglogue with characters or do other writing exercises in this catch-all journal.
2. Project journal: Dedicated to a specific work. This is mostly used by novelists, memoir authors and non-fiction writers. It may include five-minute intention writes at the start of the day or five-minute notes at the end of a writing day about what has to be done the next day. It could also record notes about interviews, people to thank, or whines on a bad day and celebrations of good days. John Steinbeck, Henry James, Somerset Maugham and Kenneth Roberts are authors who wrote some of my favorite project journals.
3. Lists. Lists of 25 wordt things that could happen to the heroine now (Thanks, Debbie Macomber). Or 100 reasons you can't write this book (Kathleen Adams, Journal to the Self, offers fine insights into this and other techniques for wrestling with the writer's problems using lists). Brainstormed lists push the subconscious mind to contribute new and workable material. Dean Koontz, for example, recommends making lists of at least 25 titles before choosing one.
SAS-NOS-TEES MESA
By Mary O'Gara
In my back yard,
Shiprock Tse’Bit’a’i’, the winged rock
Kept watch over mesas and valleys
Where sheep followed goats all day
And I walked at night
When the snakes were asleep
And watched Anasazi long dead
March their lights down the mesa.
At sunrise I climbed a chimney,
Stepped over the Navajo-Ute war wall
And looked down where there was no path
Except at night
For the Old Ones.
Copyright © Mary O'Gara May 1, 1996
MEMORIES OF A
BURNING
By Mary O'Gara
She beckons
Eyes flashing hand pointing
The way the path
Through mist like smoky veils
Faces hands nameless hands
Lift fire to the wood at my feet
Dry wood flames catch
Lick wool underskirts
Wet from a winter in witch cells
My feet are warm again
As close to their heaven as I am like to get
And it wasn't the fire killed me
That time
Just the smoke.
Copyright © Mary O'Gara May 1, 1996
Copyright © 2008 Mary O'Gara