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Posts tagged ‘Joan Larkin’

Dec 10

Three popular posts about fueling your writing through journaling

I was on a reorganizing binge recently and realized I had way too many notebooks, even for me, a notebookaholic. They’re full of notes from writing workshops and observations about life that I felt compelled to write down in case I could turn them into a story or poem. My next rainy day project is to review them and pull out the ideas to spark some new writing. If you’re like me and love journals, you might like these blog post from our archives.

A twist on the writer’s journal: The commonplace book is another approach to creating a journal.

Writing in a journal is a powerful way to create the bits and pieces that become literature. See how these writers did it.

For excellent tips about using a journal to record our evolution as writers, read, Two great reasons to keep a writing journal.

Jul 26

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Two reasons to keep a poetry or writing journal

Shortly after Joan Larkin published her latest book of poetry, My Body: New and Selected Poems, I took an afternoon writing class from her.  I’d been writing poetry off and on for twenty years and had developed my own style for writing and saving my work. It looked something like this:

  1. I go for a walk, or do the dishes, or some other activity that requires little thinking. As I walk or scrub, I let my mind and eyes wander. Let them flit over ideas and objects until something seizes my imagination. I ask questions: What does this mean? What could this mean? What if?
  2. At some point, the words start coming. If I’m still walking, I speak into my iRecorder but eventually, I sit down and write out my first draft by hand—usually on a piece of lined notebook paper, but not in any particular journal or notebook. Read more