A Year in the Life: Journaling for Self-Discovery

Shelia Bender's new book is wonderfully creative and inspiring. Her book provides writing exercises for each week of the year. I suspect that by the time I've done a year of journaling with Shelia Bender, I will have gone way beyond my ordinary writing. I've been journaling for years as a way to capture and think about what's going on in my life while it is fresh. Little nuggets from my journal become essays. The exercies in Bender's book have a way of pulling out of me thoughts, images, and experiences long forgotten, as well as new discoveries. I used her special exercise on death to write about a friend who died recently. I imagined looking up at the sky with my friend, and wrote about what she saw in the clouds, about where she was when she looked at the clouds. I was amazed to write about a time when we actually did just that together. Once I started writing I couldn't put my pen down. The end result was an essay I was proud to give my friend's son. If you are serious about writing, and you are willing to put some effort into using Bender's exercises, you will mine information about yourself that will be astonishing. And you'll have a lot of fun along the way.

I know the author. While killing time in Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, I started thumbing through A YEAR IN THE LIFE, and soon realized this is her *best* book yet (I have all of them)! This book is both deep and wide, meaning it is satisfying to read, plus providing outstanding exercises for writers and thinkers. My favorite content is the many "extensions" of the exercises, each of which can keep the reader occupied for hours (or months). Sheila refers to many outstanding books, which I hope to make time to read soon. At this price, buy a copy for yourself and a whole bunch more to give to friends. They will thank you over and over. Thank YOU, Sheila Bender.

It is as intense in its guided exercises as Progoff's, but the format is much less structured and much more creative. The book first offers an in-depth look at the psychology of journaling and then is divided into four "quarters" of the year. Each week you are offered a thematic writing exercises and six extensions of that assignment to fill out the week. There are also exercises for special occasions/holidays and a bibliography of books and resources. I can't wait to get started in my new favorite writing book (plan on filling up several spiral notebooks to go along with this one.)

At Sheila Bender's reading at Elliot Bay Books in Seattle recently, I participated in a quick 6-minute exercise, one of 365, from Bender's new book on journaling "A Year in the Life." The results--everyone scribbling madly on a piece of paper the size of a prescription pad produced at least five pieces of writing that were poignant, incisive or funny--and in such perfect form that they could have been published. One man who professed he was just there with his wife, stood up and read his 6-minute scribble about a filling a tire with air, of all things, that brought us all to tears.As a professional non-fiction newspaper/magazine writer and author of four non-fiction books, I highly recommend this book for mining the depths of your own experience. Although exercises may seem simple (such as: set a scene, see who walks into it, ask what this person has to tell you) the results are often surprising--and quite effortless. Using this book, my writing has gone way beyond the usual journal entry or such writing exercises as "morning pages." When I set up my journal, for example, and included as she suggested, a token amount of money I chose the new US dollar coin with Sacajawea and her new baby embossed on one side. This led to pages of writing--including memories of handling coins kept in a muffin tin when I was a young girl selling 2-lb. cans of golden honey from a stand near Mount Rainier, the sense of security as long as I have an old coffee can full of coins--and the gold coins my great grandfather buried in the woods behind his farmhouse that no one has yet found. When I met Sheila at a friend's campfire barbecue several years ago she asked me what I did for a living. When I told her I was a journalist, she laughed and said "I rehabilitate journalists." I had no idea what she meant, but now I do. Reportage is one thing, revelation is quite another. While I have enjoyed Julia Cameron's and Natalie Goldberg's books on writing, Sheila Bender's has been the most useful--a remarkable tool for self discovery.I've used the book in the order she suggests, backwards, and randomly--flipping open a page and writing an exercise. Breaking the "rules" tells you as much about yourself as following them. No matter how I use this book--it works. If Bender isn't tapped for "Ophra" I'll be surprised. "A Year in the Life, A Journal for Self Discovery" will change lives.

This book has so many journal exercises, there's no excuse for not knowing what to write about.The beginning of the book talks about journal keeping - why to do it and how to do it. Then she give exercises for every week of the year, plus ones for holidays and special occasions. At the end is a chapter on resources - books, websites, centers for journaling, and then samples of actual peoples journal entries. This book is goldmine for anyone looking to enrich their life by journal writing.