Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal

There are lots of books about how to keep a journal and why to keep a journal but this is the only one I've seen that not only covers those two issues but suggests what to do with the material you've already journaled.Since I'm not one who relies much on indexes -- I tend to highlight as I read -- and make notes in the margins, I didn't miss that as other reviewers here have indicated. I didn't expect it, either, because this isn't a textbook. It's just a beautifully written, new concept on journaling."Keeping a journal is one of the few ways to remind oneself of life's unnoticed gifts," she writes, and gives exercises to stretch the writer into finding those gifts. In the chapter "Finding the Through Line in Life: Memoir and Fiction," she says the journalist unconsciously tries to find the meaning of life and shows how to detect it in your own writing.I do recommend it to both the new diarist and the experienced one. I'm sure you'll find new ideas and new material here.

"Leaving a Trace"Alexandra JohnsonISBN 0-316-12156-8For those of us who have used our journal entries as the basis for writing, this book is apropos. Alexandra Johnson and others teach courses about journal and diary writing as the basis of creative activity. It was news to me that there are such courses. One of the keys to productive journal writing, according to the author, is to realize that journal entries need not only be about interesting places or unusual events. The everyday can be the source of material as well. As the author writes, "Life is in the details." It is interesting that many older people wish to achieve an understanding of their lives by writing about them in journals or diaries. I suppose the most helpful thing that one learns from this book is to approach journal writing less formally. One does not have to be constrained to write everything in a commercially produced diary or to try to write only profound things. It took Frank McCourt, the author of "Angela's Ashes", years to realize that writing about the poverty of his early life could be literature.Unconsciously, I had made some of the observations Alexandra Johnson makes, but I had not come to understand them as she does. For example, my father had written a diary when he was about twenty-one years old. Even though, he lived to be fifty-six, I had always regarded this diary as his best legacy. When an uncle of mine died, I asked for any journal that he might have kept. Eventually I came into possession of a number of letters that he had written to his parents when he was a soldier in WWII from Germany, France, Panama, and the Philippine Islands. So in a way, these letters formed the basis of a non-traditional kind of journal. All in all, "Leaving a Trace" is interesting reading. I looked forward to picking it up each evening before falling asleep, my favorite reading. I was even inspired to write in the journal that I had not touched in over a year.Johnson's primary message would seem to be that recording our lives does matter. Doing so is a way of coming to terms with them and a leaving of something of oneself behind. The key is to simply write about one's life, interests, and observations. Recently, I have had the opportunity to help my mother-in-law record the details of her terrible ordeal of being a refugee in World War II. It has been surprising to me how excited this project has made her. After almost sixty years, she had perhaps never entirely comprehended or understood these events. Somehow having someone help her write about them seemed to help facilitate this.For those who have thought about getting started with a journal or writing one better, this book would be a good place to begin.

Do you keep a journal? Have you kept one in the past? Do you wish something would inspire you to keep a journal? Have you tried and failed, and wished there were some way you could try again and succeed? Or have you never kept a journal, never plan to, and wonder why other people do? If you answer yes to any of these questions, then you will find Leaving A Trace by Alexandra Johnson an informative and inspiring book to read.I was, at first, suspicious of Johnson's book. There is plenty of tripe out there on the subject of journaling and Leaving A Trace sounded like some pap trash writing; the type that would list ten ways to complete happiness in journal writing in twenty-four easy steps. With eight years of journal writing behind me, journal writing is something I do, like, and have opinions about. I am ever on the lookout for intelligent writing with which I can interact. I was suspicious, but when I cracked the book open I found it was not what I thought, and I was intrigued enough to read on.The most striking feature of Leaving A Trace is Johnson's ability to weave together the stories of both famous and unknown journal writers with her own observations and experiences. She writes with the clean and sure prose of someone who knows her subject well. The book is crafted in a relaxed and familiar manner that makes for easy and enjoyable reading. The book is not a voluminous tome of intimidation, but a concise handbook that does not neglect any aspects of journaling.As an experienced journal writer I found myself enjoying Johnson's skill in describing why we write journals, and what journals mean, both to the writer and others at a later time. It wasn't that Johnson said anything I didn't already know, but she wrote in a way that clearly said my own thoughts, freeing them from that distant place in the back of my mind so they could be looked upon openly. Johnson's writing provoked me to examine and consider my own journal writing. Time and again I would come across a passage that would make me think "Yes, I agree with that. And the reason why is . . ." Many times I had to restrain myself from underlining passages and scribbling notes in the margins. When I finished the book the reasons why I keep a journal were refreshed in my mind, encouraging me to continue and perhaps even experiment with new and different methods.I found Leaving A Trace helpful in my writing experience, but the book is good for people of all levels of experience. Beginners as well as advanced writers can see their own goals in Johnson's writing and be spurred on. Especially helpful are the passages where Johnson touches on the many different varieties of journals a person can keep, including non-traditional forms. People who think they could never write a journal might find that they are actually keeping one through means they never would have guessed. Other writers who are struggling with one type of journaling might discover a different type that works better for them. And

Most people starting a journal find after a relatively short period that the entries become a chore rather than a joy. LEAVING A TRACE provides individuals with tips as to how make the personal scroll more exciting, entertaining, and user friendly to the customer: the author of the tome. Professor Alexandra Johnson provides practical advice including changing tone, length, schedule, and case, etc. to liven up the entries and keep the writer fresh. Thus, anyone thinking of starting a journal or already maintaining one will find this book quite useful. The book is well written and surprisingly interesting, but the reader need beware that it also tempts the audience into wanting to start a journal. My spouse had cardiac arrest when I suggested I do just that - not because of dark secrets, but because he insists my "journal" is already splashed all over the Net. This guidebook truly assists the person desiring a self-record and anyone buying a journal as a present for a loved one should include this as a companion piece.Harriet Klausner