Leaving a Trace
On Keeping a Journal
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The PEN Award-winning author “proffers advice for journal keepers who want to develop material for later books or who simply enjoy logging life’s events” (Publishers Weekly).
Leaving A Trace is a practical guide to keeping a journal successfully and transforming it into future projects. Each chapter features both narrative and tailored exercises for beginning and committed diarists. Beginners will turn first to quick ways to overcome inhibitions, get started and stay on course. Seasoned chroniclers will start diaries with a new slant: they will learn how to trigger inspiration with creative brainstorming exercises; how to note patterns in diaries they already have and how to shape their material.
“Warning: if you buy this book, you might as well buy a journal at the same time. Alexandra Johnson’s lovely and practical prose will assist you in overcoming virtually every inhibition you’ve had about committing words to paper, and will inspire you to tell, in whatever form you choose, the important story of yourself.” —Elizabeth Berg, New York Times bestselling author
“A gifted storyteller, Johnson provides examples on how the discipline of daily, reflective writing is crucial to nurturing creativity and skillfully weaves together the relationship between the creative process and the craft of writing . . . beautifully written.” —Library Journal
“Help[s] writers find practical inspiration, discover pattern and meaning, and move the material of a journal into memoir or fiction . . . Valuable in all sorts of ways for anyone looking for the right words.” —Booklist
“An elegantly written study of an increasingly popular genre.” —Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Leather-bound five-year diaries were once popular gifts at children's birthday parties, sometimes providing the first taste of a lifelong pleasure. While an estimated 12 million journals are sold annually, Johnson, a teacher of creative nonfiction at Harvard and Wellesley, has found that people also record their lives on dinner napkins, menus, slips of paper and, increasingly, the computer. In her follow-up to The Hidden Writer, for which she won a PEN Award, she proffers advice for journal keepers who want to develop material for later books or who simply enjoy logging life's events. Commiserating on diaries abandoned as "joyless collections of grievances," she offers tips on how to "break the deadlock of introspective obsession." She advises perfectionists on how to silence their censorD"that dark, icy whisper of the confidence thief." Apt remarks by Virginia Woolf, Tobias Wolff, Annie Dillard and others add to her perceptive and often humorous insights on unearthing the interior life, improving observation skills and finding images that reveal significant motivations. The transformation of a factual log into a creative work requires investigating essential patterns: disclosing what has been left out of memory, charting periods of great intensity and connecting the dots between events and influences to develop a true narrative. Because a journal is usually a private affair that offers little opportunity for discussion, people seeking direction on keeping a successful one should welcome this thoughtful guidebook.
