What to do with those writing journals?
With Corona keeping us close to home like never before, it’s very tempting to start digging out old journals and getting to work on your memoir.
A dear friend had just that thought. The problem was that she was dreading confronting the woman of twenty years earlier who has earned many badges of wisdom and life experience in the meantime.
I suggested to Karen what I would say to myself.
If there’s a story worth telling, it’s waiting to come from memory and be told from the voice of the person we are today. When you write from the other side of the bridge–so to speak–the emotional charge is traded for a feeling of gratitude. Whew, we made it to the other side.
Write from this perspective and you’ll love the writing process because this is the You that’s most relevant to telling your story.
Then, if you want to go back to your journals to jog out details then do so, never losing sight of the fact that the story-teller in those journals may have had a mission in writing stories down but had no idea of the outcome.
When decades pass, you do have a much better sense of the outcome and can appreciate the journey that took you to this point.
