Last time on the blog we talked about writing slices of life: Capturing the moments of your life--past and present and writing them down in your journal. The next three blog posts will focus on what direction you can take when writing these slices of life.  Briefly they are:

1. Your journal: when the journey is your destination. (today's topic)

2. A curated collection of your moments, for you, for your children, for the future... (up next!)

3. A writing project of your own? When your collection of short and sweet journal entries brings you somewhere unexpected. (the final post in this series).

Which one is for you, right now?  Only you can answer that--and here are two things to keep in mind:

• The answer might surprise you.  

• The answer will change--because writing changes you.

Recently, I've been taking our conversation deeper into your journaling habit.  Today I'm going to focus in on a specific skill that I call writing 'Slices of Life.'  Here's what we'll talk about today

• Why capturing and writing slices of life is an essential writing technique that your favorite novelists use.  A technique you can learn with practice.  
• How capturing your moments and translating them to the page is not just a writing technique, but a way of life.  
• How you can start practicing this super-easy technique on your own, at home in a way that's simple, fun...and life-changing.  

Over at the Vagabond English Book Club we've been talking about why you should write about your life.   And that discussion has driven home a few lessons for me:  

Writing about your experience will not only change your writing...it will change your life.  

Which means...the way you write, the way you come to the page, the choices you make, the way you frame your experience--it really matters.

And you're going to have to make decisions about what's important.  If you want to keep going--if you want to keep yourself (and your readers?) interested. 

Today's post is about three lessons that will make your writing about your life more compelling, more life-changing.

These are the lessons I keep coming back to--whether it's in discussion with you, when I'm writing, or when I'm awake at night thinking over 'the big stuff...'

Oh, and for each lesson, there's a journal mission.  Enjoy.  

The start of the New Year...a time to reflect, to write.

The time of year where, after a winter slump, I begin to wake up early again, and reach for my notebooks, my keyboard. To write.

And you know what I write about in these early hours of the morning?

My life--

• what matters,
• moments and memories I want to capture,
• what I need to think through, get over...or reach for. 

Towards the end of my writing session, my thoughts turn to work, to the day...to my blog posts or a short story I want to write.  But only after I've settled the most fundamental questions.

Sometimes writing can feel like a stumble through the shadows...

You take your truths, your stories and you weave them into word--words you hope will reach across continents, culture, time.  And deliver your message, your meaning to someone you may never meet, speak to or hear from.

We spend so much time in solitude, walking an unfamiliar landscape with little light to guide us.   

We may write and read alone.   But we do it to connect with other people.   

And when we travel too long without answer or feedback, we wonder where we are going...

And we ask ourselves:

• Will anyone understand this?
• Did I make my point?
• Does anyone care?
• Is my voice strong enough to carry my message?
• Am I evolving as a writer...or just moving in circles, making the same missteps again and again?

You're out there, on your own, doing all the right things:

• You've carved out time for a reading habit worthy of a writer,
• You're working on a writing habit too--whether it's chatting in our Book Club on Facebook, writing reviews on Goodreads keeping a journal, writing stories or blog posts.  
• And you're creative with your writing and learning. Connecting your writing and your reading to your life.

These are the first steps--the steps you must take to finding your voice and your confidence as a writer.

No one else can take them for you.

But...

You want to find your voice. And you're busy.

So busy, you don't even want to believe it's possible.  

And maybe you even have this fantasy, where one day you'll wake up with more time than 'to-do.' 

Is it just me? Because I admit it,  I  cling to that fantasy...

The fantasy is more comfortable than admitting the reality:

I've got to make some serious choices to make about how I spend my time.

Here it is, this little fact, irritating us, reminding us of it's presence:

We have to choose. We can't do it all. And we owe it to ourselves to make our time count. 

And we owe it to ourselves to commit to creativity.

Want to sound like yourself when you write? Find a voice that's truly yours?

You'll have to find something else first: The time.

You know that reading books is not an "escape from." 

Reading books is an invitation to...

It's a priceless opportunity to hear many voices, to transcend the barriers of language, culture (even time!) and to understand. 

The beautiful thing is this: 

By reading, by hearing the voices of others, you can find your own voice as well.

We need to talk. 

All that reading we do online, it's changing us.  It's a silent process, more than a decade in the making. 

As reading changes, so does writing, thought, mind...

So let's put our phones down for a minute.  While we're at it, we'll tell Facebook to take a hike...Medium too.  Because this change--nearly imperceptible, scratching at us--it's worth our (undivided) attention.  Even if that attention has become...fleeting.

We can see it in our writing, but it goes deeper: the nature of our thought, our ideas is changing. Writing, in the end, is just thought and language on paper--or on a screen.  

Thought and language...language and writing... all of it jumbled into a black bag with a velvet interior.  Go on, reach in there.  Feel around, try to grasp what you can't see. 

The contents? That ever-changing matter that is as familiar as it is mysterious?

It's just... who we are, after all.