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Health & Fitness

Blog: Turn Writing Dreams Into Reality By Keeping a Journal

How journaling can help you put together the book you've always dreamed of writing.

Do you want to write a book? Well you're not alone. More than 80% of people want to write a book. If you're among them, what better time to start than during the summer?

The problem is how to start and, more importantly, how to finish writing that book.

We are bombarded with articles on how to write a book, but here's one that I find very helpful by bestselling author Chris Guillebeau. Note how he states that:

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"More than 80% of people say they want to write a book, but less than 1% do.

If you’re in the 80%, you can use this method to join the 1% and finally write your book. Don’t worry about publishers or marketing, and certainly don’t worry about skill or talent. Worry about telling your story and racking up the words."

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It wasn't until I started a journal in 2003, six months prior to our move to Belize, Central America, that I realized I could turn it into a travel memoir. You see my family did something "gutsy": We chucked it all, and uprooted our three sons from a cushy life in Orange County, to a hut-on-stilts in Belize, Central America. My friends kept asking me to send them e-mail updates about our life in Belize, and wanted to know how our three sons— ages 16, 13 and 10—were adapting to their new simple life.

What I discovered about keeping a journal is that it forces you to write things down as they happen. This is the best time to write, when your emotions are fresh and come through as honest and authentic. You can write down all the details of your surroundings: the smells, the colors, the landscapes, and let's not forget the conversations. If your goal is to write a memoir, sometimes described as "a slice of your life," it's important to keep vivid details and stay true to life.

If I had to rely on my memory to write about our year in Belize, I could never have captured every detail of what happened to my 13-year-old son, Alec, when he touched a poisonwood tree. Thanks to my daily journal, I had all I needed to bring it back to life. 

"I removed a saucepan from the cabinet, tossed a dead cockroach into the trash, and used bottled water instead of our stinky well water to boil the leaves. When the water bubbled, I threw all the leaves in and let them simmer until they turned velvety. Without a blender, I used a fork against the edge of the saucepan, crushing the leaves into a spinach-like mush.

 “Alec, take all your clothes off except your boxers,” Duke said.

“Why?” he asked.

“We’re going to try the leaves instead of the bark,” Duke replied.

I placed a towel on Alec’s bed so as not to mess up his sheets. He lay flat on his back, and, with the back of a teaspoon, Duke smeared a thin layer of “spinach” over Alec’s body.

“That looks gross.” Josh wrinkled his nose.

We could have been filming an episode for the Discovery Channel called “Modern-Day Family Experiments with Ancient Tribal Remedies.”

Alec felt worse afterward."

Sometimes it may seem like it's a burden to keep a journal, but if you only write one page a day, by the end of one year, you'll have 365 pages which is enough material for one book. In my case, I was able to write 690 pages in my journal over a period of 18 months.

My problem wasn't writing the journal, but how to transform it into the structure of a memoir. After almost seven years of taking classes, attending conferences, working with editors, blogging, volunteering at writers' groups and libraries, networking and so much more, I can say that keeping a detailed journal finally paid off.

If you are interested in learning more about journaling, writing or blogging, please contact me at: sonia@soniamarsh.com. My travel memoir: Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family's Year of Gutsy Living on a Tropical Island will be released in mid-August, and if you'd like to find out more, please visit my website.

Sonia Marsh Bio:

Sonia Marsh is a “Gutsy” woman who can pack her carry-on and move to another country in one day. She’s a motivational speaker who inspires her audiences to get out of their comfort zone and take a risk. She says everyone has a “My Gutsy Story”; some just need a little help to uncover theirs. Her story, told in her travel memoir Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of Gutsy Living on a Tropical Island, is about chucking it all and uprooting her family to reconnect on an island in Belize. Download the first chapter for free. Sign up to be notified when her upcoming travel memoir is available. Sonia welcomes new friends, bloggers, writers and readers at Soniamarsh.com (http://soniamarsh.com) You can contact her at: sonia@soniamarsh.com.

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