Writing Your Way: Creating a Personal Journal

by Ellen S. Jaffe

Writing Your Way illuminates what writing is about, how we can begin and the many reasons why we should create our own personal journals.Keeping a journal is often the first step many of us take when we want to write. In Writing Your Way, poet, writer and therapist Ellen Jaffe weaves the wisdom and works of poets, storytellers, fiction and non-fiction authors into a thoughtful narrative about journalling. As well, guided exercises offer inspiration and insight as we test the waters of our own creativity. The book moves through the four directions of the wind. East explores new beginnings, creativity and origin; North, spirit, wisdom and teaching; South, playfulness and passion; and West, emotions and inner truth. Jaffe understands that writing serves many purposes - it can help us explore painful issues and recover from traumatic events, develop our self-confidence and self-esteem, consider our future and reflect on our past. Writing Your Way combines technique and self-exploration to help us discover our personal style of writing.

150 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2001

About the author

Ellen S. Jaffe was born in New York City, 1945, and is of Jewish-Russian descent. She graduated from Wellesley College, attended Columbia University in Theatre Studies, and received an M.A. from New York University in Education. Jaffe worked with the "Voice of the Children" writing group and also at WBAI-FM radio. She lived in England for 7 years, and completed a program in Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic. She moved to Ontario in 1979, where she has worked part-time as a therapist, and taught writing workshops in various schools, several times awarded "Artist in Education" grants from the Ontario Arts Council. A finalist in the CBC Literary Competition (poetry) in 1996, Jaffe has given readings in Hamilton, London, Toronto, Woodstock, and Ingersoll, Ontario, and also in Vancouver; a few poems have been heard on CBC-radio. She tied for fourth place in the Short Plays for Schools contest sponsored by CAN-BAIA in 1996, and her play Jason's Quest, adapted from Margaret Laurence's novel of the same name, was produced in 2001 by Adventures in Children's Theatre. She has received awards for her books from Arts Hamilton and has also been awarded other literary prizes. Ellen is available to teach writing workshops and courses for children and adults. She is a member of The Writers Union of Canada, The League of Canadian Poets, and CANSCAIP, and has also been a volunteer on TV-Ontario's Regional Council. She has one son, Joe Bitz, born in 1980. Ellen enjoys travel, and has dual US-Canadian citizenship.

Reviews

[Rica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know Ellen Jaffe, though not well. I bought this book directly from her a year ago, and then, based on the subtitle, set it aside.

After all, I've been keeping journals off and on since 1970s. And I've read numerous books on journal writing over the decades. I wasn't sure I needed another one.

But as has happened many times in my life, the book essentially "fell off a shelf" a week or so ago. I've been toying with the idea of perhaps going back to writing, which (except for journaling and letters and long Facebook posts), I'd long ago all but abandoned as a venue for personal expression. Last year around this time, I took a half-day "Introduction to Poetry Writing" class, and bought a copy of "Poetry for Dummies. But I didn't follow up on those forays. Lately, inspired and encouraged by the examples of a relative and a dear friend who are each working on memoirs, I've started to imagine that there might be at least a short book in me (half memoir, half self-help, perhaps) about some life lessons I've learned from living with multiple chronic conditions since the early 1980s.

The Universe clearly wants me to give this notion more than casual consideration, because no sooner had I started sketching out some ideas, Ellen's book resurfaced, and I took a closer look at what it's about.

Well, it turns out that I was wrong about it. It's not really a journaling book at all, although journals are mentioned as items in a writer's toolbox. It's a writing book—and a truly fine one to boot. Warm, wise, and witty, it reminds me a bit of Annie Lamott's "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life" and Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within." Higher praise I cannot think of.

If you aspire to write, this book can help you get started, keep going, and love the process.

I'd give it more than five stars if I could.

[Three O'Clock Press]

Writing Your Way illuminates what writing is about, how we can begin and the many reasons why we should create our own personal journals. Keeping a journal is often the first step many of us take when we want to write. In Writing Your Way, poet, writer and therapist Ellen Jaffe weaves the wisdom and works of poets, storytellers, fiction and non-fiction authors into a thoughtful narrative about journalling. As well, guided exercises offer inspiration and insight as we test the waters of our own creativity. The book moves through the four directions of the wind. East explores new beginnings, creativity and origin; North, spirit, wisdom and teaching; South, playfulness and passion; and West, emotions and inner truth. Jaffe understands that writing serves many purposes - it can help us explore painful issues and recover from traumatic events, develop our self-confidence and self-esteem, consider our future and reflect on our past. Writing Your Way combines technique and self-exploration to help us discover our personal style of writing.