write: no more, no less

Having written for eons, I don’t believe in writer’s block. As I often tell students: if you feel blocked it’s because you’re not writing, period. Sometimes perfectionism is the problem. Sometimes confidence is the issue. You see? It’s not about the writing itself.

journaling: a meditation

Journaling is a genius way to focus on a single idea for a dedicated period of time or space. In this way, it is not so different from meditation. If you take your journaling seriously, as many high-performing leaders do, you’re focused on that activity to the exclusion of all else. If you treat journaling as a discipline, you will create structures and rituals around it. For instance, you will write in a certain place, at a certain time, about particular topics or goal-related concepts.  You will be accountable to the practice…. Read More

sheltering notes

Shelter in Place Day 10: notes from the field, preview of Journal Camp 2020.Prompt: temptationIf you had asked a month ago I wouldn’t have recognized that person. What dances outside my reach is coffee with my pals squeezed between meetings, lunch at Toast, riding elevators, a trip to the Rack, visiting with a neighbor so close we can exchange oven-warm oatmeal cookies, church, the dog park (Dog is my co-pilot), casual conversation about nothingness and madness, leisurely stalking the aisles of Sonoma Market, stopping at a winery to taste just because, farmers… Read More

journal me

Journal Camp 2020 has landed, and it is nothing short of ah-mazing! Herewith, a sample of the kind of genius free-writing can provoke: Going Home I bid farewell to the state of old New York, My home away from Home – In the state of NY I came of age, where first I started roaming….; I’m a rambler and a gambler a long way from home – Old Irish folk song My mom is a wanderer, and my dad was a climber.  He dragged me through ashy volcanic landscapes festooned with blocks of air-popped… Read More