The Great Escape – Intensive Journal Writing

“I looked at other journals, notably those of Dostoevsky and Anaïs Nin, and I could see that, for them, the journal was a vehicle that led to greater creativity. But I found that a good many other journals were just diaries: without a project to be done, people’s diaries just went around in circles.”
Ira Progoff

“Sometimes I fantasise about throwing my suitcase into the car, taking off down the highway, sucking up that white line like spaghetti and running away from it all road-movie-style. Sometimes I am on my own escaping my current life and indulging the exquisite loneliness of solitary travel” writes Elly Varrenti. Personally, I am happy to pack my bags and go within Bancroft Manor via my journal. When I am in the room of my own at Bancroft I am more likely to grapple with projects that I am working on.

Everyone has a life and that life must be his or her great work of art. There’s an underground stream of images and recollections within each of us. The stream is nothing more or less than our interior life. When we enter it, we ride it to a place where it wants to go. It is within this interior world that we can come to identify who we really are and what our big project is to be.

Cast aside any preconceived ideas you may have about journal writing. Take the quantum leap! Select a journal, pack a creative medicine bag and prepare to go deep within.

Intensive journal writing is quite different from diary writing. There are many good reasons to make the commitment to find sanctuary and to work within a journal. Keeping a journal provides you with the opportunity to

make it a habit to work with your personal creative partner
establish a playground for your right brain
exercise all your senses and draw from the well of unconsciousness
resolve writer’s block
position yourself in the now
appreciate how creative you actually are
identify where you fit into the wheel of life.

This journalling course will help almost anyone who wishes to go deep within and explore his or her life as a work of art. Everyone ends up with a journal full of stories and recollections and often surprising new insights about the most fascinating mystery of all: themselves and their relation to the world around them. To engage you don’t need to be a mystic or perceive yourself to be incredibly creative. All you need is a life!

Check some samples of Intensive Journal Writing activities.

If you are interested in engaging in this course you can make enquiries at the Castlemaine Community House. Alternatively, you can contact heatherblakey@fastmail dot fm to subscribe and join Trains of Thought, a site containing resources and prompts. Contact Heather Blakey for details.