NOTE: I have a few writing workshops coming up. Questions? Contact me.

STILL HERE: An Online Introductory Workshop for LGBT+ Journalers (Nov. 18 & 20)

CHAPTER BY CHAPTER: Writing Our Lives – a 6 Week Journaling Workshop

NEW: A Biweekly Online Writers Group for LGBT+ Writers

I love this one. It’s fun to do, and it’s a good way to clarify who we are, what we need, and how we see ourselves.

Your Very Own Operating Instructions

Manuals, warnings, and fine print for a human being.

Every appliance comes with a manual nobody reads until something breaks. The setup steps, the care warnings in small print, the troubleshooting section that assumes you already know what “Error 4” means. This theme asks us to produce that manual for ourselves. It could be humorous, it could be very serious (remember to take daily meds that keep you alive), it could be both.

Consider it in detail. No part of your “proper care and maintenance” manual for yourself is too small. Write it as if you’re leaving it for the next you.

Prompts

Setup & Requirements.  Every device needs the right conditions to run. What do you need at the start of a day to function properly—sleep, quiet, coffee, a specific kind of company or its absence? Write your “setup instructions,” as literally as you can manage.

Recommended Care.  What keeps you running well over time, and what voids the warranty? Write your care label—the “machine wash cold, do not tumble dry” of being you. Include at least one instruction most people would find surprising.

Known Malfunctions.  Every model has its quirks. What goes wrong with you, under what conditions, and what’s the fix, if there is one? Write this as a troubleshooting section: symptom (foul mood), likely cause (restless sleep), recommended action (daily nap).

Fine Print.  The disclaimers nobody reads: what you are not responsible for, what happens with extended use, what this model was never actually designed to do no matter how often it’s asked. Write the warning label you’d put on yourself if you were required by law to be honest about it.

Mark McNease

This Week’s Journaling Theme: Rest & Permission 

These are themes I use in my Your Write Path thematic journaling workshops. Write 800-1000 words on the main theme,. Sub-prompts are provided as a way to get you thinking. Use one of them, all of them, or none of them. The writing is the point.

As the season shifts and the days grow shorter, there’s an invitation to slow down. Trees lose their leaves, nature cools, and everything around us seems to rest a little This month, we consider resting ourselves.

For many of us, slowing down doesn’t come easily. We’ve learned to equate worth with productivity—the busier we are, the more we’re accomplishing—and stillness can feel unfamiliar, even uncomfortable. But rest isn’t something we have to earn. It’s something we can claim, the same way the trees do we they prepare to rest for winter. This month’s journaling invites you to notice where you’ve been withholding rest from yourself, and to explore what it might look like to welcome it.

Sub-Prompts

What does rest actually feel like for you? Not the idea of rest, but the felt sense of it. In your body, your mind, your day. Is it quiet? Is it slow? Is it something you recognize when it happens, or does it slip past you unnoticed? Does it make you uncomfortable, as if life is passing by, or you’re failing to get things done? Write about what genuine rest looks and feels like.

Where in your life do you need to give yourself more permission? Permission to pause, to say no, to leave something unfinished, whether you return to it or not, to choose comfort over accomplishment.

Write about a time you kept doing something when you should have paused or walked away. What was the result? What did you learn from it? Sometimes our bodies and hearts tell us to stop long before we’re willing to listen. Reflect on something you kept doing when you could have given yourself permission to stop or move on. And what might it have looked like to let go?

What would it mean to trust yourself more? Rest requires a kind of trust that the world won’t fall apart if you stop, and trust that you deserve care, from yourself or others. Write about what it would mean to trust yourself enough to rest.

Build a Character in Five Minutes

Most of you know I write fiction, and I conduct writing workshops in addition to journaling. Here’s a fun way to explore character creation.

Characters don’t arrive fully formed. They show up in fragments — a gesture, a habit, a thing they always say. Answer these five questions about a person who just appeared in your mind. Write the first thing that comes:

• What does this person do first thing in the morning?

• What are they afraid of that they’ve never told anyone?

• What do they keep in their pockets or their bag?

• What do they want more than anything right now?

• What one sentence do they say so often that people who love them could finish it for them?

A Room That Stays With You

Close your eyes for a few moments and let your memory wander back through the places you’ve lived, visited, or passed through. Somewhere in that wandering, a room will surface — not necessarily the most important room among the many of your life, but one that stays. Maybe it’s a childhood bedroom, a grandparent’s kitchen, a first apartment, a hospital waiting room, or somewhere you were briefly but intensely alive.

Let yourself stand in that room again. What does it smell like? What’s the light doing? What sounds belong to it? Who is there? What are the feelings you associate with it?

Now write about it. Describe the room as you remember it. Not as it necessarily was, but as it lives in your memory. Then ask yourself: what was happening in my life when this room mattered? What did I feel safe enough to do there, or what did I wish I could escape? If that room could speak, what would it say about who you were then, and what does returning to it now tell you about who you’ve become?