Writing about journaling, I became interested in why some writers called their journals commonplace books. This search led me to learning about scores of published journals. As I read about them, I realized that the diverse styles of journals, diaries and logs from the past could fertilize new writing ideas for today’s journal keepers.

Please add to this week’s articles’ information with book titles and tidbits from your experience by commenting on the blog.

When we think of particular people, we often associate them with particular places or we may go to particular places to honor them. When we include those places in our writing, we  write more deeply than we might imagine we can. This week’s article contains an excerpt from Sheila’s memoir A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief as well as two exercises based on the excerpt that will guide you in writing about those you have treasured  by focusing on place and the associations you make from that place.

Please let us know how you might use these exercises; if you have already created writing on loss, tell us how you have done it.

This week we have posted a wonderful discussion by writer and instructor Priscilla Long about some surprising ways to keep yourself productive as a writer.  The article is an excerpt from her valuable guide for writers titled The Writer’s Portable Mentor. Let us know what ways you have found to increase your writing productivity and how you might use Priscilla’s ideas.

This week’s article features the winning essay in our Spring Writing It Real contest. Please let us know your response to the essay and what writing ideas and thoughts it prompts for you.

After you read Kristin Henry’s poem about being with her mother at the end of her mother’s life, think about how the poem affects you and how it does that. Think about how the poet finds the images and follows them along to achieving the release for which both she and her mother need. Let us know your thoughts here.

This week we are posting our third place winner’s essay, “Searching for Mother in the Cochise Stronghold.” We’d appreciate hearing from you on your thoughts about the essay and its theme.

Read this week’s essays and commentary by Beckie A. Miller and let us know what you have experienced writing from sorrow and writing from humorous situations. What does each require from you? Can you move in your writing life from one emotion to the other? I remember now that one of my first poetry teachers, the poet Nelson Bentley, said that as poets we had to write one humorous poem a month. It was required he said, to keep our balance.

When we allow ourselves to write through the pain of grief, we find out where our strength and spirituality reside. Please let us know your thoughts on Cora’s essay.

This week’s article is WIR subscriber Leslie Wake’s interview with Sheila about what happened for her in the writing of her memoir, A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief.  Leslie wanted to know more of the story and to share it with others. Let us know what in the interview strikes you about the process and meaning of writing.

This week we posted the first-place winner in our winter, 2010 writing contest. Sindee started with a freewrite, received Sheila’s reader response and redrafted. The result is a strong essay. Let us know what you see in her process that helps you in yours.