No. 93 - Thank you, Suleika Jaouad
You talked about journaling with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show
Hi dear readers -
Two months ago here in Feed the Monster I wrote briefly about Suleika Jaouad, and posted a clip of her talking about journaling with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show. I was so happy to see her fighting the good fight. She was promoting her new book The Book of Alchemy, which I hadn’t yet read.
I’ve since read it.
The book is essentially one hundred brief essays by writers and others, each ending with a writing prompt related to their piece. The essays aren’t about journaling, but that’s what the prompts are meant for. The book is divided into ten chapters with topics such as On Memory, On the Body, On Ego, et cetera. There are pieces by plenty of people I’ve never heard of, but also people like Gloria Steinem, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Salman Rushdie.
What I’m going to say about this book shouldn’t be considered a condemnation, because without a doubt this book will be beloved by a great many people. If it inspires anyone to write down their thoughts, feelings, and ideas, or stories from their life, then it’ll have done a great service. But for me, as a lifelong journal writer, most of the prompts left me cold. Of the one hundred essays and prompts, I jotted down notes about ten.
LIFELESS
Many of the prompts felt random and lifeless to me. A prompt like “reflect on the experience of finding something of great value that was hiding in plain sight” doesn’t make me want to write. Granted, the essays give context to the prompts, but most still didn’t inspire me. I’ve been writing in a journal so long that I don’t need to be prompted to explore inwardly, or detail the minutiae of my life, or work through a relationship issue that has me stumped, or get clear on some nebulous feeling that I can’t even name yet. It’s how I operate, how I learn, how I process pretty much everything. It’s not that I don’t write about random things, but they’re things that emerge organically. Not suggestions given to me by others.
I realize this is not the norm—that most people will never, ever write in a journal let alone lean on it as a matter of course. And for those who do want to, many like and appreciate writing prompts. If Jaouad can inspire new converts to put pen to paper, I couldn’t be more for it. The Book of Alchemy will likely appeal to those who want to write but don’t know how to start, or simply don’t know what to write about. But for me, large chunks of it fell flat.
EXCITED
Given the title The Book of Alchemy, I was quite excited to read it: in the journaling workshop I created called Taking Note: Creating Ourselves Through Journaling I write that “journaling is an alchemical process”. Compared to Jaouad’s book however, my workshop focuses more on exercises that help bring more clarity or self-discovery, rather than prompts to get one started. Though my exercises will definitely get you started as well.
Jaouad wrote an introduction to the book and to each of the ten chapters, and those were my favourite sections to read. My workshop uses the Victor Frankl quote:
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom,
and I learned that Jaouad has this quote pinned above her desk. Jaouad also quotes Lynda Barry’s What It Is, which is a seminal book for me and one I return to again and again. Here Barry could be referring to either writing or drawing:
There is a state of mind which is not accessible by thinking. It seems to require a participation with something, something physical we move, like a pen, like a pencil, something which is in motion—ordinary motion, like writing the alphabet.
So I started the book with high hopes, and a feeling of kinship with Jaouad. Then came the essays and prompts, which mostly landed with a thump. Again, others may and/or surely will love them! Jaouad’s Substack newsletter The Isolation Journals has over 200,000 subscribers, so she’s clearly doing something right.
RESONATED
Here are a couple of the essays/prompts in The Book of Alchemy that did resonate with me.
Sharon Salzberg’s essay was about struggling with a book she was writing some years ago. She was in her head about it, battled perfectionism, and was basically trying too hard to sound lofty and legitimate. She also began to second-guess herself. A friend suggested that she “…stop thinking of yourself as the person writing this book, and see yourself as the first person who gets to read the book”. This helped Salzberg make a profound shift from ego-driven work to remembering that a “heart-to-heart connection” is what’s most important. She writes, “If I can step out of the way and see myself as the first person getting to read the work, I find my own heart, and all things become possible”
The journaling prompt:
“Think of a situation where you are stuck or struggling, perhaps a creative endeavor, a family issue, a work predicament. Now shift from an ego-driven stance—where you are the one with all the answers, all the skill, all the responsibility to perfect or fix things—to a humbler stance of being a learner, a vessel, even a beneficiary. Can you describe the difference in how it feels? What does that shift make possible?”
This prompt is not only inspiring and thought-provoking, it’s also providing useful advice!
Susan Cheever writes about a prompt she “inherited” from her famous father, John Cheever: write a letter from a burning building.
The journaling prompt:
“Write a letter from a burning building. You are trapped and will not be able to escape. No rescue. You know this is the last thing you will ever write. Whom will you write to? What will you say?”
This prompt feels related to The Unsent Letter, an exercise I use in Taking Note: Creating Ourselves Through Journaling. But there’s a different slant to this one: you’re forced to consider who the last person you ever communicate with is, and what you want to say to them. This definitely has the potential to reveal something powerful to the writer.
CHLOE
My daughter Chloe lives in Toronto and works remotely as a software consultant. She and her colleagues have a weekly meeting online, and at the start of that meeting one person gets the floor for five to ten minutes to speak on the subject of their choice. Chloe messaged me last month and asked if she could use some of the material from my Taking Note workshop because it was her turn, and she was going to talk about journaling.
BUT OF COURSE.
She made the following poll. There were only eighteen people, but I have the sense that this poll is nonetheless probably pretty accurate. None of the participants who don’t already journal were interested in the practice, and 40% “don’t think it’s for them”.
YOINK
As Chloe said to me, she’s not likely to convince anyone in five to ten minutes. But here’s something she said to her nerdy colleagues that I thought was astute: much in the same way they’ll write out a confusing technical problem to have it make sense, the same thing applies if you have something stressful or overwhelming that you need to unravel in your own life. Writing it down can help you make sense of it. Touché.
If a person believes that something is “not for them”, you’re not likely to change their mind. They’re going to come to it on their own time, or not at all.
KINSHIP
In her introduction, Jaouad relates the story of being invited to a conference billed as “a gathering of fifty of the world’s most innovative thinkers”. She writes about being in a breakout session—a smaller group for discussion—and dreading being asked what kind of writing she was doing.
So imagine my inner panic when, in the middle of this group of intellectuals, business scions, and Nobel-winning scientists, I was asked, “A writer, huh? So what is it you’re working on now?”
I was working on this book—this distillation of a practice that has saved my life. “A book about journaling,” I replied. I watched the answer fall flat, just as I’d feared. In that knee-jerk way, I felt I needed to justify it. To explain that, though journaling is sometimes dismissed as a childish pastime you do in a pretty diary with a tiny lock, its physical and mental benefits have been extolled in study after study—everything from reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety to improving working memory and strengthening the immune system. “It’s something everyone could benefit from,” I wanted to shout, “maybe especially you!” (my emphasis)
This made me feel close to Jaouad. Made me feel like I know her. Though of course no-one I know has been on The Late Show in a leather outfit looking like a million bucks, speaking to Stephen Colbert about journaling. Anyhoo, thank you Suleika, my good friend.
Here’s the clip again, for good measure:
Do you write in a journal?
Do you hate the word journaling?
Do you think it’s “not for you”?
Tell me everything!
IN OTHER NEWS!
I’m going to host a collage workshop at The Commons Studio in the Mile End neighbourhood of Montréal on September 20th. FUN.
I lived in Montréal once upon a time, but that was over thirty years ago. I don’t know a ton of people there anymore. PLEASE, if you know anyone in Mtl who might like this workshop, pass this along!
To sign up, go here.
Thanks!
FROM THE ARCHIVES
🪞WORKSHOPS! Downloads, and in-person workshops!
🪞Check out my resource page where I’ve started compiling things related to journaling, note-taking, and more.
🪞Visit balampman.com
🪞There's always Instagram
Thanks for an unvarnished book review! I really want to like Suleika—she has such a compelling story! But I often come away feeling 🤷♀️ about the experience. I appreciate her championing journal writing though.
Digging a critical review of something you wanted to love! Great prompt choice too! (Sidenote: "prompt" is a word I don't like anymore due to AI.)
I've journaled since age 10, intensely, daily. Lost my diary on a plane in May 2023 (age 41). Felt completely lost, shattered, in shambles. Started a Substack a month after. And one day, I will finally publish that big bad sad drafted essay about this loss in my Meta Much (Writing about Writing) series.