I just had the pleasure of completing Lisa Tener’s writing workbook The Joy of Writing Journal: Spark Your Creativity in 8 Minutes a Day, and I would like to share some of my thoughts here.
(Some background on how I know Ms. Tener. I first met her over 5 years ago when she was a speaker and instructor at a Harvard Medical School conference called Writing, Publishing and Social Media for Healthcare Professionals. This conference’s attendees consist of over one hundred highly accomplished physicians and other healthcare professionals—heart surgeons, neurosurgeons, university department heads, and the like— who all have the dream of writing a book. Suffice it to say, it’s a tough room to carry, but Ms. Tener navigated it with ease. Key point: Ms. Tener isn’t just a writing coach, she is a power writing coach, and one of her niches is helping high-end professionals access their creative side to get their first book out. Her workbook carries the experience helping dozens and dozens of authors get published).
The structure of Ms. Tener’s book is straightforward. It’s a thirty-day workbook, which starts each day with you reading a paragraph or two on an aspect of writing creativity. Next, you access a daily QR code which navigates you to a short 1-3 minute video about that topic, either by Ms. Tener or some of her very accomplished writer colleagues. She then poses a question to you, asking you to generate a list of responses (for example, her Day 1 question is to list five reasons why you picked up her book). Finally, she asks you to choose one of your responses, and then expand upon it in writing for two pages.
Overall I found the workbook’s structure to be easy and enjoyable to follow, and although I think 8 minutes a day is a little optimistic to complete each exercise (I averaged about 15 minutes) , for those of us who deeply value their morning time, it is a very efficient way to jump-start our creative minds each day.
But truthfully, her efficient approach to creativity didn’t surprise me that much. Neither did her encouragement of high volume idea list creation—a nearly essential element of any creative endeavor. After all, Ms. Tener is a power writing coach, and she understands the tools of the busy professional.
However, what did surprise me was how much I enjoyed her use of QR codes. Accessing them each morning was like opening a little present each day, and I have to say, it’s the most effective use of QR codes I’ve ever seen. Her workbook isn’t just a linear writing tool, it’s a 3-dimensional, non-linear multimedia activity. (As an aside, business executives should take note: this is how she uses QR codes).
Her book is also a nice blend of both the practical and the spiritual. For example, her Day 4 exercise (Writing About Place) asks you to engage with your various writing spaces. There are few things more practical than that! In contrast, her Day 7 exercise (Meet Your Muse)—probably the most important exercise of her book—leads you to a short 5-minute guided audio mediation to help you access your Muse, one of the most spiritual of entities.
“Muses?” you ask. “What’s that all about?” Muses are a powerful element of Ms. Tener’s approach to writing, and I think are what separates both her and her workbook. Her talk of finding your Muse (which I think for her—and definitely for me—are a real entity) is what helps balance out her nitty-gritty advice to develop a daily creative journaling habit—the purpose of this book. (For writers who discount the reality of Muses, I would point out that they have been successfully used for thousands of years. Just consider the opening line of the Odyssey: “Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys, after he had sacked Troy’s secret citadel.” If Muses are good enough for Homer, then they are good enough for me!)
There is also feminine energy to this book. Most of the authors she engages with on her QR videos are women; she embraces these conversations. But, for the men considering using this book—this isn’t a reason to avoid this book, this is the reason to buy it!
Let me expand and speculate on this point a little. I believe that most people have feminine and masculine energy—energies that, depending on the context, can be either creative or destructive. I also believe that to fully embrace one’s creativity, it helps to have access to these masculine and feminine energies. In that sense, this book is actually more valuable for men than it is for women! (This also raises the interesting idea that perhaps some writers should spend more time exploring their masculine creative energy. If I had to pick an author and book for this, I would probably go with Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, which, curiously, also speaks of Muses).
Anyway, Ms. Tener’s book is simply a jewel. It was a lovely experience working through it over the past month, and I highly recommend it for writers who want to joyfully expand their craft and creativity.