Story Play | Facts + Feelings 02

Welcome back to our Story Play | Facts + Feelings series!

One of the best tools in my journaling toolbox is using lists to excavate the facts + the feelings of a story. Lists can be visually fun (they are such a great place to bring in embellishments) but they also serve an awesome purpose in removing academic writing pressures you may have internalized from your education. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love a beautifully crafted paragraph/story but what I love more is simply getting the facts + feelings of a story out of my head and heart and onto a page. Lists organize our facts and feelings and help us focus more on that rather than worrying about grammar and punctuation.

In the video above I reference a list of feeling words. You can access that here.

START TODAY | PRACTICE

Simply put, practice and repetition can make you a more confident journaler/writer. You can start today by grabbing a piece of paper or opening the notes app on your device and following this prompt:

• Write down 3 facts from today/this week/this season.

• Write down 3 feelings from today/this week/the season.

Repeat daily/weekly/seasonally to practice telling more of the story (or getting more of your own feelings included in your memory keeping). The facts and feelings might related to each other (here's a fact and here's how I feel about it) or they might not be directly related. Both are perfectly fine.

Another option/approach is to tackle your next storytelling project by simply listing out one fact and then one feeling and repeating that until you feel satisfied. Use numbers or bullets or stars or some other graphic element to designate each item on your list.

• Write down a fact.

• Write down a feeling.

• Write down a fact.

• Write down a feeling.

• Repeat. Use the phrase "tell me more" to encourage yourself to add another layer to your story. Keep going (this is the process of excavation).

You can 100% do this.

30% OFF CLASSES DURING SEPTEMBER

Looking for more inspiration related to getting your stories told? During September we are offering 30% off classes ( excludes new December Daily® + the new Start Here workshop) with the codeFall30. Offer valid thru 10/1/2023 at 11:59pm ET on your purchase of select digitals and select classes. Must enter code at checkout. Cannot be combined with other offers. Not responsible for missed or forgotten codes. Offer subject to change.

WANT A REGULARLY SCHEDULED WRITING PROMPT?

We also have a monthly subscription that invites you to focus just on the writing piece of memory keeping. It's called Just Write and it's $5 a month for two writing prompts. You can read more about it here.