A review by heidi_
Write for Your Life by Anna Quindlen

5.0

"The ordinary stories are sometimes the most illuminating of our lives because the simply factual can lead us to the deeply philosophical. They allow us to stop time, to preserve not only who we are but who we once were. When you write, you connect with yourself, past, present, and future... writing can make memory concrete, and memory is such a hard thing to hold on to... writing is a hedge against forgetting."

A lovely, short read on the importance of writing for ourselves and those around us. Writing is presented as an accessible tool for everyone to make better sense of themselves and their lives. Recording our interior lives — regardless of how interesting they feel, or how well we write — has vast ripple effects on how we engage with the world. Quindlen makes a strong case for anyone who has been put off by previous attempts at journaling, or who were discouraged in their ability to write, to abandon hesitations and put pen to paper. It doesn't have to be perfect to be worthwhile; the creation process is the means and the end.