The Magic of Writing Things Down

You can view a free online evalution copy of issue 8 of the magazine – just click here.

Category:	Self-Help
Author:	Sally-Ann Sheridan and Mary Wood
Publisher:	Pen Press Ltd
Price:	£8.99
ISBN:	1-905203-05-5
Pages:	98
Reviewed in issue:	1

This self-help book is an odd collection of advice based around the premise that if you write things down you can solve all sorts of life’s problems. Anything from recording your dreams first thing in the morning to making lists to change your life, through writing a regular personal journal, it’s all covered here... even if you’d never thought of it before! Writing things down is not really the point, though – it’s taking the time to stop and think that can have an effect on your life. But I suppose that writing things down could help in that regard.

The first part of this book covers things like keeping a daily journal, writing down your life goals and writing letters about all sorts of things to yourself. It’s all fairly standard stuff, and really is saying that the act of writing about your personal feelings can help to clarify things for you. It could all have been done in far fewer pages (and there are few enough to start with).

The book then moves on to recording and interpreting dreams, which is OK if you believe in that sort of thing! I couldn’t help feel that this section should have been left out as it doesn’t sit well with the rest of the book. There are far more detailed volumes out there that deal with dream interpretation more fully.

Surprisingly, though, the latter part of this small book then goes on to deal with creative writing, and it’s here that this volume comes into its own. There are some very useful tips on ways of creatively writing poetry and fiction, and all sorts of insightful ways in which to explore your own creativity using words. It would be worth the cover price just for these original hints and tips alone.

I suspect written for a largely American audience – especially as the authors give seminars on writing things down – this is generally a strange mix of common-sense and mumbo-jumbo with a few clear insights thrown in. It doesn’t take long to get through, so if you have nothing else to do on the train home...

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