Writing for Bliss: A Seven-Step Plan for Telling Your Story and Transforming Your Life - Softcover

Raab, Diana

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1615993231 ISBN 13: 9781615993239

Publisher: Loving Healing Press, 2017

Synopsis

Writing for Bliss is most fundamentally about reflection, truth, and freedom. With techniques and prompts for both the seasoned and novice writer, it will lead you to tap into your creativity through storytelling and poetry, examine how life-changing experiences can inspire writing, pursue self-examination and self-discovery through the written word, and, understand how published writers have been transformed by writing.

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"Writing for Bliss is about the profound ways in which we may be transformed in and through the act of writing. I am grateful to Diana Raab for sharing it, and I trust that you will feel the same as you read on. May you savor the journey."
--from the foreword by MARK FREEMAN, PhD

DIANA RAAB, MFA, PhD, is an award-winning poet, memoirist, speaker, educator, and survivor. She's the author of nine books and more than one thousand articles and poems. She lives in Southern California. Learn more at DianaRaab.com

From Loving Healing Press LHPress.com

About this title

About the Author:

Diana Raab, MFA, PhD, is a memoirist, poet, blogger, workshop facilitator, thought provoker, and award-winning author of seven books and more than one thousand articles and poems, as well as the editor of two anthologies, Writers and Their Notebooks, and Writers on the Edge. Her passion and expertise is in writing for healing, transformation, and self-empowerment. She is very interested in creativity and what drives the creative process. Her early inspiration came from reading the journals of Anais Nin, as she was impressed by Nin's candor and honesty. Raab has been writing since childhood, when her mother gave her a Kahlil Gibran journal to help her cope with the loss to suicide of her beloved grandmother. Raab's MFA is in nonfiction writing from Spalding University, and her PhD is in Transpersonal Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (aka Sofia University), where she researched the healing and transformative aspects of memoir writing. She is also a registered nurse and was a medical journalist for more than twenty-five years. For decades, Raab has been a motivating force, inspiring others to write the stories and narratives of their lives. She has worked with those from all walks of life, including esteemed writers, business people, published and emerging writers, cancer survivors, and those surviving various types of trauma. Raab serves on a number of boards, including that for Poets & Writers, and she is a trustee at the University of Santa Barbara (UCSB). She blogs for Psychology Today, and PsychAlive, and is a guest blogger for a number of sites. For more information, visit dianaraab.com.

Review:

"Poet and memoirist Raab (Lust) credits her lifelong love of writing and its therapeutic effects with inspiring her to write this thoughtful and detailed primer that targets pretty much anyone interested in writing a memoir. Most compelling here is Raab's willingness to share her intimate stories (e.g., the loss of a relative, ongoing struggles with cancer, a difficult relationship with her mother). Her revelations are encouraging to writers who feel they need "permission to take... a voyage of self-discovery." The book's seven-step plan includes plenty of guidance, including on learning to "read like a writer," and on addressing readers as if "seated across the table ." Raab covers big topics such as the "art and power of storytelling" and small details such as choosing pens and notebooks that you enjoy using. She also helps readers with the important step of "finding your form."
--PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY

"By listening to ourselves and being aware of what we are saying and feeling, the true story of our life's past experience is revealed. Diana Raab's book gives us the insights by which we can achieve this through her life-coaching wisdom and our writing."
--BERNIE SIEGEL, MD, author of The Art of Healing

"Only a talented writer who has fought hard to overcome life's many obstacles could take her readers by the hand and lead them through the writing process with such enormous compassion, amazing insight, and kindness. Diana Raab is a powerful, wise, intelligent guide well worth our following."
--JAMES BROWN, author of The Los Angeles Diaries and The River

"Writing for Bliss is far more than a 'how-to manual'; it enlightens the creative process with wisdom and a delightful sense of adventure. Bravo to Bliss!"
--LINDA GRAY SEXTON, author of Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton

"Uniquely blending inspiring insights with practical advice, Diana guides you on a path to discover the story that is truly inside you and yearning to be told."
--PATRICK SWEENEY, coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Succeed on Your Own Terms

"In Writing for Bliss, Diana Raab reminds us to begin every page with an open mind, a curious heart, and fresh eyes. The prompts are thoughtful, stimulating, and a valuable resource for any writer's mental health and spiritual growth."
--DINTY W. MOORE, author of The Mindful Writer

"I cannot write fiction without dredging the depth of my psyche, or else the writing isn't true. Writing for Bliss validates my experience as an author. Whether you are a beginning writer or an established veteran, I encourage you to read it, study it, devour it."
--STEPHEN JAY SCHWARTZ, Los Angeles Times bestselling author of Boulevard

"Diana Raab, award-winning memoir author of books like Regina's Closet (her grandmother's story) and Healing With Words: A Writer's Cancer Journey (her own memoir), has produced a very thorough and thought-provoking guide to help all would-be memoir writers, or a writer of any genre for that matter, find their written voice. This is a very useful resource, one that writers of all genres will return to frequently."
--EMILY-JANE HILLS ORFORD, Readers' Favorite

About this edition

• Publisher: Loving Healing Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1615993231
• ISBN 13: 9781615993239
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 238