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

Sep 2017 · Diana Raab on Writing Book 2 · Loving Healing Press

About this ebook

ÿWriting for Blissÿis most fundamentally about reflection, truth, and freedom. With techniques and prompts for both the seasoned and novice writer, it will lead you totap 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.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

"Writing for Blissÿis 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

"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 ofÿThe 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 ofÿThe Los Angeles DiariesÿandÿThe River

"Writing for Blissÿis 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 ofÿSearching 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 bestsellerÿSucceed on Your Own Terms

DIANA RAAB, PhD, is an award-winning memoirist, poet, blogger, workshop facilitator, thought provoker, and survivor. She?s the author of eight books and over one thousand articles and poems. She lives in Southern California. Learn more at www.DianaRaab.com

Ratings and reviews

Having reached a certain age I started to think about what do I know about my heritage and especially about my grandparents and the answer was very little. How I wish they had recorded their life story so I could relate it to my children. This is why this book struck a deep cord with me as I started documen ting my life so my grandchildren would know who their grandad was and what he did. The author tells us why and how it is important to tell our story and how moods affect the words and grammar we use and through the book how we can influence and change the script. The main element of the book was when the novelist stated she had kept a diary and memoirs of what her children had done every day of their life and give them it on their wedding days, this made me think and a little bit sad as I really wish I had done this for mine. It is amazing how writing can form a brilliant escape and by moving your thoughts from mind to paper can help release tension and stress which is expertly described in this excellent book alongside with other techniques. The book is full of useful hints and tips on how to write with true meaning in the different formats of prose and this writing typifies our moods or thoughts and gives the reader a true reflection of our sole. I am glad that I started my daily journal to record my own personnel history but this book has inspired me to keep recording my thoughts actions and beliefs and hope one day in the future a historian will find them and use them for research. Reading this book has enhanced and improved my daily records and as the title states made my “Writing For Bliss”.

About the author

ÿDiana Raab, MFA, PhD, is a memoirist, poet, blogger, workshop facilitator, thought provoker, and award-winning author of seven books and over a thousand articles and poems, as well as the editor of two anthologies. 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 Ana‹s 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.ÿ

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.

A world traveler, Raab was born in Brooklyn, New York, and has lived in Montreal and Florida. She currently resides in Southern California with her husband of four decades. She has three grown, creative, and entrepreneurial-driven children and two grandchildren. When not writing or offering workshops, she may be found meditating, hiking, nurturing her bonsais, or sitting on a cliff or by the sea crafting poems and musings in her journal.

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 regularly for Psychology Today, PsychAlive, and The Huffington Post.

For more information, visit www.dianaraab.com.