Last week we had the privilege of hearing from Ann Bracken of The Possibility Project about the benefits of journaling. Today I thought I’d share with you an exercise she suggested to help us kick-start our writing or get out of a rut.

Pull out your journal, give this prompt a try and let me know how it worked for you. I’ll post a bit of my results in the comments when I’m finished and I hope you’ll do the same.

Write Out Loud Exercise #4 – Get Out the Quote

Select a quote that resonates with you and write about how and why it is meaningful to you today. If you can’t think of a quote, check out a few of your favorite novels or poems. You can also use Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. I’ve listed a few quotes below for you to use if you’re having trouble finding something.

The ripest peach is highest on the tree. – James Whitcomb Riley

Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle. – G.K. Chesterton

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted. – Mother Teresa

Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know. – William Saroyan

If you post your results on your own blog, don’t forget to leave a comment here with a link to it so we can all be inspired. Or if you’re not up to a full post, feel free to leave a sample of your journaling here in the comments. Whatever you end up writing, I hope this exercise helps you to Write Out Loud!

Are you a regular journaler? How do you use journaling in your writing process?