Write a journal and become the editor of your own life, imposing on an untidy sprawl of half-remembered events, a narrative shape and organising idea. Writing can help you pay attention to your life. Writers who keep journals produce more work than those who wait for inspiration to hit them. Writing every day keeps the creative juices flowing, and the journal becomes a source for ideas as well as an instrument for practising and refining writing skills and techniques, such as description, character delineation, and dialogue.