New interview with writing coach Marielle S. Smith and Review of 365 Days of Gratitude Journal

I have a two-fer for you today. I review and chat with return guest Mariëlle S. Smith about 365 Days of Gratitude Journal, Vol. 2: Commit to the life-changing power of gratitude by creating a sustainable practice.

Marielle and I chatted in January about 52 Weeks of Writing: Author Journal and Planner.

During this tour, Marielle will be giving away a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:
Mariëlle S. Smith is a writer, writing coach, and editor. She lives in Cyprus, where she feels inspired 24/7 and feeds more stray cats than she can count.

Welcome back, Marielle.
Hi Lisa, thank you so much for having me back!

Please tell us about your current release.
365 Days of Gratitude is a journal that will help you create a gratitude practice that is sustainable and easy to return to when you skip a day, a week, or even a month. It’s undated, so it doesn’t matter when you start nor how long it takes you to actually fill in each of its 365 pages.

I never intended to create a second volume, but the first turned out to be so popular, I got the nudge to start working on another. Where I gave the first volume a straightforward and clean look, the second volume brought my inner designer out fully and had me create something I didn’t even know I was capable of.

Once I finished the interior of the journal, I realised it would be a shame to only offer it in standard black-and-white printing, which is why this volume is available in two versions.

What inspired you to write this book?
I created the first volume to share my version of a gratitude practice with others. It’s helped me through some of the worst times in my life and has transformed how I deal with life’s curveballs.

It took me years to finetune my own process, but once I’d created a practice I couldn’t help but return to, no matter how long I’d stayed away from it, I knew I had something worth sharing. I knew I had something that others could benefit from too.

 

Excerpt from 365 Days of Gratitude:
Gratitude journaling brings me so much. It slows me down. It reminds me to take deep breaths in and out. It stops me from pushing myself too hard, too often. It brings me joy. Happiness. Appreciation. It reminds me of all I have going for me, no matter the kind of day it’s been.

It really has been the key I was looking and ready for when it showed up in my life.

But, even now, after years of practice, I have to consciously decide to do the work. That it came at the right time and with the structure I needed doesn’t mean I don’t get off track, especially when the going gets tough.

I used to become angry and utterly frustrated with myself when this happened, but now I simply sit myself down (read: force myself to take a break) and return to my practice. And because it’s such a simple, structured practice, it’s easier to pick up again than I often think.

Of course, some days or even weeks will be easier than others, but that’s another thing gratitude journaling has brought me. No matter how far I stray, I am grateful for having something to return to. For all the days I ignore my practice, I’m grateful for all the days I do pick up my journal and let the miracle that is life unfold in front of me.

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My review of 365 Days of Gratitude:
I’ve been a proponent of writing what I’m grateful for each day for several years now. I keep a notebook by my bed and write in it twice each day – when I first wake up and when I’m going to bed. The goal is to write at least one thing each time that I’m grateful for. I average 3-5 most times, but it’s always at least one thing. Being grateful for something at least once a day can make a difference to how long a low or dark mood lasts, for me. In the short, dark, cold winter days during the “lockdowns” of the pandemic, I had several days of being grateful for fleece socks and flannel sheets. They were something positive that I was truly grateful for, and they made me smile, so that mattered.

So, when I had the opportunity to review Marielle’s newest journal, of course I had to!

I’m reviewing the 442-page PDF version online. It’s nicely laid out, firstly. But the prompts make a positive difference in journaling about gratitude. No longer do I have feel ‘pressured’ to figure out what I’m grateful for – the prompts are the nudge to get thoughts flowing. Like with anything, not every day is easy or perfect, and building a habit takes, well, time and practice.

This journal is set up for writing in the evening. It include writing down 3 things a day I’m grateful about, and then a prompt to rate the day. Next up is something I want to remember (I like to recall something that gave me a legit smile and/or made me laugh). The “something I could have been more grateful for today” prompt isn’t always easy, but most days there’s something I remember where I feel I could have pushed myself a bit more, done more, offered more, etc.

The next nudge is to set my intention for tomorrow. Of course I always want to make the next day better than the day before! Give another person a smile, for instance.

This series of prompts is also included as weekly and four-week prompts to take longer stretches of time into consideration and throw in a prompt on “someone I could have felt more grateful for.”

Most times I will review what I’ve written on individual days to help jog my memory, and it’s amazing how a week or month can have a different feel when looking at it as a whole and from a different perspective. A lot of “oh, yeah, and that happened, too!” types of memories that pop up and I can write down.

Marielle also includes quarterly prompts, which I’d never done before. It used to be ‘enough’ to track daily gratitudes, and then to expand to weekly and monthly gratitudes, now it’s quarterly, too, and, wow, what a fun exercise! Not only remembering what I’m grateful for, but to capture the biggest lesson, and how it compares to past ‘big lessons’ – and the daily ratings come into play with the quarterly reviews.

This journal takes embracing things we are grateful for to a comfortable new level. The quotes Marielle includes in the book are wonderful, too. For instance, near the end she includes this one from Rumi: “Gratitude is wine for the soul. Go on. Get drunk.”

I recommend this gratitude journal as a way to focus on positive and good things that happen during your day – when there is so much noise and negativity to weave through.

Happy journaling!

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What exciting project are you working on next?
The last time we spoke, I told you I was working on something that would make a great gift for writers, and that I was hoping to have it done by next Christmas. Back then, I wasn’t sure it was going to happen, but I did tell you it would include all my favourite quotes and journaling prompts and exercises from my 52 Weeks of Writing series.

Well, I’m still working on that one. I’m in the middle of finalising the content, after which will come the interior designing and formatting. I’ve never created something like this, so I’m equal parts excited and nervous about it. That’s the risk of being a writer. You’re never sure whether the world is waiting for what you want to offer it.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I can’t remember not writing, but I didn’t take it seriously until I was twenty-eight. I’ve come a long way since not daring to tell anyone I was working on a novel. Now it’s the first thing I mention when people ask me what I do.

What’s your writing day like?
I don’t write full-time, but I do writing-related work full-time. Ideally, I write fiction first thing in the morning for an hour; I edit, translate, and coach writers before lunch; and spend a couple of hours each afternoon working on my non-fiction. Afterwards, I go to the pool or beach to unwind or do some volunteering for the cat charity I work for, like taking a stray who needs treatment to the vet.

I say ‘ideally’ because there are weeks I’m slammed working on someone else’s writing and there are weeks I have much more time to work on my own projects. I also get called away for cat-related emergencies every now and again, and those somehow tend to happen when I’m at my busiest.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
OK, I’m sure I’m not the only writer who does this (then again, I can’t be the only writer who yells at themselves using caps), but if I’m struggling with a scene, I look for a song that captures the feeling I want to bring across and play it on repeat. If it’s the right song, it’ll help things flow again.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I’ve always wanted to be a writer, even when I was told I couldn’t because it wasn’t a viable career option. Ha! Looks like they were wrong.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
I recently came across someone on Instagram who’d bought one of my writing journals and took it to a shop that cut off the spine and turned it into a spiral-bound book. I loved the idea—the only reason there’s no spiral-bound edition of any of my journals is because they’re too big—but I was so sad to see she bought a paperback to do that. I sell printable PDFs of all my journals on Etsy and on my website for a fraction of the paperback price, so it would’ve been so much cheaper if she’d just gotten one of those.

If you want to get the 365 Days of Gratitude Journal and want to make it spiral bound, go get one of those printable PDFs. It’ll save you lots of money.

Links:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Book page | Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon deluxe edition | Barnes and Noble b&w edition | Barnes and Noble color

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