Hello, I'm Michelle

For over forty years, I have been filling notebooks — long before the trend of journaling techniques emerged, before there were prompts, practices, or beautifully designed spreads. I was just a girl with a notebook, navigating through life and figuring things out. During my twenty-five years as an English teacher, I devoted myself to helping others discover their own words and creative writing methods. For more than twenty years, I've opened my notebooks to share what’s inside — the messy pages, the half-finished thoughts, and the ordinary moments I almost didn’t write down. This is my lifelong passion, built on one simple belief: your story matters. Notebooking has been not just a pastime, but a foundation of my life's work.

You are the boss of your notebook and your notebooking journey. This is the first thing I want you to understand and the most important point I want to make. Your practice does not have to resemble mine, nor should it mirror anyone else's. It simply needs to be uniquely yours. 

What I teach is built around three simple ideas related to creative writing methods. First, you can always return to the page, no matter how long you've been away. Second, your ordinary life is worth documenting exactly as it is — because you matter, and so does every page of your story. Lastly, your notebook can help you understand your life, serving as a canvas for your thoughts rather than just a record of events. 

I call these The Return Practice, The Mattering Practice, and The Reflection Practice. Together, they create a complete journaling technique — a gentle and flexible framework that meets you exactly where you are. Whether you've never filled a single page or have forty notebooks stacked in a closet, there is a place for you here.