My parents, both African Americans from the South, had talked about the past, but my father had always been reserved about his. His parents had died within months of each other when he was only six, he’d said; reminders of them and of his life growing up were painful memories. I knew my mother’s family—I had spent summers with them in Florida, where they lived, but of course I was curious about my father’s. However, to please my mother, I more or less willingly lived in the dark about the rest of my antecedents.

 In 2013, my husband Joe, his sisters, and I were invited to spend the exhausted, overfed days between Christmas and New Year’s with his youngest sister in North Carolina. My deceased father’s birthplace of Hamlet lay a mere 70 miles away so I planned to spend a day trying to unearth my absent history. There’s no stopping determined resolution; and, as my mother used to say, “The truth will out.”

Once in Hamlet, Joe’s sisters and I headed for the Richmond County Registry of Deeds. I was skeptical that we’d discover anything of value there, imagining my little crew and me spending our afternoon wading through piles of dusty documents of little interest.

But my sister-in-law Cathy, an ardent research librarian, had insisted. “The Registry at least can show us where your father lived.”

“In that case I’m in,” I said.

However, none of us anticipated what we ultimately found.

Inside the Registry, Joe and I lifted from the shelves the General Index to Real Estate Conveyances of Richmond County, NC, from 1784. One of the first items we noticed was a cemetery with Dobbins, my grandmother’s maiden name. Excitement rose within me.

My husband and I called out information from the index to his sisters, who stood at computers. A yell erupted from them. “Look! Here’s a whole neighborhood named Dobbins.”

My sisters-in-law pointed, with well-deserved pride, to a scanned legal document. On it were numerous contiguous plots of land. The map was titled, “For the Benton Heirs.” My father was a Benton; I am a Benton. A grin broke across my features.

My father’s family had owned a great deal of land in his hometown. His forebears are described as “original settlers” of the area. But my mother had described my father’s family as “Nothing special.”

Then a mitigating thought struck me.

“Of course!” I reasoned. “Mom probably didn’t even know about Pop’s family’s property. Surely it would have been sold before she met and married him in New York.”

A moment later I tucked in my chin and stared at the General Index, speechless. There was my mother’s fluid signature on documents confirming that she, with a couple of my father’s siblings, had held power of attorney over the sale of some of the property owned by my father’s family.

My mother had known about his family’s holdings. Why did she keep this information from me? She was particularly closed mouth about money; this is just the sort of thing she would hide. But why? There remain many more questions to be answered, like how did African Americans amass all that wealth in the early 20^th century or even before?

Something odd happened when my Joe, his sisters, and I returned to the center of town.

I used my phone to take photos of the Art Deco movie theatre, as well as of several other buildings. Except for the images of the movie theater, all my photos came out disturbingly double exposed, fractured in ragged vertical and diagonal lines with borders reaching towards other borders, something that’s never happened before or since.

Like the edge of a myth bleeding into facts, the truth about my family is a rich, mysterious collage. And I’m eager to find out more.

To see more about my family’s secrets about money, click on My Mother’s Money: A Memoir of Suspense.

Have you discovered a family secret? If so, please leave a comment about it. And subscribe to this blog so you can be notified of new posts. It’s free. Thanks!

Sandra (above) writes:

The idea of finding treasure has been with me since I was little and would search for coins, buttons, and sparkly things on the sidewalks of the Connecticut factory town where I grew up. I picked up anything that caught my eye and then stored it in a box that I called my “trove.” I believed the things I found were clues to some bigger treasure that I might someday find. So, a few years back I was thrilled when my friend, David, asked me to join him on a treasure hunt. We were looking for $10,000 in gold coins buried in New York City and had to solve a series of puzzles to figure out where it was hidden. As soon as I started writing about my experience of being a middle-aged woman darting around Brooklyn with a shovel to dig up a treasure, I connected it to the little girl I was, searching for signs on the streets of her hometown. Those two ideas created the spark that became Trove.

… that longing women in midlife often feel for something they can’t even name.

Trove is a book about longing, and I am hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t long for something. More specifically, Trove speaks to that longing women in midlife often feel for something they can’t even name. Often they’ve built careers, raised children, helped take care of aging parents, and when they finally have a moment to connect with their own needs, they don’t know what those are because they’ve been buried away for decades. In writing this book, I spoke to hundreds of women and almost every one of them identified with that sense of Who am I? Or What now? So, the juicy part of this story is a woman running around with a guy who isn’t her husband looking for a treasure chest in New York. But I hope readers will engage with the searching for metaphorical treasure and, become more attentive to their own journeys.

In addition to writing feature articles, I have been writing and publishing personal essays for over twenty years. One that is near to my heart is called “Livin’ on a Prayer”—about my sister who lives in Munich, Germany, battling cancer.

A romantic one about meeting my husband, Mark, won a contest in Glamour Magazine and was turned into a short film called Wait staring Kerry Washington. I wrote this essay without any expectation that I’d win. The lesson is: put your gifts out there because you never know what could happen. You can watch the short film based on my essay in two parts on YouTube.

I also regularly post on the Brevity Blog about the process of writing creative nonfiction to inspire people to persist and never be discouraged by rejection. “Anatomy of a Book Deal” speaks to that.

Working on short pieces helped me build the writing muscles necessary to finish my memoir. It’s all about the writing discipline. Whether you are working on a 750-word essay or a book-length manuscript, you have to draft and draft and draft again. As Hemingway said, “The only kind of writing is rewriting.”

It took me six years to find the proper structure for this book, and I ended up overwriting it by 300 pages. That is not a typo. What is now a 228-page memoir was once over 500 pages. I wrote absolutely everything down that even tangentially connected to the story I was trying to tell about treasure hunting, and then—with a lot of help from kind reader friends, figured out the narrative arc and started using the delete key. When I showed a 440-page draft to my friend Lisa, who is a well-published novelist, she lifted off 200 pages and said, “This book still needs to be half its size.” She was right. The book I eventually sold to my publisher is very tightly focused. The lesson I learned is, get rid of anything that doesn’t serve the story.

I did a lot of writing by hand before I typed my pages onto my MacBook. I occasionally made an outline of my chapters to keep track of the many different parts. But the most important tools I used are the journals that I’ve been keeping since I was a teenager. I went back to them again and again to verify details, understand my emotional reactions to certain situations, confirm if it was this restaurant or that one. I was regularly surprised at how I remembered things incorrectly and was grateful to have the information in those journals, which are really a treasure trove of memories and stories, in themselves.

Trove will be published on September 19, 2019. Pre-order Trove at any of the links below.

Follow Sandra Miller on Twitter and Facebook.

I’ve been trying to figure out where the notion of the writer’s life as glamorous got its start. I know as a kid, I thought being a writer was something special, probably because then as now, I read a great deal.

What I read astonished me. I was impressed and enraptured by writers’ ability to teach, transport, and soothe me. But I admit that, though writers always said being a writer was a hard life, a hard job, I didn’t believe them.

I thought it was a glamorous career. And an easy one.

But where on earth did I get that notion from? Where’d other people get it from?

Maybe it’s not a sense of glamour that attracts wannabes, but the desire to be listened to. Just wanting people to pay attention to what they have to say. But I’m not really talking about writers, but about the people who say they want to write, but don’t have even a modicum of commitment to it. I see that a lot.

The students I teach in my writing classes who never proclaim they want to write are the ones who write. They are the ones with specific plans to write specific things, and if they lack ideas, they write from the prompts I give them.

Non-Writing Writers

On the other hand, the ones who on the first day of class talk a lot about writing something (it’s seldom anything definite), and then publishing, rarely write anything at all.

I’m getting so I can spot them, not that I’m always right. There’s something furtive and mumbling about them, or even if they speak up, they talk in vague terms. In fact, they often talk a lot—in vague terms.

Sometimes a dead giveaway is the assurance of these non-writing students. They talk to the class about their idea. If you listen carefully, you notice that they often confuse research with writing. And they always, without fail, without having written a word, want to know about getting published.

(I’m not referring here to hard working writers who need to take a break, exhausted in mind and body by their projects, their creativity temporarily spent, so they put writing aside for a while.)

I wish I could wrap up this post with some wisdom, but I can’t. Saying “All you gotta do is start—even a single sentence is progress”— doesn’t move those who just want to have the book they haven’t written published; they want to have written it. But since I can’t move them, all I can do is be thankful for the classes with the students who, every week without fail, bring in their writing to read to us, no matter how short a piece it is. Bless them!

Note: Those writers who work with me make big progress and if they  wanted to, they finished their manuscripts. See if I can help you. (Scroll down to see all the testimonials.) Then get in touch.

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Thank you!

The last post published on this Tools and Tactics for Writers blog was about writing and anxiety. I’m guessing most of us go through times when we’re nervous or downright fearful about writing; sometimes it can be paralyzing. So I’m going to share some tactics for relieving that anxiety that work for me.

• Brainstorm solutions of your own, and try the ones below.
• Take deep breaths.
• Put your fear in writing. Do you feel tension in your arms, legs, midriff, or all over your body? Do you have a headache? Do you freeze up, your hands gripping pen or stuck out straight over your computer keys? Describe in writing how your fear and anxiety feel, how they manifest. (Don’t edit, just let it pour out.) The mere act of articulating on paper or screen what’s going on internally—in your mind and body—can be a great source of clarity and calmness.
• Watch a funny movie or read a humorous book. Laughter is truly a relaxant.
• Write out or type a page or two from a book by your favorite author, preferably an author whose subject or style you’d like to emulate—or whose writing soothes you. (Although I write nonfiction, for me, that writer is novelist Barbara Pym).
• Exercise. This is one of the most effective ways to dispel anxiety. You can do a few stretches or moves indoors or get yourself outside for an exercise class or a walk. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Physical activity helps bump up the production of your brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins.”  And just having to focus on those zumba steps, yoga postures, or Pilates positions is a distraction from your writing concerns.
• How about “forest bathing,” also known as “taking in the forest atmosphere,” even if you’re not in a forest? My husband and I do a lot of birding and nature walking (as a dedicated landscaper and outdoorsman he notices not only the greens, browns and ecru colors of the trees and bark in winter, but also the little red berries peeping out from the forest floor), which for me, are foolproof anxiety relievers. Very often we walk in areas surrounded by or lined with trees. But forest bathing actually works by your being outdoors in nature, so you can do it on a small patch of grassland, in a park, or even in your own yard. It works! Find out more about forest bathing.
• One writer friend writes: I go down in my basement room and sit on my mat every morning and offer thanks for all I have and ask that all that lies ahead comes in a big bubble of love, with harm to none and good for all. Gratitude works.
• Another writer friend notes that her solution is to take a day off from writing. This can have the effect of clearing your mind, or even stimulating it to solve a writing problem while you’re doing something else.

For me, the effects of all of these approaches last. They don’t stop when I stop doing them. And you can use most of these tactics to counter anxiety and stress unrelated to writing.

Got any anxious writing symptoms of your own to share? Or any recommendations for how to relieve that anxiety? Leave a comment. We writers have to help each other out! Or, get in touch with me. I’ve helped other writers overcome their writing anxiety so they could produce work they were proud of. (First, scroll down on my Testimonials page to see what my clients and students say about working with me!)

I asked Meredith to share her views on the connection between writing and illness, particularly anxiety-related illnesses and chronic illnesses (which themselves promote anxiety).

– Lynette

First of all, thank you so much for contributing to Beautiful Voyager, Lynette. I’ve loved having your work on the site (You Mean, I’m Vulnerable Too?) and am appreciative of your interest in my work!

I would describe the difference between Invisible Illness versus Beautiful Voyager in this way: Invisible Illness is a large, open space where many people write about all sorts of mental health topics. The scope is massive, ranging from PTSD to Eating Disorders to Mental Health Activism. And the formats are large in scope too: from haikus to long, deeply-researched scientific pieces. All voices are welcome.

Beautiful Voyager is a bit different. It is specifically for overthinkers, people pleasers, and perfectionists, and I curate the work much more carefully on the site. I want people who are affected by stress, anxiety and overthinking to have a welcoming environment to learn and share more about what they are experiencing. I am committed to paying writers to write guides such as How to Know if Your Child Has Anxiety and How to Deal with an Anxious Boss, and gathering personal stories on relevant topics, then formatting them to fit in the style of the site.

My choice to focus on persistent anxiety and other mental health conditions was for a purely selfish reason. When I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, I was frustrated by the lack of information online about what I was experiencing. I have created the site I wanted to exist because I needed it. I want to actually learn, which is why the site exists.

Although writing might not work for everyone, for many of us, it can be an important way to start making sense of the world while trying to articulate our internal experience. I found that when I started writing about migraines and anxiety, I was forced to put into words some of my assumptions and that by doing that, they changed. Writing is also another way to connect with others. Reading the responses to my writing has helped inform my thinking. There’s a popular description of this in the world of technology: “iterative design.” It means that you learn by seeing how others interact with your creation. I believe in this deeply for mental health writing.

– Meredith

Lynette’s addendum: See some of my favorite posts on Beautiful Voyager.

I Was Fired from 3 Startups in One Year

My Unhealthy Mental Habits and How I Changed Them.

Visit the Beautiful Voyager’s online marketplace to browse anxiety-relieving products created by members of the Beautiful Voyager community.

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Meredith Skrzypek Arthur has been working in tech since 2006, advising large media companies, emerging online marketplaces, and hyper-growth startups. Meredith created the content and community site Beautiful Voyager in 2015.

She writes stories about anxiety for The Mighty, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and is regularly interviewed on the subject. She lives in San Francisco with her husband Michael, her daughter Alice, and her dog June Bug.

Writing contest opportunities are listed below, followed by some ways to protect yourself against contest scams.

Please note: I have no affiliation with any of these web sites or contests.

Poets & Writers

The Poets and Writers link, Writing Contests, Grants & Awards,  is recognized as a comprehensive, totally reliable resource for writers.

Your Ultimate Guide to Free Writing Contests Through 2019

I’ve downloaded the guide myself and can attest to its exhaustive listing.

So you want to enter and give yourself the best chances of winning the contests. This could just help:

10 Tips for Winning Writing Contests

We can always use new tips or we might just need to be reminded of those we already know.

Beware of Contest Scams

Here are some web sites that tell you how to protect yourself from writing contest scams.

How to Avoid Writing Contest Scams

Writing Contests: Facts and Fakes…And How to Tell the Difference

Please leave a comment to let me know if you find this information helpful.

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If you need help getting your writing contest-ready, get in touch. First check out what my students and clients say about working with me. (Scroll down to see all the remarks.)

To be notified of new posts for writers, just subscribe to this blog. Thanks!

I’ve taught dozens of life story writing and family history writing courses and workshops, and in every one, someone has announced that in doing the research, even superficial research, into their background, they’ve stumbled on at least one family secret.

Can you guess the most frequently concealed or distorted information?

It’s that a father or grandfather had two families, usually, but not always, unknown to one another. Sometimes the families resided fairly far from one another. More often than you’d think, the families lived within walking distance of one another. The mothers and even neighbors might have known about the other family, but the children went to school together, unaware that some of their classmates were half-siblings.

Probably the second most common secret students have discovered has to do with their family’s religion or ethnicity. To assimilate into American culture, some immigrants suppressed their Jewish heritage. Other immigrants told their children that they were of a nationality different from their real one, which might have been seen as undesirable. And even within this country, many African Americans have “passed” for white. They still do.

The third most common secret I’ve come across among my students has to do with money. In one case, after a father died, $60,000 was accidentally found in a curtain rod.

Secrets in My Own Family

In my family, information related to money on my mother’s side of the family was vigorously guarded. After my mother died, my brother and I went looking for the inheritance due my siblings and me.

But imagine my shock when I discovered things about my father’s family and money that had been concealed from me all my life.

How Are You Affected by Such Discoveries?

When you discover a closely held family secret, what is its impact on your view of your family? Does it affect your idea of yourself?

Please leave comment if you’ve ever come across information that conflicted with what your family had told you about themselves and you.

Work With Me

Want some help pulling together your memoir or figuring out how to handle your family history writing? I can help you. I’m easy to work with.  Read what others say about working with me (scroll down to see all the testimonials) and get in touch.

Hi Folks:

I don’t know if I mentioned that I want this site to cover more than just the writing articles and advice it was designed for, but to address more personal issues.

With that in mind, I hope you’ll go on over to Bevoya.com to read my essay: “You Mean, I’m Vulnerable Too?”

Please leave a comment to let me know if you’ve ever experienced anything like this—an illness that showed you something new about yourself and transformed you, even in small ways.

PS That’s my husband at the edge of the photo above, wrapping Valentine’s Day gifts for the kids in our lives.

What if you have too many ideas and can’t figure out how to narrow them down to just one project to pursue?

My best suggestion for this problem is to pick the idea you’re most passionate about. The one that claims your attention and emotions. The one you find yourself thinking about every day, and even as you make your way to the fridge in your pajamas late at night. The story you feel no one else can tell as well as you—not because you’re a brilliant writer, but because you experienced the actual events and they left an indelible mark on you. The one that’s embedded itself in your mind and in your very cells.

Why pick that one, the one you’re most passionate about? Because you’ll be more motivated to write it. That type of story has presence, weight. It makes itself felt. It won’t leave you alone. You’ll be able to invest more energy and focus on it. And it’s more likely to pour out of you with little struggle. When I wrote “My Mother’s Money,” (not yet submitted for publication) it was because the story wouldn’t leave me alone. It was in my mind for years. I knew that in writing it I would get relief, but also, as is often the case with memoir or personal essays, that writing it would enable me to sort out some long-lasting personal and family issues and mysteries.

You can also choose to write about a humorous incident, especially if you’ve been feeling a little down lately. Just putting on paper something light—an incident, an anecdote, a favorite family joke—can give a pleasant lift to your spirits.

Another idea is to write something short. No big commitment required. You’ll just dash something off and call it done after a page or two, or less. I do that often. If I’m working on a long, challenging project, I’ll put it aside for a while and write something I can finish quickly. It’s very rewarding.

What if you can’t come up with any ideas?

Look around you. You might see a waffle sign in the window of a breakfast joint, which could lead you to remember the Sunday mornings that you had waffles for breakfast, as I did. My father made them. This might remind you that your father was more easygoing when it came to nutritious meals (as mine was) and that it was your mother who insisted you eat hot cereal on school mornings (as mine did). This says something about their relative personalities and parenting styles—which could inspire you to write a short piece about that. Feel free to bring in other examples of their differing approaches.

Or, you might be gazing at the ocean and recalling the feel of the warm sand on your tiny toes when you were a toddler or kindergartener.

But not everything has to be a cheerful reminiscence. Thinking about your kindergarten year might remind you that frankly, it was a nightmare. You couldn’t seem to settle into the classroom routine. Write about that struggle.

Take a look at your hair, and write about how difficult it can be to get an attractive hairstyle—maybe because of the texture of your hair, or the shape of your face, your receding hairline, or your thinning hair from age or illness. Get it onto the page.

Supercharge Your Life Story With These Ideas can help you dig deeper into your past and your present, for that matter. Give these ideas a try, and let me know if they helped you.