The Heart and Craft of Life Writing

Points to Ponder Before Tarnishing Memories

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 30 Oct 2017 16:21:00 +0000

Tarnishing the memory of someone held dear by friends, family or others is not a step to take lightly, but it’s a risk some of us must take if we dare to share the truth of our differing personal perspective on that person. You may have heard the widespread encouragement “Be brave. Be bold. It’s your story, you have the right to tell it!” Telling by writing is good. And, it’s prudent to consider all aspects of that decision before sharing or publishing what you write.

Sometimes that truth is known, and nothing you write will be a surprise. In my family it’s no secret that my maternal grandmother had both favorites and those she scorned. I was one of the favorites. My cousins, siblings, and I and have discussed that divide. I acknowledge her ugly treatment of the scorned one and though I admit to fond feelings for her, I do not eulogize her for the affection she showed me.

All too often hurt and resentment remain secret. One person I know, I’ll call her Clarissa, was so subtly abused by a former spouse that nobody noticed. She was unaware herself until the marriage ended. Eventually she recognized the problems for what they were. She’s writing about it, but has no plans to show her stories to family members.

“Don’t you think your son would benefit from knowing?”

“No. He adores his father. He would not understand and it would not be helpful.”

That woman is wise, and as we talked, several points about disclosure arose. This is not a new topic in memoir circles, but you may not have thought of all these angles.

Disclosing negative reports of your experience messes with other people’s feelings and memories of the subject of your disclosure and also of you. They may not always welcome that intrusion. They may react in one or more of these predictable and widely discussed ways. They may

Argue with you. Many will feel inclined to protect the person they hold dear and you seem to smear.
Get angry. They may be furious that you took potshots at a hero.
Not believe you.
Spread deeply hurtful stories about you.
Avoid or disown you. You may no longer be welcome at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
Consider you unfair. Especially if the subject of your disclosures is dead, that person will not be in a position to defend him or herself. If alive, ugly arguments can ensue.
You may incite a family feud.

Ponder the guidelines below as you consider whether to share even a single controversial story with a single person involved:

1. Am I writing from revenge? In a blog post, writing guru Jane Friedman cites advice from Marion Roach Smith’s highly recommended book, The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life:

Never write a story because you want to extract revenge or betray someone.

Read the rest of the post or Smith’s book to learn why. Linda Joy Myers, founder and president of The National Association of Memoir Writers, is another well-known apostle of this creed, emphasizing it often in blog posts, public teleseminars, her book, The Power of Memoir, and other arenas.

2. How will these people (this person) benefit from knowing what happened to me? The answer may be, they won’t. Especially if you write from revenge. But let’s expand on possibilities from Clarissa’s situation. Perhaps her son could learn something that would help him improve his marriage.

3. Are they likely to understand? If the son does adore his father, he’s more likely to defend his dad than look into his own behavior. Short of directly pointing out flaws in the way her son treats his wife, he’s unlikely to get the message. If she does point them out, anger and avoidance may kick in, further closing his mind.

4. Is my disclosure important to set family history straight? Connie faced major controversy when she decided to include ninety-year-old newspaper coverage of the trial of an uncle who was convicted of murdering his wife in a family history she wrote. “That’s ancient history. Why dig it up again now?” Connie did have a reason: to show current and future generations that they come from a tough line of survivors of many family tragedies who thrived despite it all. Most family members applauded her efforts.

5. Is sharing this story likely to be a satisfying experience? If you have well-founded hope of being heard and acknowledged with empathy and compassion, or of inciting positive change in some way, maybe so. If you foresee significant risk of inciting negative reactions, you could find the situation boomeranged, and that you’ve made things worse.

Always keep in mind that written words hold even more power than spoken ones. Once read, they can never be erased. If you do decide to disclose, do your best to show all relevant perspectives. This open-minded approach tends to be contagious.

Bottom line: Lacking a compelling reason to disclose despair, the greatest kindness you can extend to others may be to leave memories intact. Work through your feelings and get the feedback you need by journaling, talking to friends, sharing with trust writing groups, or seeking therapy, but beware of messing with family members’ minds.

Stories Instead of Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Sun, 22 Oct 2017 15:48:00 +0000

It's the stories behind the stuff
we keep that matter most.

So claims Jill Gleeson in a recent Woman’s Day article entitled How I got Rid of My Parents’ Junk Without Throwing Out a Lifetime of Memories. I agree, with a twist she did not include.

Jill wrote a poignant article that speaks to most of us beyond a certain age, and perhaps to our children who will have to deal with our collected remains, sooner or later. She describes a sorting process she went through with her father to separated junk from treasure.

Still at the end of the article, it sounded like she had half a warehouse of old stuff still sitting around, waiting for her to find it a new home at some point.

Perhaps she missed a crucial point here. She seems to be talking about stories in her head, and she has made no provision for those stories to live on. Also, her future housing costs will be higher as she seeks space for tangible memories. Here’s a solution that would prevent her from needing a warehouse in the short term and allow those stories to live on to inform future generations:

Take pictures and write stories!

This is also a way to let family members share treasures without having physical custody. The stereo slide you see below is one example from my family.

It is one of a set of a dozen. This particular slide shows my father’s parents on a hill in western Oklahoma shortly after their marriage. Only one set of originals exists, but about ten years ago I scanned those originals, making digital copies that could be printed if anyone cared. My brother has the originals and lots of us have copies.

My siblings and I know the story of these slides. Our children might, but it’s less likely they’ll mean anything to later generations. That’s where Story comes in. In a nutshell, that story begins with my grandfather’s early fascination with photography, both stereo and standard. The story threads its way down generations to several of my grandchildren who are avid photographers today.

I’m now prompted to wrap those slides in a PDF story package about the history of photography in Ben Melton’s family.

This photography story spans generations. A picture of my mother’s favorite broach would be more specific. I might include details of how she wore it to church and how lovely it looked on her green crepe wool dress, and how thrilled I was when she let me wear it on a special date.

If you click the Stories tab on the menu bar above and select Grabbing Granny's Dishes, you can read a story with a picture of my grandmother’s ivy dishes that now live in my cabinet and the rest of the family can share via pictures. The story tells how I got them too, which makes me smile each time I lift them off the shelf and remember that event.

It’s also worth including pictures of ordinary objects like black Bakelite dial telephones or saddle oxfords. How about various cars your family drove? Your old bike? You can find these photos online to create a digital family museum archive.

Clean out your closets and attic, basement, or garage right now. Celebrate your memories in photos and stories. Clog hard drives rather than closets and keep the memories alive as times change!

When Memories Morph

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 20:09:00 +0000

I’m gobsmacked. I pulled up this picture of my kid sister in that ancient stroller/ walker. I planned to stick it in an email to a cousin to illustrate a story snippet about our grandfather and my dad the day they poured a big square concrete pad in that back corner. I was three at the time, and I remember that while he smoothed concrete, Granddaddy smelled like whiskey and cigarettes, the point of my story to Cuz. That pad served two doors, the one you see, and one you don’t. The second should be around the corner to the left. That second door opened into the dining area. Or so I’ve always thought. Until today.

I strained toward my screen in bewilderment. Where is that door!? I KNOW it was there! Holy cow! How can this be? I mentally scramble inside that small dining room on a day before my mother and grandmother knocked a wall down while the men were out hunting. Before the wall came down, Mother had her sewing machine in that room along the soon-to-vanish wall. Until this very minute, I would’ve sworn to you that the door was behind her left shoulder as I sat facing her on the floor to her right, making tangles in thread while trying to sew.

Okay. I get it. The door was never there. I edit it out of memory and the picture still looks right. My earliest memories are in that Albuquerque house where we lived until I was six. This is not the first mind-shattering discovery about memories of that yard. Previous pictures have shown my sandbox was not where I remembered it being, and a willow tree did not have two of its four trunks amputated. What gives?

I have no idea why I remembered these things wrong, but neuroscience is no help here. This just happened. No need to explain. These morphed memories are not just a factor of my young age when they formed. Like most everyone, I’ve learned through the years that my memory often differs from what others remember, and I’ve seen evidence to back those others up more than once. The question is how that affects my story. I ask myself these two questions:

Does it matter? In the case of this house, yes. It matters to me to stick with the evidence and note that my memory was different. Since I have no emotional attachment to the earlier memory, it’s an easy switch. If no evidence is at hand when my sister and I remember a room color differently, I might flip a coin or stick with my version. If details change the truth of the story, they matter.

When it does matter . . . If I discovered I was wrong about something I was emotionally invested in, something that did change the truth of a story, things would become more complex. Using a hypothetical example, let’s say that while Nora was settling her father’s estate, she was stunned to discover documents proving that her mother was his second wife. He’d been married for several years and divorced before he met Nora’s mother, and furthermore, Nora has half-siblings she never knew about.

That extreme example would set off a hurricane of memories and emotions ─ and maybe research ─ leaving a new story in its wake. In stories about her father, Nora may choose to honor her original memories of her dad as a staunch church member and strong advocate of family values, then reflect back on them in the light of what she’s learned and what it all means to her. Perhaps her story would focus on how things changed. But if she wrote stories exclusively within the period before learning this fact, she may choose to write from the perspective of what she believed to be true at the time.

So whether you remember wrong or learn something new, memories morph. When you discover discrepancies, it’s your choice whether to make that discovery part of your story or the focus of your story, or to honor the truth of the memory that shaped your life and made you who you are. It’s your story. Write from your heart and be true to your Story.

The Gap Between Family Legend and Fact

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 01:47:00 +0000

With respect to family history, legends are those stories that survive through generations, like Grandfather Flynn was a Methodist circuit rider, or Uncle Roger fought with Pancho Villa, or Grandma Flowers single-handedly fought off Indians with an empty gun while her husband was out plowing.

The legends tend to be headline length and seldom have much substance. They contain the hook of a good story, but more often than not, the story has come off the hook. If you like the legend, you may prefer to keep the hook and forget the story, and that’s okay. Just know it’s a choice. If you’re a stickler for facts, you’ll check things out, and that’s getting easier to do.

The clipping above is related to a legend about my maternal grandmother. I’ve known most of my life that she (not my grandfather, but she) was a delegate from New Mexico to the Republican National Convention in both 1952 and 1956. I was proud of her for that. Somewhere along the line I heard that she started the New Mexico Republican Women’s organization.

Last summer while visiting a cousin, I copied the clipping above. A couple of days ago I found the copy and took the time to read it. That clipping seemed to validate the fact that she really was head of Republican Women. Turning to Google, I discovered that Stockton ran for Governor in 1954, and the Republican State Convention took place the end of February that year. So the picture was surely from that Convention.

I flashed back to a memory of a thumbnail story my grandmother told me in 1987, 33 years after that picture was taken. We were talking about her involvement with the Republican Women and she said, “Ed Mechem (a long-time family friend who began his first term as governor in 1951) asked me to help him get them started and I said yes.” That’s not much of a story now that I think of it, and it has a lot of holes, but I didn’t notice that at the time and didn’t think to ask questions.

So I clicked over to Google and discovered that a huge movement was begun in 1952 to get women to vote for Ike. That muddied the water floating my legend. I felt stymied. After finding her contact info online, I shot off an email to Jo Mitchell, current president of the New Mexico Republican Women. I included the clipping and what I thought I knew about my grandmother, including that “fact” that she worked with Ed Mechem to found the NMRW.

Jo promptly sent a long and thoughtful reply explaining that the organization actually began in 1939 and that Rene Dinsmore’s name was not on the complete list of presidents. Furthermore, Jo pointed out, the article does not say what she was elected chairwoman of. Most likely she was the state chairwoman for the party. If she’d been in charge of Republican Women, she would have been elected president, and not by the State Committee. As state chairwoman, she would have gone to the convention. That makes sense.

I’m grateful to Jo for the time and effort she put into her reply. I love the helpful spirit I generally find when I ask for this sort of help. Her explanation makes total sense. Discovering the communication disconnect doesn’t damage the story. On the contrary, the revised version is more consistent with my perception of my grandmother, so I’m pleased she set things straight.

This small disconnect is a perfect example of how we hear through the filters of what we already know – or think we know. I thought Grandmother was involved with Republican Women, so I heard her explanation that way and read the news item from that perspective. We hear a tidbit and our imagination goes to work, embellishing or coloring in details. Over generations, these legends may shape shift like messages in the game of Telephone.

In the end, what does any of this matter? Not much. I enjoy untangling stories, and I enjoy writing and telling them. I like to tell my grandchildren about my grandparents and older ancestors to connect them with history and help them feel rooted in a sturdy tree. I want them to know that our family has survived, one way or another through thick (many ancestors were wealthy a few generations ago) and thin (the Civil War and the Great Depression depleted those fortunes). I want them to know that many of their ancestors started with nothing or less and went on to thrive and enjoy success. I want them to know that many of us, perhaps most, have dared to be different and march to our own drummers.

I like to stick as close to the facts as I can, but I do admit that I will let at least one family legend stand unchallenged. I love the legend too much to risk deflating it. So I explain that it may be fiction when I tell it, and include the evidence of why I think it could be true.

What about you? What family legends do you cherish? What about those you don’t? Have you hit the web to look for facts? Do tell! Jot a comment now and stories for your family.

When Writing Does NOT Make You Feel Better

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 17:45:00 +0000

Write about a painful memory for twenty minutes a day for three days, and your stress levels will go down, your health will improve, and you’ll live happily ever after!

Myth or magic? Well, okay, the living happily ever after part is definitely myth, but the rest? Today, for me, it all feels like a myth. But how can it be? I’ve been a True Believer and a perpetrator of this advice for years. If you look at the menu bar below my header, you’ll see a link to an archived blog titled Writing for the Health of It. Hundreds studies have been done around the world validating successful outcomes for even short bouts of expressive writing. That is NOT a myth!

However, I just ran into a personal brick wall. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve spent at least twenty hours fine-tuning and polishing a story about how a nurse practitioner in a local hospital blew off my reports of pain and gave me a meaningless, fluff diagnosis. Had he asked even two probing questions instead of jumping to conclusions, surely he would have caught my predictable, textbook case of pericarditis hours after pacemaker surgery.

While I cannot prove anything beyond the words he wrote in the record I accessed through my online portal, I am 100% certain that if I’d known what I actually had, I would have avoided landing back in the hospital four months later with what became life-threatening complications. I might have had recurrences, but they could have been simply handled without more than $300,000 in medical costs and two months of non-productive time.

My anger knew no bounds when I finally felt well enough to start digging around in my records to make sense of it all and found his words there in black and white. I have filed a formal complaint that’s now under review by The Compliance Process Committee. It’s too late to change my outcome, but I hope to avoid future mishaps like mine for others.

I had also hoped to find personal peace and resolution through writing. That has not happened.

I am angrier today than I was before I
began writing. So what do we do when writing apparently fails to help?

I have a hunch that I expected too much too soon. The writing to heal research is full of admonitions about not writing too soon. We do need to let things mellow. I thought I’d done that, but now I see otherwise. My fingers began to fly the minute I read that report! I still want revenge! And that is never a good place to write from, at least for the public.

Also, my anger was amplified last week when, three days after my discovery, my husband had a completely different life-threatening experience in the same hospital. And my daughter is facing brain surgery three weeks from today (in a different hospital, thank heavens!).

Yes, my score on the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale is currently near the top. It’s too soon for me to be writing polished accounts and expecting closure. I needed the polished account for the review process, but aside from that, I should stick to journal entries and/or 20-minute writing sessions for three days and breathing deeply. And not reading world news reports! I shall sit with my anger and fully experience it. I’ll let insights like the one about wanting revenge surface. What else will I learn?

Have faith in the process and don’t stress if it takes more than three days. And stay tuned. I’m contacting others who have survived writing trauma-based memoirs. I shall share their wisdom with you as it accrues.

And please, if you have thoughts or experiences to share, post a comment, or email me at ritergal (at) gmail (dot) com.

An Empty Wallet Is No Excuse

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 08:04:00 +0000

Passion soared when I read this Facebook comment:

Being a writer is my dream. But I can’t afford to take writing classes.

I was not the only one to reply. The following list includes points made in other responses along with additional thoughts of my own:

Anyone who makes words visible on screen or paper is a writer. You do not need to be published.
Your local library is full of books about how to write.
The web is full of blogs, tutorials, newsletters, free webinars, and other resources to sharpen writing skills.
Whether you can afford to take classes or not, find a local writing group. I summarize their benefits in this post.
Do a web search to look for a group, and also ask at your library. All the dozen-plus successful memoir/lifestory writing groups I’ve been involved with have been library sponsored.
Keep an eye open for free or nearly so classes. Senior centers and community colleges are likely locales.
Online writing groups may be as good or better than local ones.
Check sites like the ones on this list for free on-line writing classes targeted to specific skill topics.
Search for “free online memoir writing courses” to find free classes and groups. Caveat: free classes are often a come-on for pricey follow-up classes and/or coaching services. Take advantage of what you can get and keep expectations low.

So, you see, you can learn to write well with an empty wallet. Don’t put it off. Start now. Eventually you can even publish for absolutely free via CreateSpace and Kindle, though you’re likely to attract more readers with a small investment in a good cover and some editing beyond what your writing group and beta readers can give you. Your own efforts are perfectly acceptable for limited family and friends’ distribution.

Beyond any thoughts of publication, WRITING IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH. I’ve written extensively about that, especially in my archived blog, Writing for the Health of It.

Now you know an empty wallet is no excuse. What else might be holding you back from following your dream of becoming a writer?

Image by Damon D’Amato, http://ow.ly/vzrI30f4kMT, used by permission via Creative Commons license.

Add Your Voice to History

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 15:32:00 +0000

Today marks the 16th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center. Who can forget?

I heard it on the radio as I drove to a meeting. At first I thought it was a retrospective of some old show like War of the Worlds. But no. It was real. We cut our anxiety-filled meeting short to dash home to the news. I sat near the TV with my laptop for days, getting news on both channels while my thoughts and guts churned.

That’s thumbnail account does little to convey the emotional impact of the day and season, but it does note my involvement and hint at the event’s impact on me.

Where were you? How did you hear? What did you do, think and feel? Write it down!

Don’t stop there. What other significant historical events directly affected you? My short list includes

Sputnik launch
JFK’s assassination
Great Northeast Blackout of November 1965
Airline strike, 1966
USA moon landing
Total solar eclipse, 1979 and 2017
Mt. St. Helen’s eruption
Desert Storm bombing begins
9/11/01
Hurricane Harvey

I’ve already written those stories. I wrote them to let my descendants know I was there and how they affected me. I want to make the events real in a personal way, to let younger generations know history is a collection of dots that live in people’s guts. Perhaps one day I’ll expand on those stories, including detailed description and my perspective over time, and tie them together into a coherent memoir (probably mini). Or maybe not. Loose short stories are valuable in their own right.

So where were you when Big Things happened? How did they affect you at the time and now? Tell the future. Make history more than two paragraphs in a text book!

Always Date Stories

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 13:59:00 +0000

If dates don’t fit in your story flow, anchor them at the end. Yesterday I had a frustrating reminder of how important this is. Read on to learn why and how to do this automatically.

Inspired by yesterday’s solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, I decided to polish up my account of viewing a total eclipse in Richland, Washington on February 26, 1979. I knew I’d written the story, but it took some digging to find the file. It was buried in a story I posted online, but I don’t know when I wrote or posted it. Ordinarily this wouldn’t matter, but today it did.

I know when the Richland eclipse occurred. That date is in the story, and I verified it online. I also refer in that document to an eclipse in Hawaii “about ten years later” that friends traveled to watch. Again, I was able to nail the date for that one online as occurring on July 1, 1991 – about twelve years later, not ten.

I have no clear idea when I wrote and posted that container story that begins with a mixed reference to celebrating Christmas and watching an eclipse in partial form in clear Pittsburgh skies while it was cloudy for some others. The original file date is 2010, but I know that’s wrong. That date signifies when I moved the file to a new hard disk. My best guess is 2003, but I’ve searched the web and can’t find anything about any USA eclipse during the early 2000s and my memory of that event has faded to the point I could doubt my own words in that story.

I’m kicking myself for not dating the story, at least in a signature line! A simple name and date would do, but there’s an easy way to ensure stories are dated with a bit more useful information. I generally begin with a story template that that includes these four lines at the end:

I created this template using fields, a mysterious function few of us ever need to learn, though these particular ones are simple enough. The Created date is unchanging. The Edited date updates each time I resave the file. In each of these cases, you click on the Insert tab and select Date & Time. Select your preferred date format. The difference between the two is the Update Automatically option on the right of that menu. Check to see that it’s cleared for the Created date and selected for the Edited one.

The file name field is a little different. It’s also on the Insert tab, but in Word 2013 you’ll find it under Quick Parts > Field. Scroll down the list to FileName, then select your Famat option. You can, if you wish, add the full path to the filename. That used to be helpful, but today, search functions are strong enough that the filename is enough without the path. If you have a different version of Word, you can easily find out how to insert these fields using the Help function or a web search, specifying your version.

To create this template, add your name, the filename filed, Created date field, and Edited date field to a blank document, leaving a couple of blank lines above. Format them as you wish. I like to reduce the font size a couple of points and italicize it, but that’s merely personal preference. You can add dingbats or anything you wish. You can align it to the left margin. Suit yourself.

Then save that blank document, but not as a .doc or .docx. After you name it, click the Save as type: field directly below the file name and select Word Template (*.dotx). This will place your new template in your Documents folder in a Custom Office Templates subfolder.

To use the template to begin a new story, in Word 2013 select New on the file tab, then select Personal from the line above the template icons. You’ll find your new template there. Select it and write your story.

This all sounds way more complicated that it is. The five or ten minutes you may spend mucking around to create this template will ensure that you’ll know when you first wrote a story. It would have solved my dilemma today.

If you forget and begin a story in a standard file, no problem. Just copy it all: use Ctrl+a)to select all, then paste it into a new template page and resave.

Now that I think of it, I’m going to add this snippet to my default template so it will be on EVERY document I create. I can always delete it later. If this sounds like a good idea to you, do a YouTube search for “editing default template Word (your version).”

Here’s to anchoring dates!

Politics, Religion and Sex

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 20:57:00 +0000

Janet Givens published a powerful post about the importance of speaking out and writing about politics today. Janet is always articulate and her PhD studies in political science especially qualifies her in this regard. I urge you to read it, paying attention to her reminder that politics, religion, and sex were three topics most of us were taught to stay quiet about in polite company.

I leave it to Janet to cover the matter of speaking out and posting on Facebook about politics today. Now it’s time to give thought to all three taboo topics and the role they play in memoir and lifestory writing.

In one significant respect, individual lifestories are like Lego blocks in human history. History is built of individual lives. Most formal history is written by victors and shaped to fit their biases. We can do our part by sharing our own.

In my last post, I mentioned my granddaughter who wants to learn about history. She wants me to tell her what life was like “back then.” I’ll do her the greatest favor if I couch my experience in relation to what was going on in the world, at least the part of the world that most affected me.

In my case, growing up in Los Alamos had a profound effect on my world view. I firmly believed Los Alamos would have been one of the first targets if the Evil Russians started lobbing A-bombs at the USA.

I can attest that my understanding of world events in those years was shaky, based at least in part on one radio report I hear in about 1954 that the USSR would overtake the USA within a couple of years. My naïve ears heard overtake as take over. That’s all my young mind could take in. I envisioned brutal combat soldiers running down our street with helmets and bayonets on their rifles. My blood ran cold, and it never occurred to me to discuss this report with my parents. Many years later I realized that the report was true. The USSR did overtake the USA in the space race within a couple of years. (Score one for perceptual inaccuracy.)

That scare only strengthened my awareness of The Bomb. I lived in the epicenter of Bomb research. I went to school with offspring of the men who developed better bombs. We gathered in the school gym to listen to tests in the Pacific. I was secretly relieved that my dad made sodium pumps for reactors, not bombs. Even so, bomb shelters were everywhere, complete with radiation symbols on doors.

My terror was the result of political decisions and the advance of scientific discovery. My salvation from that fear sprang from religion, watered down though it was. Early in my high school career I spotted a rainbow, a common sight in the Jemez mountains where Los Alamos lay. I recalled the promise, “I will never again destroy the earth.”

I stopped short of the conclusion to that verse, “by water.” I needed the comfort of totality. God will watch out for us! I moved on to fret about other things.

How can I write about my early life without mentioning those political and religious (maybe spiritual is a better word here) events? Or the pride I felt that my grandmother was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in both 1952 and 56? Or how my third grade class squared off into separate lines and chanted I LIKE IKE! rebutted by STEVENSON! STEVENSON! while we waited for the teacher to open the door. I can expand just a bit to give a small sense of the historical links.

Sex? Well, that’s a matter of personal taste. It may be more relevant to some than others. Personally the thought of reading or hearing intimate details of my forebears’ sex lives has creeped me out. But if sexual assault or abuse is part of your past, how can you not mention it? Or, you may recall days of wondering what it was all about. That’s something nearly everyone can relate to. A first kiss? Maybe.

My perspective on privacy is not shared with everyone. Suzanne White’s memoir, Unmitigated Gaul, goes into jaw-dropping detail about her obsession, beginning at an early age, with self-pleasuring. That’s not the central theme, but a continuing thread running through most of the book. To be fair, shocking though it was at first, she does, in my opinion, handle it tastefully, weaving it into an often hilarious account. She’s a great example of how to handle intimate topics with light-handed finesse.

You don’t need to make politics, religion (spirituality if you prefer), or sex a dominant focus, but you’ll give your story more substance if you weave in a few strands of each and place yourself in the greater world.

Collaboration: The Easiest Way to Write Your Lifestory

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 19:45:00 +0000

A few days ago I spent some quality time alone with my 11-year-old California granddaughter, a rare treat. We started looking at family photos, which led to stories and questions. Lots and lots of questions, the kind that belong on Story Idea Lists.

“What was life like during the 1900s?”

“That’s a big question, and lots of years. Life was much different in 1900 than in 1999. Which part are you interested in?”

“All of it.”

I began helping her break things down. I handed her the copy of The Albuquerque Years I’ve been keeping on a shelf for when she was old enough to read and appreciate it. That’s the mini-memoir I wrote of my preschool years, and it was the naïve, off-the-top-of-my-head project that lit my enduring passion for lifestory. You can download a copy from the Books tab above.

Next she began peppering me with questions such as “How did my mom and dad meet?” I wasn’t there, but I think they met in a lab. You’ll have to ask him for more details. “How did you and Grandpa meet?” That one I could answer.

Now I realize that asking all my grandchildren, and also my children, to pose questions on a continuing basis can result in the most valuable, relevant, and interesting document possible. For now I’ll answer each question in the form of a letter or Flash Memoir (see Jane Hertenstein's Memoirous blog for more info about flash memoir). Most likely each one will result in more questions. But how hard can it be to answer questions? Uhm, some could get tricky. The questions are likely to get deeper over time and stray into territory I may find uncomfortable. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Ruth Pennebaker is taking a similar approach in her Love, Coco XO blog. This blog is a series of letters that began when her granddaughter Ellie was born way up in Seattle two years ago. Ruth is sharing her insights and passions about life, love. feminism, politics, and whatever she thinks Ellie should know as she grows old enough to read and understand.

The main difference between Ruth’s blog and what I’m setting out to do is that Ellie is too young to pose questions, so Ruth writes about her current passions and inspirations. That can work well too. Ruth has a string of published books. Perhaps we’ll see Letters to Ellie one of these years. Right now Ruth is posting on a blog. I’ll probably stick to short documents I can attach to emails.

This collaborative approach could be your main memoir thrust, or it could supplement projects you may have underway.

Have you written anything yet in response to family questions? Tell us about it!

Three Cheers for Word’s Grammar Check

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 18:10:00 +0000

Grammar Check is not perfect, but it keeps improving, and I’ve come to rely on it as a polishing tool. The short video above gives you a bird’s eye view of how the combination of Spelling and Grammar Check work in tandem.

Until recently I ignored the Grammar Check function in Word, because only a small percentage of the items it flagged were relevant, and my writing style is, well, some might say quirky. That has changed largely changed. My writing is still quirky, but Grammar Check's improved analytical tools now accommodate that better. The percentage of relevant flags has improved to the point they are all worth considering, though some will still be off-base.

Whether I’m working on my own document or someone else’s, I polish the piece as well as I can the traditional way. Then I click over to the Review tab and click Spelling & Grammar to check grammar. I leave it off while I’m writing for two reasons. It’s distracting, and it can stifle creativity. Grammar Check is rule bound. Spellbinding phrases may transcend rules. Give your Inner Artist free reign. Write with colorful creativity, then use Grammar Check to tweak the results rather than stifling them.

I keep Spell Check on all the time, but only run Grammar Check as a last pass tool. It picks up easily missed things like periods outside quotation marks or missing Oxford commas. It alerts me to passive sentences. Or not. You can set the factors you want it to check. You can select a specific one, or you can activate all 35. Depending on what I’m working on, I use about six.

This next video shows how to select which factors to activate. This is especially helpful for rechecks where you only want to check one or two things.

These videos are based on Word 2013. You may find slight differences in older or newer versions. Never forget that any time you have tech questions about software, YouTube is an entire university at your fingertips. Some videos are more helpful than others, so if you don’t find an answer on your first try, watch another.

When you look at the list of options, or read explanations in the Review panel that opens on the right side of your screen, you may see things you don’t understand. Look them up. You will always find the answer online. Use a search engine, not the help button in Word.

You may decide you won’t bother with this step because you plan to pay an editor. Please understand that your editor may well be using these same tools, and you can save time and money by doing this yourself so your editor can focus on what really matters. A few times I’ve been baffled about what the heck a client was trying to say. That invoked an additional round of editing and extra charges. Grammar Check would have red-flagged those areas, saving that client lots of money and both of us frustration.

You can find other grammar checkers online. Grammerly.com may be the best known and gets high ratings. Teachers often use it to check student work for plagiarism, but that won’t be a problem for you. It’s now available as a free Chrome extension and plug-in for Word that seems to work even better than Word's native grammar checker. Although the installation process is well-explained, many find it intimidating. If you are one of those people, pasting your story into the online window may work well for you.

Here’s to clear, flowing rivers of writing, thanks to the help of sophisticated digital editors.

Lessons from Old Acquaintances

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 14:14:00 +0000

In a post on the Daily OM website, Madisyn Taylor sets the stage for a magnificent writing opportunity:

. . . when fate brings old friends back into our lives, there is always a reason. They may act as messengers, reminding us of a part of ourselves we have forgotten to nurture. They might appear to give us a chance to react in a new way to an old situation. They may even bring up unresolved issues so that we may complete them, giving us the chance to move forward on our life path.

Write on Madisyn! She attributes the reappearance of old friends to fate. But who cares how we explain it? You don’t have to subscribe to any particular belief system to see that however they reappear and whatever the reason, they can indeed offer learning opportunities. In fact, so can casual acquaintances and arch enemies.

I have good news. You do not have to have direct contact with these people to learn from them. They don’t even have to be alive. Memory is enough, perhaps even better, because it reflects only your reaction and reality, and that’s something you can work with. You can safely meet anyone on the page.

Give it a try. Think of a stimulating or challenging relationship from your past. Spend a few minutes replaying memories. Then get out pen and paper and reconnect on the page using questions like these:

How do I feel about this person and memory? Name the feeling(s)
What happened to cause me to feel that way? Was it something I did or someone else?
Would I feel the same way if it happened today?
What do I know now that I didn’t know then? How have my attitudes and beliefs changed?
How else can I look at the situation? About others involved, circumstances and/or self
What would I do differently if a genie gave me do-overs?

Use the list as suggestions. Each situation is different. Chose your questions to fit the occasion. I do recommend writing by hand at this early stage. Research has shown that writing by hand activates most of your brain while keyboarding engages mainly the frontal part. Hooking in those extra brain cells is likely to trigger richer memory and detail and flesh out the heart of your story. Keyboarding is fine for the craft.

When you feel finished with questions, you’re ready to turn your responses into story, incorporating insights you gained from the list. For example, nail the original memory with something like, Trixie called me a coward. I turned and walked away so nobody would see me cry.

Then add insight and proposed do-over: Eventually I realized that she was a bully, and I should have stood my ground. Today I’d ask, “Trixie, I’ve never seen you do that. Go ahead. Do it. Show me how brave YOU are.” Or something like that. I’d speak calmly, but firmly. When you write your version, flesh out the scene with more context and detail to give readers a full experience.

At least two powerful things are likely to result from this exercise. First, the new power response will be embedded in that memory, probably forever. Each time you recall that event, you’re going to feel stronger, some would say healed.

Then, assuming you share your story with your writing group, family members or friends (and that’s strictly voluntary), they are likely to benefit from your insight. They may remember and re-view a similar circumstance to their benefit. Or they may learn from your example and be better prepared to deal with a situation that has yet to arise.

Come to think of it, I feel ready now to write about a dysfunctional company I worked for twenty years ago. If I had written about it then, I would have done so primarily from a victim perspective. Today, after years of sporadic journaling, I realize how naïve I was at the time and see many things I could have done to improve at least my corner of that messy world. Twenty years ago I thought of writing an exposé, but I was afraid I’d sued by that major corporation. Writing from today’s more informed perspective, I’m certain I could safely publish a compelling, beneficial account. But the moment has passed. My memory of that time has dimmed, and other stories seem more compelling. I’ve learned what I need to know and that’s enough.

Lessons Learned about Lifestory Writing, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 15:39:00 +0000

My previous post gave the background for lessons I’ve learned about lifestory writing since The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing was published ten years ago. This post continues the list.

5) Stories without shadows are flat — It’s not easy to share stories about embarrassing or hurtful memories. But these are precisely the stories that add heart and connect with readers. Shadows add the third dimension to stories.

6) When you change your perspective on life and the past, life changes – several years ago as I began writing about growing up in Los Alamos, I hesitated. How could I write about my chronic feelings of being outside the group, of not fitting in and being different? I did not want my classmates to know they had hurt me, and I didn’t want to make them feel bad or sound like a victim. Using tools I’ve described in previous posts and will include in my new book, I realized most of those feelings were in my head, based on my assumptions and perceptions. I felt like the door to a prison cell opened and began discovering legions of others felt the same way.

7) Sharing our stories connects us with others – My term for daring to show emotional vulnerability in writing or daily life is “baring your belly” in the sense of exposing a vulnerable body part. Baring your belly takes trust and guts. It is true that a few readers may sneer at perceived weakness or feel squeamish. Far more will relate and feel empowered to bare their own bellies in story.

8) Neuro-science based guidelines for connecting with readers – A growing body of research relevant to writers is rendered approachable by authors like Lisa Cron. In her book, Wired for Story she translates the technical into easily understood strategies. She provides clear, convincing strategies for grabbing readers by the eyeballs as mirror cells wake up in their brains. Active mirror cells create an effect much like total immersion in a holographic version of the author’s experience. Learning how this works and how to apply it is a work in progress.

9) Writing is good for your health — After The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing was published, I learned of the work of James Pennebaker, whose pioneering research on the healing power of expressive writing has been replicated hundreds of times. These studies uniformly show that writing about traumatic, troubling memories, even for a short period of time, helps resolve those memories and improves physical and mental health in countless ways. My archived blog, Writing for the Health of It, includes dozens of posts on this topic.

10) Lifestory writing can be transformational for writer and readers alike – Wouldn’t it be awful if we had to learn every life lesson first hand? Who wouldn’t prefer to learn lots of the tough stuff by reading about someone else’s experience? Quite possibly the plethora of survivor memoirs today is due in large part to brave pioneers who began the trend of what several have called “writing themselves naked.” If someone else overcame (addiction, abuse, incest, deaths of dear ones, etc.), readers may be inspired to do likewise.

Note that this list does not include additional mastery of topics like writing dialogue or description or piecing stories together along a story arc. I’ve made no mention of creating eBooks, selling books, or other technical skills. Those are craft topics. I’ve stuck to the heart of lifestory writing in this list.

I would not have learned any of these lessons if I hadn’t gotten my fingers moving all those years ago. Writing, especially life writing, is a lifelong journey. If you haven’t begun yet, pick up a pencil or head for your keyboard NOW!

Ten Years of Lessons about Lifestory Writing, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 19:31:00 +0000

As I consider lessons I’ve learned about the heart of lifestory writing, I think back to the first class I taught for the Carnegie Mellon University Osher Program ten years ago. I’d taught several classes on this topic before without qualms. But here . . . at Carnegie Mellon . . . ropes of anxiety bound my chest. My Inner Critic exploded to life:

What do you really know? What are YOU doing in these hallowed halls? You might bluff your way through a Senior Center class, but this is CARNEGIE MELLON. They expect the best. They expect EXPERTISE!

In case that wasn’t enough, within minutes one woman in that first class boldly announced that she had just graduated from the University of Pittsburgh’s nationally renowned MFA program in creative non-fiction.

You’re screwed! She knows more than you do, and she’ll know you’re a fake. Quick! Run out of the room RIGHT NOW! Go home and don’t answer the phone for a year.

I’m not a quitter! I’ll give it my best shot, and we’ll see where it goes. Besides, with that one possible exception, I know more about lifestory writing than anyone in this room, and that’s something.

Taking a deep breath, I plunged in. I was weeks away from the official release date for The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, published by Lighthouse Point Press. I knew quite a lot, but Inner Critics are hard to placate or silence. I took a deep breath and plunged in after explaining that although I knew a lot, I didn’t know everything, that I continued to learn more, and we’d all learn from each other.

The class went well. CMU Osher invited me to teach again. And again. Eventually I also taught for the University of Pittsburgh Osher LLI program, across Panther Hollow from CMU. Teaching for the Osher programs at CMU and Pitt are among my most treasured memories of the years I spent in Pittsburgh. I’d always dreamed of teaching at an esteemed university. That dream came true in an unexpected and welcome way. As classes progressed, some students were new, but many returned, time after time. “I don’t write when I’m not in a class, and I always learn something new in yours.”

Well, yes. They learned something new because I continue to learn something new and share what I learn. May that always be so! Much of what I learned came from reading their stories with them. I recently stopped to survey what I’ve learned over the past ten years. Some lessons come from experience and others from newly published research. It’s challenging to sort them into a linear list, because many are intertwined, but I’ve given it my best shot and you can read the first four of ten items on the list below:

1) You don’t learn this stuff all at once — I began with piles of short stories. I polished them as well as I knew how. And I kept reading and writing and revising. I learned about scenes and story arc and building stronger connection with readers. I discovered that the more I wrote, the more perspective I gained on life and myself. What a bonus! The adventure continues, and I hope I never quit learning.

2) You don’t learn this stuff alone – I’m more firmly convinced than ever that writing is best done as a collaborative, team sport. You can improve your writing by yourself, but you’ll learn more and learn faster in a class or a writing group. At the very least, find some trusted critique partners online.

3) One of the best ways to improve your writing is to read – Painters study works of the masters to learn technique. Writers can do the same thing. Find fiction or memoir writers you love and pay attention to how they structure stories and use words to pull you in. Read voraciously and constantly. Join a book group.

4) Importance of clear purpose and focus — I learned this more deeply from reading students’ stories than my own. Some stories seemed to ramble without any point. “What are you trying to tell us? What’s the most important thing you want readers to remember?” I ask. They get it.

To be continued in the next post.

By the way, that MFA grad? I quickly discovered that she had not covered this subject in her studies. Furthermore, I couldn’t tell from her stories that she’d ever had a class of any sort. Who knows? Moral of that story? Never make assumptions! Claim whatever power you have and forge ahead.

What writing life lessons have you learned? I invite you to share in a comment.

Lifestory Writers Need a Village

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 22:26:00 +0000

Fellow blogger Linda Austin included a reminder in a post on MoonbridgeBooks that at least for stories about the larger family, the more family members you involve in the process, the more complete and vibrant the book will be.

Amen to that! Especially when you’re writing about multiple generations within your family. The principle still pertains when focus is solely on self, but in the latter case, you may be better advised to rely on a group of writing buddies rather than relatives. Writing buddies won’t try to hijack your story and feed your inner critic by reminding you “That’s not the way it was!” or “You sure do have a creative memory” or “Why would you write about that?

Whether writing about self or family, every lifestory writer needs a village of collaborators at various stages. These are people you can turn to for inspiration, encouragement, feedback and more. Your writing buddies, whether a formal group or scattered people, can help neutralize Inner Critic assaults. They can tell you when you’ve talked about people without saying who they are or jumbled your timeline. They can warm your heart with wows. They can jog your memory. They can throw logs on the fire and hold your feet to it to keep you writing when the coals run low.

I might quit writing without my village. Mine consists of students, former and present. Local writing groups. Losing my Pittsburgh groups was the biggest wrench in moving to Austin, but Austin is crawling with writers, so I was quickly at home. NAMW is an important part of my village. Most of my village lives in my computer. You are part of it, especially when you leave comments here or on Facebook.

You’ll notice I’ve been slow to post lately. Ditto on working on my book. Hey villagers, keep my feet to that fire. Let me hear it!

If you don’t already have one, find a village, online or in town. Write your heart out, then craft the draft. Persist with your writing. I invite you to share your experience with your writing village in a comment. Or leave a suggestion for others on how to find or build a village of their own. Or tell me to get off the dime and WRITE!

Don’t Wait Too Long

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 20:20:00 +0000

As I mentioned in my last post, my father died last month. The last few weeks I’ve become obsessed about writing family stories while digging through genealogy material and old pictures. I’m finding dozens of dots I never noticed before and discovering new insights with roots that reach beyond the Civil War.

One of the most touching things I’ve found is this emailed letter from my father that’s been lurking in my files for a couple of years. He must have memorized this piece. He recited it, almost verbatim, with a few new embellishments, the last time I talked to him, shortly before he died. I’ve been wishing I’d thought to turn on my phone recorder that day, but no matter. Turns out, I already had the transcript. I don’t think he’ll mind my sharing it as a tribute to him with a message for all of us.

Reflections on my life
Ben Melton, June 25, 2015

The most beautiful woman I ever met (1943):

The most beautiful (the same one) woman I ever met, with me, 50 years later:

I’ve led a wonderful life.

I married the prettiest girl. My children, my grandchildren and my great grandchildren are good-looking, good-natured and brilliant.

I’ve had, and have some wonderful friends.

In a multi-faceted career, I’ve had some exciting, interesting and rewarding jobs.

I’ve shot the biggest deer I ever saw, caught the biggest salmon I ever saw, flown the hottest (in my day) bomber, and the biggest bomber, and done acrobatics in a fighter plane.

I’ve survived multiple encounters with the grim reaper in the air, on the highway and in the operating room.

Fortunately, I’ve had a few dull moments to round out the spectrum.

My life doesn’t owe me a thing. It has already delivered more than I could possibly ask for.

Why am I telling you all this? Because if I wait too long, I’ll lose the opportunity to express my awe and gratitude for a richly rewarding life!

Love,

gDad

In that recent phone call he added, “I’ve done everything I was ever afraid to do except jump out of an airplane. I didn’t do that when I had the chance because I’d hurt my foot and was afraid I’d break my leg when I landed.” Reality-based fears like that are worth respecting!

At 187 words, this letter is a clear example of a mini or micro-memoir with a theme of gratitude. It’s also a love story and a celebration of life. It hints at obstacles overcome. It touches on triumphs with faint whispers of shadows, which he did not dwell on.

He wrote other stories too, but this is his capstone. It could have been his obituary if we’d remembered we had it. What a wonderful legacy he has left. I’m in tears all over again.

I hope this can serve as an example that less may be more. Pay special attention to his last words:

Why am I telling you all this? Because if I wait too long, I’ll lose the opportunity to express my awe and gratitude for a richly rewarding life!

It doesn’t need to take a lot of words. Now, get those fingers flying and write on!

Write Bites and Sight Bites: Memory Capture Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 08 May 2017 16:42:00 +0000

Especially during busy, turbulent times, tiny tidbits of micro-memoir in the form of write bites and sight bites can help preserve the essence of memories for future elaboration.

The past several weeks have been turbulent. The turbulence began in late March when I had a diagnostic heart catheterization procedure, then learned right after that I needed a pacemaker immediately to regulate increasingly frequent skipped heartbeats. The pacemaker is working fine, but complications from the cath procedure have taken a few weeks to resolve.

As all that began settling down, I had a strong sense that I needed to buy a ticket and fly up to Richland, Washington right that minute, to tell my 96-year-old father goodbye. Although I was on a plane three hours later, I did not make it in time. My brother caught me with the news just before I boarded a connecting flight in Dallas. But that was okay. We’d already said good-bye a few times. Perhaps that inner urge arose from the fact that I needed to be up there right then for an intense week of sorting things out.

Sooner or later, this period of time and related events will emerge in fleshed out story form connected with memories of my dad. In the meantime, raw impressions, random thoughts, and a timeline of recent events are scribbled in my journal in a form I’m calling Write Bites. The following few are typical.

I've never had such a clear sense of “before and after” as I’ve had the last four days since getting my pacemaker. Life has changed in some dramatic way I don’t yet fully fathom.

I've always felt secretive about health matters. How rewarding and liberating to receive tremendous support from disclosure.

I never expected to be one of those people who talk about life and death drama on a cellphone in an airport boarding area. I tried to talk quietly, but I did stay in my seat and I know a few people heard.

I've seldom been as relieved as I was when I saw George's text telling me he was waiting to pick me up at the airport. I would not have to spend half an hour driving a strange car through the, confusing maze of streets to his house in the middle of the rainy night.

I just realized my father was only interested in the headlines of people's lives, not the details. He was a story teller par excellence, but not a listener.

I wrote a lot more than that, but I hope you can see that write bites like these are enough to take me back into the moment. They’re also enough to give those who know me some sense of what was going on. In fact, they are closely akin to Story Idea List entries, which also fall into the category of Write Bites.

Another tool I used a lot was my cell phone camera. I snapped the sight bite picture above from my seat on the plane. The thought Mother Nature is crying with me ran through my mind when I saw those raindrops on the window next to my seat, minutes after calling the family. The flag image on the tail of the plane in the background seemed a fitting symbol. My dad proudly retired as a Lt. Colonel from the USAF Reserves, and this picture evokes the military honors he received at his inurnment a few days later. It’s an odd photo without the story, but as a sight bite, it strongly brings back the reality of that moment.

So what do you do when life gets intense? Jot a few write bites. If your journal isn't handy, use your phone or whatever you can find to write on — and/or use the camera to snap a sight bite or record a short audio thought. Someday you may want to flesh out that micro-memoir at length.

Connecting Dots to Find Story

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 16:58:00 +0000

My cousins and I play an ongoing game of Connect the Dots as we try to piece together a fuller picture of our forebears’ lives. What we are learning opens choices about how to shape stories we leave behind.

The most intriguing set of dots right now involves my great-grandmother, Matilda Evelyn Grammer, who married Robert Pinckney Roberts, son of Governor Oran Roberts of Texas when she was not quite 16 and he was 37. When she was widowed at 26, she was responsible for two nearly-grown step-children and four of her own, ranging from one to ten years old. Two years later, she married Paul Arthur Preuit, the (great)grandfather my cousins and I share. We know quite a bit about the Preuit part of her life, but her life with Roberts Roberts is largely a blank. We’re working on that.

Last year a cousin wanted to know if I could tell her anything about the possibility her mother (my aunt) lived for a short time with my father’s family – before my parents were married. That opened a new package of dots about both our families and the enduring friendship between these aunts.

Why does this matter? Why do we play Connect the Dots?

Our brains are wired to crave story, drilling down to details and closure. What is closure? Understanding WHY things happened and WHAT they mean. To some extent, we look to the past to explain how things are now, and imagine how they might be as we move forward. We explore examples of ancestors to make sense of ourselves and how we can handle the curves life may throw.

As my cousins and I continue to dig, we’ll find more information about where people lived and maybe glimpses of what they did, but for the most part, we’ll have to make up story to connect those dots. We’ll know, for example, that in 1888, Texas women did not have air-conditioned houses and we’ll speculate about what life must have been like as they toiled in gardens and doing laundry in the blazing Texas summers in long sleeves and long skirts. We’ll have to wonder if mid-wives helped deliver Grandmother Tilly’s children, or perhaps a doctor drove up in his buggy just in time.

We’ll conclude that we come from a line of tough women who knew how to survive. We’ll never know how Grandmother Tilly felt about the ups and downs of her life. What were her regrets? Did she wonder what life would have been like “if only”?

Implications for Life Writers

We can document our lives on two levels, detail and meaning. Details give the dots. Our descendants will know what happened when, in general terms. That leaves them to wonder and connect dots themselves, the best they can.

We can do them a favor and connect the dots for them, writing stories rich in reflection and insight. We can show the lessons we learn and what the bumps we roll over mean to us. These rich stories will satisfy our descendants, helping them quickly and easily understand us and our times.

The key to writing these rich stories is to take the time with each story we write to ask ourselves

Why did this happen?
What does it mean?
What did I learn?

Include the answers to these questions in your story and intrigue readers of any time and generation. They’ll thank you for making the effort.

If you don’t have time or inclination to dig so deeply, fret not. Keep writing anyway. Remember,

Anything you write is better than writing nothing.

At the very least, you’ll leave them dots to connect if they wish.

Three Tips to DemystifyTense

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 09:05:00 +0000

Question: “Is it ever okay to switch tenses in a story?”

Answer: Since you included the word ever, the answer is yes. Sometimes switching up your tenses adds power and interest. But generally no. These tips should take the tension out of working with tense and help you decide.

#1 – In general, choose one and stick to either present or past.

Because we may switch back and forth naturally in conversation, tense changes can slip easily into writing. It may take a keen eye to notice it, but some people will. Pointless switches signal lax editing and may be confusing. Only switch when you have a clear reason.

Present tense can enhance the tension and make short stories with lots of drama even more compelling to read. It’s an especially good choice for stories written to stand on their own. Past tense may feel more natural and works well for anthologies, composite stories, and memoir.

#2 – You may need to mix tenses if you are writing in the present about someone who died.

For example:

My father loved to tell stories about the olden days, and every now and then he e-mailed stories about cowboys, hunting jack rabbits, raising chickens and other nostalgic topics to family and friends. He was a masterful storyteller, and his work is polished and entertaining. Although it barely scratches the surface of his life, it’s a cherished legacy. We looked forward to each story.

He DID love, and his (remaining) work (still) IS . . . Mixing tenses is the only accurate way to state this and other cases where one thing is gone and a related one endures. This sort of shift is clear and easily understood.

#3 – Switching tense for flashbacks may be a powerful option and set them apart.

If your main story is written in the past tense and you reflect back to an especially dramatic scene, it can work well to write that scene in present tense, bringing the reader into the moment. Conversely, past tense makes sense for flashbacks inserted into stories written in present tense. Even if the reader does not specifically notice the shift in time, the change of tense signals it to the unconscious, preventing most confusion. Tips on writing successful flashbacks abound on line.

Think of tense as a two-lane highway with fast-moving traffic. In general it works best to stick with your lane. Look carefully for the right time and signal your intent when you have reason to change.

Guest Post: Still Me After All These Years

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 09:00:00 +0000

They say getting old is hell, but it beats the alternatives. Still Me After All These Years, Karen Helene Walker’s anthology of essays and poems on aging, written by 24 authors who know, may convince you it isn’t hell after all. It's a pleasure to be participating in the prepublication Blog Tour for this charming, funny, and enlightening collection, and I thank Karen for agreeing to answer a few questions about the book.

Karen is offering a tour-wide giveaway featuring two print copies (U.S. entries only) of Still Me and two eBook copies (International entries). Instructions for entering are at the end of this post.

Now for the interview:

What motivated you to take on this project?

It really began when I had to care for my aging dad and then my mother-in-law. I saw what aging does first-hand and began to think about what would happen when I got older. Then an 88-year-old friend made the comment, “I don’t see me anymore when I look in the mirror.” That really stuck with me. While on retreat with a friend, it came to me that putting together an anthology about aging might be inspiring and helpful to those of us who are already seniors, as well as those caring for aging parents.

What value do you find in a variety of viewpoints?

It surprised me when I began receiving submissions that each writer chose a different aspect of aging. I’d been afraid I’d have to reject submissions because they were too similar. Other than surprise at the various viewpoints, I learned a lot from how others think about the aging process as well as how they deal with the issues.

What have you learned about life and aging from this experience?

That I’m not alone. That each and every one of us is at some point in the aging process. That aging is not a choice, but living is. That none of us knows when our time will be up, but we can choose how we use the time we have left. I’ve learned that our attitude about what life hands us is crucial to maneuvering through this process with grace and dignity.

This book seems like a huge project, from soliciting entries to editing, to laying it all out and publishing. This may be like asking a woman who just gave birth if she wants another child, but ... do you think you'd do it again?

Sheesh. It is like labor pain where the memory of the pain diminishes with time. Working on the anthology was a very rewarding process, especially seeing the end result. There were challenges, though, especially having to reject submissions. As a writer, telling a person I couldn’t use their work was one of the toughest challenges I’ve ever faced. Would I do it again? Perhaps. If I did, the subject matter would have to overpower the reasons why I wouldn’t want to, which at this point would be mostly financial. It was costly to produce this book.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the contributing authors for their hard work and diligence in making the necessary edits, but most especially for their wisdom and humor in tackling this most difficult topic. And thanks to Mark David Gerson for his wise counsel in editing and his amazing book design. And lastly, thanks to Kathleen Messmer for her wonderful photography

Do you have any thoughts in closing?

These words from Tom Clancy seem to sum things up:

Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.

Karen, those words are perfect, and I totally relate to them, as I know many readers will. I hope they inspire others to persist with a writing project. Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions! I hope this book will touch countless lives around the world.

Readers, after reading all the stories in this book, I deeply regret that I did not get my act together to contribute. This is an anthology I’d be proud to be included in. If you are already eligible for senior discounts or soon will be, you’ll find meat for both body and soul in these pages. Younger readers, this book will give you personal perspective and empathy for elders. Give copies to senior citizens in your life.

Still Me After All These Years is available at the following sites: Amazon (print and Kindle), Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and iTunes. Be sure to add it to your shelf on Goodreads.

Follow Karen and the other authors on their tour . Check the schedule HERE.

About the Authors:

Rev. Clara Alexander is an ordained New Thought minister who creates and performs sacred ceremonies, including unique weddings, funerals, memorial services, baby blessings and house blessings. She is also a popular speaker, inspiring groups with her talks on how we cling to our grudges, how we overuse the phrase “I’m sorry” and how we can live the life we love.

Wendy Brown recently retired from a career in wildlife biology, where she studied sandhill cranes and whooping cranes as they migrated from Idaho to New Mexico. Wendy eventually found a permanent home in Albuquerque, where she and her husband enjoy the sounds of sandhill cranes from their deck. Since retiring from state government in 2014.

Valerie Capps has bypassed the porch rocking chair to pursue her life-long passion for writing, thereby proving that in today’s world, life can begin again at 65! Valerie lives in Nashville with her husband and their spoiled-rotten Welsh Corgi. Find Valerie's books on Amazon.

Mary W. Clark retired from her law practice in 2007 and transferred her observation and composition skills to travel writing. She is currently working on a book about her father’s World War II experience flying “the Hump” from India to China over the Himalayas. Mary lives in Paris, Texas. www.maryclarktraveler.com

Fran Fischer: “I was born at a very young age and that happened 82 years ago, so I don’t remember much about it. I’ve crammed as much living into my life as possible, and I’m not through yet. I’ve traveled extensively and I even flew in the same zero-gravity plane that the astronauts trained in. I live in California with my first (and only) husband, and we celebrated our 62nd anniversary this year.”

Pat Garcia (Patricia Anne Pierce-Garcia Schaack) is an American expatriate living in Europe. An accomplished musician as well as a writer, she has been writing (and reading) since childhood.

Mark David Gerson is the author of more than a dozen books, including critically acclaimed titles for writers, award-winning fiction and compelling memoirs. Known as “The Birthing Your Book Guru,” Mark David works with an international roster of clients as coach and consultant, helping them get their stories onto the page and into the world with ease. www.markdavidgerson.com

Holly Deuel Gilster plays “make believe” for a living. In other words, she is a professional actress and musician. Holly also loves painting with words as an accomplished poet, an award-winning short-story writer and a book-reviewer for The Or Echo.

Aaron Gordon is a retired social sciences community college professor. He and his wife, Ellie, have been married for 65 years and have three children and grandchildren.

Ellie Gordon is a retired public school teacher who spent the best 20 years of her life in the classroom. A Chicago native, she now lives in New Mexico.

Karla “Rosie” Harper recently retired from teaching elementary school, freeing her to return to her early love of dancing. Today, when not helping out with her grandchildren, Rosie is taking dance lessons, spinning on a dance floor or performing in senior centers and retirement communities with Albuquerque’s Sugartime, as singer as well as dancer.

Linda Hoye is the author of Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude, available through major online retailers. A native of Saskatchewan, Linda currently lives in British Columbia (by way of Washington State) with her husband and doted-upon Yorkshire Terrier. www.lindahoye.com

E.V. Legters hasn’t so much retired as she has exchanged one life for another — from rewarding years with career and children (while pursuing the arts on the fly) to a life with the arts at its center. She is the author of Vanishing Point and Connected Underneath and is currently hard at work on her third novel. www.evlegters.com

LD Masterson lived on both coasts before becoming landlocked in Ohio. After twenty years managing computers for the American Red Cross, she now divides her time between writing, volunteer work and enjoying her grandchildren. Her short stories have been published in several magazines and anthologies, and she is currently working on a new novel. www.ldmasterson.com

Kathleen Messmer not only runs a film production company with offices in the UK and the US, she is an avid photographer and wildlife advocate. In the unlikely event that she ever retires, Kathleen plans to live on a ranch with draft horses and pygmy goats and vineyards and fruit orchards, somewhere near the water. Oh, and a cowboy...maybe. www.kathleenmessmer.com

Karen Norstad has worked as cashier/gift wrapper, secretary, boutique seamstress, administrative assistant, manager of employee stock options, executive assistant and budget analyst. Now retired, Karen’s life revolves around lounging about, wearing PJs until four in the afternoon, obsessing over the news, reading, fusing and slumping glass, practicing piano, keeping a small balcony garden and cooking.

Matt Nyman’s nonlinear career path has included working in the geological sciences, teaching high school, stay-at-home parenting and, currently, training tomorrow’s teachers. Poetry equently resides near the surface of his existence, occasionally erupting onto paper.

Jill Plaman was born and began aging in Milwaukee, but she has lived and worked in Albuquerque since 1977. She holds a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MSW from the University of Minnesota. Her special interests are travel, international folk dancing, reading, hiking and spending time with family and friends.

Maureen Polikoff is a clinical social worker/ therapist who has always pursued many other creative endeavors, including painting, playing music and, now, writing. A Connecticut native, she lives in New Mexico with her husband, Michael.

MaryFrank Sanborn left Boston 33 years ago, to apprentice with photographer Walter Chappell in Santa Fe. Still in love with the beauty of the Southwest, MaryFrank photographs, writes, hikes, travels, teaches yoga and meditation, makes soups on Sundays, and dreams of the ocean and whales.

Patricia Stoltey is the author of four mystery novels. The most recent is Wishing Caswell Dead. She lives in Northern Colorado with Sassy Dog, Katie Cat and her husband, Bill. www.patriciastolteybooks.com

Susan Swiderski grew up in Dundalk, Maryland, where everybody calls everybody hon and eating steamed crabs is a sacrament. Although she’s happy in her adopted Georgia, part of her heart still lingers on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, explaining the setting for her novel, Hot Flashes and Cold Lemonade. Susan is currently working on a trilogy, proof that this old gal is still a pathological optimist. www.susan-swiderski.blogspot.com

Jan Castle Walker is a retired teacher and an active artist. She lives in Davis, California with her husband, Mack. www.jancastlewalker.com

Karen Helene Walker is a novelist, memoirist and essayist and the author of The Wishing Steps and Following the Whispers. When not writing, Karen is tap dancing, folk dancing or performing with the musical group Sugartime at retirement communities. Karen is currently working on her second memoir. www.karenfollowingthewhispers.blogspot.com

This tour-wide giveaway is for two (2) print copies (U.S. entries only) and two (2) eBook copies of STILL ME … AFTER ALL THESE YEARS: 24 Authors Reflect on Aging. The giveaway will end at 12 a.m. (EST) on Tuesday, April 4.

To enter, click on this link and follow the instructions. The widget may take a few seconds to load so please be patient.

Thanks for stopping by today. Be sure to check out this charming book.

Blog tour managed by MC Book Tours

How to Write About a Change of Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 22:05:00 +0000

The meme you see above has prompted millions of laughs, but can you imagine a more life-changing moment than a priest, monk or nun hearing this revelation after decades of devotion?

Misperceptions like this do happen, and they can shape lives. This meme came to mind recently when a woman told me how she spent her child and early adulthood terrified of burning in hell. She knew in the core of her being that ministers thundered messages of hellfire and brimstone “all the time.”

Eventually she discovered that her particular church believed that yes, the wicked did perish in “The lake of fire,” but they did not burn forever. The perishing was mercifully quick and permanent. The wicked were punished only by being deprived of the multitude of blessings the righteous are due to receive. She did hear about a lake of fire. That was true. But the burning forever part must have leaked in from outside, according to her informant. “I assure you, that was never part of our teaching.”

By the time she heard this, she had moved away from that church. But learning this still angered her: I didn’t have to spend all those years so scared!

Now she’s wondering how to write about this: “I really did believe that. That is how I heard it. If I was wrong, and I only have that one person’s explanation to go on, I still totally believed it. But now things have changed. And I’d definitely never go back to that church. How do I tell this story?”

“That was your truth back then, and nothing has changed that,” I said. “Not even finding out you were, or might have been, wrong.” My advice to her was simple and four-pronged.

1) Write about what life was like back then. Explain what you heard and how that affected you.

2) Write about the whiplash you experienced when you heard the other point of view. Who told you? How did you know to believe it? How did that affect you? How did you and do you feel about all this? What has changed?

3) Write with compassion. True, you may feel angry and betrayed. Own that and write it. Then consider the angles. Did any one purposely deceive you? Did you ever ask for help or tell anyone you were scared?

4) Sum it all up. By the time you’ve written through steps one, two and three, you will probably be feeling some closure, if you weren’t already there. Stories demand it, whether they’re still at the stage of self-talk or written down. Readers crave it.

Conflict or tension, especially the internal sort, is the meat of this and any story. Jump into the middle of the mud with both feet and let it all rip. Be brave. Write it real. Polish it to flow smoothly, but leave those emotions in place. They are the lifeblood of your tale. They add the juice and the glue that bonds reader to story and helps them gain their own insight from your message.

Two Terrific Tools for Managing Word Documents

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Sun, 12 Mar 2017 17:46:00 +0000

Time for some Tech Talk or Geek Speak to answer this reader’s question for the benefit of all concerned.

I have seven chapters and ninety-three pages in my memoir now, and I’m having a terrible time moving around the document. I tried separate files for each chapter, but with seven chapters and counting, even that’s a mess. And I’m a real klutz at moving chunks of text from one place to another. What can I do?
A Faithful Reader

Tah DAH! Help is at hand!

That help is in two little-known features of Word: the Navigation Pane and Outline view. Let’s take a look.

Navigation Pane (F12)

I keep the Navigation pane (or Nav pane as I call it for short) open all the time when I’m working on a long document. Press F12 in a Word document to open it on yourself (or click on the View tab, then click the box next to Navigation Pane). The gray area in the image above is the Nav pane. I can jump to anywhere in my document, whether it has four pages or four hundred, by clicking on one of the items. The arrow points to the section seen at the right. Of course you will not have that red arrow on your screen, but you will see the blue highlight the arrow points to. If I click on Get Off Your Buts and Write!, I’ll instantly be at the top of that chapter.

Here’s the deal. The Nav pane works with Style defined headers. The items above with arrows beside them are chapter titles. Each chapter title has a Heading 1 style attached. Indented items are sections. They have a Heading 2 style. This won’t be as much help in a memoir, because your only headings will be chapter titles, Heading 1. But being able to jump from one chapter to the next will help. And here’s an idea for the adventurous: you could use section headers for your working document and delete them for final copy.

Don’t throw in the towel if your eyes cross at the mention of styles! Believe me, you can learn enough in five minutes to save hours and hours of frustration finding your way around your document, and it will be easier to format later. Here’s the deal. Go to YouTube and search for “using styles in word 2007.” For best results, substitute your version number for 2007 if it’s different. Scan the search results and find one that looks promising. You might want to try two or three.

Outline View (Alt+Ctrl+O)

In Outline view, the Nav pane remains open, but it has a white background so you won’t be confused. In Outline view, you can move chunks of text slick as a whistle. In the view above I have all text displayed. The red arrow points to the round bullet next to a paragraph I want to move. When I triple-click a paragraph or hold the cursor over the bullet, the paragraph background turns gray.

When I hold the cursor over the bullet, it turns into a four-headed arrow. When the cursor is in that arrow form, press and hold the left mouse button to drag the entire paragraph into a new position. As you move it up or down, you’ll see a fine horizontal line between paragraphs that show where the one you’re moving will end up if you let go. Spacing will automatically be adjusted. No need to fix extra paragraph breaks, etc.

If dragging with the mouse is awkward for you, or you’re stuck with a laptop touchpad, use the up or down keyboard arrows to move it one paragraph at a time.

You can also highlight a paragraph and use cut-and-paste to move it to a spot too far away to easily drag. Place your cursor at the beginning of the paragraph beneath and paste. Again, all spacing will be adjusted.

By the way, you can highlight and move multiple paragraphs the same way as long as they’re adjacent.

Green arrow

The green arrow points to the outline tools that manage your view. By default the Show Level field is blank and everything shows. Click on the arrow at the right end of that field and you’ll find a number of options. If you want to move entire chapters around, select Level 1. I often work at Level 2, letting me reorder sections.

One other time Outline view really shines is for reordering bullet or numbered lists. Leave the Level view at default (or select All Levels found at the bottom of the list). Move list items around like paragraphs. Numbering will be automatically reordered.

Blue arrow

The blue arrow points to the Close Outline View button, the easiest way out. Please note: the Close button only shows on the Outline tab, and that tab is only there when you are in Outline view.

While these panels and views aren’t much help for writing simple short stories, but they can be a life saver on longer projects. Take three minutes to explore them. You’ll be glad you did!

What Word tricks make your life easier?

Personal Truth vs. Factual Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 11:24:00 +0000

Rereading old stories often sparks new insights. Ditto with old blog posts. En route to finding an old post about something else, I found “My Brain on Story.” That post is based on an incident where a witness to a mock crime testified that what turned out to be a plastic water pistol was the gun that fired the shot she heard. Rereading the post led me to reconsider the controversy about Truth I reported there. My son-in-law’s adamant position was that although the perception that a water pistol was a bullet-firing weapon was real, it was not true. I disagreed, clinging to my assertion that the perception was true.

Today a flash of insight penetrated my skull. Sally’s perception of an actual gun and speeding bullets was personal truth or perceived truth. The documentable fact that the gun was a water pistol was factual truth. While not every instance of questionable truth has documentable evidence to prove it “right or wrong,” in this situation , the matter can be settled. I still maintain that each form of truth is equally valid, but I’ll concede they are different.

Bottom line, in my opinion, it still does not matter. We’re still talking about terminology and the fact that perceived or personal truth plays a powerful role in our lives.

Sally’s personal truth that a pistol was aimed at her and that shots were fired is still as true today as the day it happened in 1984. I did not stay in contact with Sally, but I can say with absolute certainty that she remembers that personal truth, how real it was, and how stunned she was to hold the water pistol. I’m willing to wager that her life turned a corner that day.

The timing of this discovery is amazing. Life has intervened, and that new volume of advice for writing your lifestory is not finished, though I’m deeply engrossed in it again. I believe it’s no coincidence that I’m currently working on the chapter on memory and truth.

This flash of insight holds two jewels for that chapter:

1. Truth comes in at least two versions, maybe more. Each or all are equally valid, just different.

2. Insight and understanding evolve. I’ve written about this before. Lessons sink in and begin to grow when their seed sprouts, and some seeds can take a long to sprout.

My life is full of slow-cooker lessons and evolving understanding. What are some things you’ve been slow to learn?

Mistakes Make a Story More Interesting

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 20:15:00 +0000

The statement in this title may be a stretch, but a well-informed one. In item #7 on 10 Surprising Facts About How Our Brains Work, Belle Beth Cooper reports that “We tend to like people who make mistakes more.” The article explains that people who do everything perfectly seem unapproachable and intimidating while messing up makes a person human.

It’s a short step indeed to conclude that readers will relate more strongly and sympathetically to people who admit to doubts and mistakes in stories than to pure sunshine and roses reports. But of course! Who among us has not made a mistake, whether disclosed or not? Who hasn’t felt klutzy, embarrassed, or inappropriate at times? We may slap on a mask of invincibility, but inside we cringe.

Here’s an example of how this unfolds in story: A few years ago I read a soap opera superstar’s memoir. I had never watched the program, didn’t know the star, and don’t remember her name today, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. The book sounded like it had been written by her publicist and read like the Death Valley weather report: sunshine 24/7/365. If she had a single moment of doubt or discouragement, it was missing from the book. Anything resembling a setback or problem was immediately recognized as God closing a door and opening a window.

With all due respect, this left me cold. It didn’t sound honest. I can’t believe that woman is so close to sainthood. In my experience, life is not like that for me or anyone I know. In fact, such a well-oiled life sounds, well, boring.

Contrast this with Willie Nelson’s best-selling memoir, It’s a Long Story: My Life. Willie is a bigger superstar than the soap opera queen, but his story rings true. He has stepped in one mud puddle after another through his life, but his sense of humor and destiny come through loud and clear. He makes no attempt to disguise his many short-comings and shares lessons he’s learned from them. He sounds like someone you could walk up to on the street and he’d be happy to see you, whoever you are.

Which story would you rather read?

Take away tip

Temper your story’s sunshine with shadows to give depth and create reader connection.

Thanks for Reminding Me

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Sun, 19 Feb 2017 14:00:00 +0000

Remind: to cause a person to remember; to bring something to (someone else’s) mind.

Thank goodness we have people to bring to mind things we have virtually forgotten, even when they turn our faces beet red. I just found this 15-year-old story scrap in a log of posts to the now defunct Lifestory Yahoo Group. It illustrates both the power of collective memory and the value of keeping a scrap bag of story pieces.

The other day my honey told a story that totally cracked me up. When I finally quit laughing, I said, "Well, I guess nobody can accuse me of taking after my mother when it comes to having a sense of humor."

My mother is widely considered to have lacked a sense of humor until the last few years of her life when her brain began melting down. Then a childlike sense of humor emerged, and she laughed at the drop of a hat, even at the silliest things.

"Your grandmother had a sense of humor, why wouldn't your mother?"

"My grandmother had a sense of humor? You've GOT to be kidding!"

My grandmother was born ornery, and she was occasionally downright mean. Actually I do remember her giggling at things when we were alone. She had a cute tinkly laugh. But I don't recall ever hearing her laugh around other people. As the oldest grandchild, I enjoyed special status, and I saw a side of her others missed.

"What about the time before our wedding when you were showing off your honeymoon nightgown and negligee?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't remember how embarrassed you were when she laughed and told you how nice it would look pulled up over your head?"

I nearly fell on the floor. Until he mentioned it, I’d forgotten all about that, including telling him about it. I never ever would have recalled that story on my own. So much for not remembering that Grandmother did laugh in public. All the women in the family were gathered around, and I had to have been the color of a ripe tomato when she said that. Embarrassing as it was back then, today it seems hysterically funny. Impossible as it seems, I'm ten years older now than my grandmother was when she said it. Maternal generations in my family were short.

My honey is helpful that way, remembering things I forgot decades ago, and I help him out the same way. He remembers large chunks of what I've forgotten, and other relatives remember things beyond that. Lifestory writing is even better when it's a team sport! Unless your memories collide in a combative way, and that can get tricky. But that’s a subject for another post.

In a different vein, I recall half a dozen stories from that summer of our wedding: The Breakfast Fiasco, Can You Bring a Gun To My Wedding?, The Case of the Missing Room Reservation, Dashed Expectations, and a couple more yet to be written. Perhaps I shall polish these and piece them together as a sort of paper patchwork memory quilt, much like I’ve already done with Adventures of a Chilehead.

Finding that scrap was a good reminder of the value of saving bits and pieces of story, even if they lack the conflict or other elements of full-fledged stories. Short anecdotes can be thought-provoking or fun to review later, and often come in handy. You might want to finish them later as full-featured stories. Or you can tuck one into a larger story or an email or a blog post, or even post it on Facebook.

When I posted stories to that group, mostly a handful of paragraphs and fewer than 500 words, to post in that online group, I pasted each one into a Word document for safekeeping – which turned out to be an excellent idea because the group suddenly went poof! I have over 500 stories and anecdotes in those archive documents. Each was quick and easy to write, usually prompted by previous posts.

Follow my example. When you write a new story in an email, copy it and save it in an ongoing document as I did with this one. Those accounts form a sort of journal, and your scrap bag of stories will grow. Who knows? In five years you may find that you’ve written a book, one email at a time.

Do you have examples of long-buried memories someone else reminded you of? I’d love to hear about them in comments!