The Heart and Craft of Life Writing

Writing Out the Tough Times

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:01:00 +0000

Nancy Pogue LaTurner is that author of Voluntary Nomads, a book I reviewed a couple of months ago. Read the review for general information about the book. For now I’ll simply say that I was mesmerized by the grace and compassion with which she wrote an account of a time when her husband became involved with Another Woman. After some brief correspondence, I asked Nancy if she would consent to an interview about the experience of writing that account. She did. Here it is:

SL: You made a brave decision to write about an affair your husband became involved in for a time. Many wives who remained married afterward may prefer to simply forget about that difficult time and avoid reliving the trauma. What was your purpose in including this material? How did you make this decision?

NPL: Before writing my stories, I took several writing classes and read as much as I could about the memoir genre. Absorbing great advice from William Zinsser, Natalie Goldberg, Judith Barrington, and others, I realized that the essential element in any memoir is the author's own truth. Then I made a conscious decision to write as honestly and openly as I could about what I believed to be my truth -- both the good and the not-so-good experiences and the lessons learned. "The whole truth and nothing but the truth" became my motto. My nemesis, That Woman, taught me an important lesson: in her words, "Life is a series of tradeoffs." I believe we are able to make better choices when we are fully aware that any of our choices can, and usually do, rule out other options.

SL: Did writing about it reopen the wound and/or heal it?

NPL: It is important to note that the events took place more than twenty-five years ago. But, even though I approached the writing of this issue with resolve, I still suffered pangs of the long ago pain and anger. In fact, in the beginning I couldn't write it in first person. So I methodically outlined scenes and created character profiles for a fiction short story. About midway through my preparations, a bright light bulb lit and my story took its own direction toward an ending that turned out to be the complete opposite of what transpired in real life. The process was like picking a scab -- it drew a few drops of blood without completely opening the old wound -- and it took me right down to a basic level of healing. Experiencing an alternative choice (that is, to leave my husband) within the fictional account empowered me to let go of any residual anger I still harbored.

SL: How did you handle the matter of letting your husband know you planned to write (or had written) about this and include it in the finished manuscript? How did he react?

NPL: After I finished and polished the short story, I gave it to my husband. His comments revealed that the fictional account provided him new insights into my feelings. It also resurrected some of his old guilt and shame. We had a few valuable discussions on the subject, but he still seemed reluctant about "going public." He did, however, leave the final decision up to me.

SL: How did your children respond?

NPL: Our daughter, also a writer, gave me her complete support, both on the infidelity issue and also on the revelations about her own teenage problems. Our son gave no feedback. He explained that he couldn't bear to read the manuscript and thus verify that the best years of his life were in his childhood. Now, three months after publication, he says that he is reading the book and finds it "interesting to view those years through his mother's adult eyes." I hope to create an opportunity to hear more from him when he finishes reading.

SL: What sort of response have you gotten to that revelation from friends and relatives?

NPL: I also gave the manuscript before publication to my husband's younger sister and her husband. My sister-in-law urged me to examine my motives for telling about our marital woes. She wanted me to be sure I wasn't doing it to punish my husband or get revenge. That prompted another round of soul-searching for me.

One of the first copies of the published book went to a dear friend who gave excellent feedback on all aspects of the memoir. His heartfelt comments on our near-divorce had the most impact, especially when he revealed that what we thought was our "shameful secret" was actually known to many through the grapevine of our community. My husband and I both felt unburdened -- he no longer had to bear the weight of secrecy and I felt my courage had been vindicated.

SL: Would you do it again?

NPL: Absolutely.

SL: Thank you Nancy. Hopefully your answers will give hope, courage and guidance to others who face challenging situations and want to use writing to heal residual pain and anger.

Visit Nancy’s blog to read excerpts from the book and more.

Write Now: think of a challenging situation in your life and write about it as fiction. Give it a new ending. See how that shifts your point of view about the situation.

When Your Story Flips Upside-Down

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:21:00 +0000

A high school acquaintance recently pulled me into a Facebook group for people who grew up in Los Alamos – my tribe! They have posted pictures of historic scenes around Los Alamos and a lively forum-type discussion has sprung up about who remembers what and how. A fascinating sort of collaborative story is emerging with a type of shared, collective memory, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

One of the members is a retired LAHS chemistry teacher who arrived soon after I left. At some point I posted this comment:

Was Mr. Etherly still there when you arrived at LAHS? Or Mr. Cooper? Mr. E taught all the chem classes except the one I took from Mr. Cooper my senior year. I did not understand all the fuss from Mr. Etherly's students about how hard chemistry was. Mr. Cooper made it sooo easy! Then I took Chem 101 in college and had a seriously rude awakening. Alas! Mr. Cooper was a delightful man, and I always thought of him when my kids began watching Mr. Rogers. But a chemistry teacher he was not. Fortunately I was not meant to be a chemistry major, so no harm done, at least to me.

With gentle kindness, she replied that she had the highest regard for Mr. Cooper, and his students had loved him. “He was a fine teacher,” she said. Several of his past students agreed.

That’s when my mind went into spin mode. I felt a bit awkward and … confused. I pondered. I journaled. What was true? Was Mr. Cooper really a bumbling beginner who had been unable to control his class? Had I missed something? Suddenly I realized that not only had his class been genuinely fun, but everything I remember about chemistry traces back to his class, not the one at Texas Tech. Mr. Cooper made chemistry come to life and seem approachable. How many teachers can do that? I suddenly recognized his gift. He allowed the natural leaders in class to emerge, and let us feel engaged with it at our own best levels.

Then I remembered hearing that Chem 101 was a washout class at Texas Tech, intended to thin the herd and deter all but the most robust students from pursuing careers in science and engineering. That may not be all bad. In fact, it served me well. For a brief few weeks I actually considered majoring in chemistry. It did not take me long to see the folly of that decision.

When all was written and reflected upon, I realized that my attitude toward Mr. Cooper had been wrong-side out, and I owe both him and his compassionate colleague a debt of gratitude.

This group has sparked several re-visions and trance-formations in my Story, beyond many that have already occurred (see Your Own Magic Crystal Ball . Writing memoir becomes especially challenging when memories and perceptions are in such flux. Power tools for continuing to analyze and re-evaluate experience, then anchor it in story are especially valuable at times like this.

I collect power tools for life writers that are fun to use as well as enlightening. I will share a few of my favorites in February in Soaring High, Digging Deep, a three-week NAMW teleclass. This class will be an ideal opportunity to connect with others who may be helpful in shaking loose the shackles of assumptions and memory habits you’ve become accustomed to. Click here for more details and to sign up.

Write now: about a long-standing assumption you’ve had about someone . Challenge your beliefs about the person and see how they may change. Look for any silver linings in the cloud – or perhaps feet of clay in someone you’ve had on a pedestal that may have been a bit high.

Photo credit: Jason Rogers

Writing With All Your Senses — A Learnable Skill

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:17:00 +0000

When beginning writers read flowing prose full of dazzling descriptions, they may think, “I’ll never in a thousand years be able to write like that!” They may grow depressed and consider throwing their computer off a bridge. None of us are immune, as I pointed out in a past post, Inner Critic — Guide, Guard, or Enabler?

When you hear that voice, rest assured that your Inner Critic is the source, and those words are both true and false. They are true because our writing voices are as personal and unique as our speaking voices. You could study and practice for fifty years and be equal in skill and reader impact, but you’ll never write exactly “like that.”

They are false because writing dazzling descriptions is a learnable skill. It takes practice and dedication and seeps into remote corners of life, but the results are worth the effort. In my experience, a three-pronged approach has worked well to hone description skills to a keen edge. One prong involves reading, another involves awareness of surroundings, and the third is deliberation.

I’m a deliberately slow reader. I savor words as a gourmet savors flavors. I always have a pad of sticky flags at hand when I’m reading a novel or memoir so I can flag words and phrases I admire. Some books may have only a couple; others bristle with them. When I read an innovative description, I roll it around, saying it out loud to practice the sound and feel of it, letting it sink deeply into my mind. I imagine how that author may have come up with it.

After I finish the book, I head for my computer and type the flagged passages into a Word document I’ve set up like a primitive database. I have over three dozen books logged there, perhaps half the number I’ve read since beginning the log. I review the file now and then when I need inspiration.

Turning to awareness of environment, when I see something unusual in my surroundings, I ponder ways to describe it. I consider its color, texture, shape -- anything unusual about it. I think about things it may remind me of as I search for metaphors and similes. I try to think out of the box and stretch to find new ideas, relying on the exercise I just mentioned — thinking about how other authors come up with the phrases I admire.

Finally, as I edit, I deliberate and seek fresh ways of stating things and artful ways of arranging the words I use. Free association and visualization are helpful.

This is art, and it has a musical component. You hear a lot about a writer’s voice. This is something we each develop. I may admire Rosamund Pilcher from daybreak to dusk, but my writing will never sound like hers. It won’t sound like Sue Grafton’s either, and certainly not like Steven King’s, or William Zinsser’s. My writing will sound like Sharon Lippincott’s, as it should. My challenge is to continually strive to stay on pitch and in rhythm to keep my voice as crisp and clear as it can be.

I will be sharing description writing secrets and strategies in an online class, Writing With All Your Senses, offered by Story Circle Network in January and February. Click for class and registration details.

Write now: scan the room around you and find one specific item that catches your eye, then write about it. Describe it in an unusual way, and strive to involve all your senses.

Photo credit: Rochelle

Barbara Tate’s West End Girls

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:03:00 +0000

Guest post by Harry Bingham gives some prepublication back story from an agent’s perspective showing the need to keep ourselves in our story and prune the extra text to highlight the true story.

When people ask me what I do, I never quite know what to tell them. I’m an author, yes, but I also work part-time running The Writers’ Workshop, an outfit in the UK which offers everything from editorial feedback to running writing courses. Needless to say, many of the manuscripts we receive are still fairly raw, some are good but not exciting – and some, a very few, are simply mind-blowing.

Early in 2009, I got such a manuscript through the letterbox. It was huge. 160,000 words or almost enough material for a 600 page book. And it was a memoir, every word of it true.

The author was an 82-year-old British woman, Barbara Tate, but she hadn’t written the manuscript recently – she’d written the whole thing back in the 1970s. And the story she told tracks back still further, to a two-year period in 1948-49, when the author was a young woman, newly independent in post-war London.

Barbara had had a truly difficult childhood. Her father had been dangerous, her mother neglectful. When Barbara was still very young, she found herself abandoned to the less than tender care of her grandmother. Indeed, although she wasn’t directly abused, her childhood was scarred by lovelessness. She’d never really been loved, never really had a friend.

Her two passions were painting and writing. She painted as often as she could, and signed up to correspondence writing courses when and if she could afford them.

Then, to her joy, she became old enough to leave home. She had a few temporary jobs and was working as a waitress in Soho – one of London’s more exotic areas – when she encountered a woman, the like of whom she’d never previously encountered. That woman was Mae: glamorous, impulsive, charming, spontaneous and warm. She was also a prostitute.

The two woman made friends instantly. Although Barbara was (and would remain) rather conservative in her values, she knew friendship when she saw it. She knew love.

Mae offered Barbara a position as her ‘maid’ – half-companion, half general helper. Barbara accepted.

The manuscript told the story of how that friendship developed: touching, astonishing, moving. The trouble was that the manuscript did lots of other things too. Barbara had felt uncomfortable telling her own story, and kept writing herself out of the picture. The manuscript was amazing, but not quite publishable.

Normally, we’d suggest that such a plainly gifted writer do the necessary editorial work themselves. One of our writing courses teaches self-editing skills that a younger Barbara could have made excellent use of. Or we could just have offered detailed feedback and let her make any corrections herself. But she was in her eighties and simply not physically strong enough to tackle the work involved. So we agreed to do it on her behalf: cutting 70,000 words from that giant manuscript to tease out the amazing story that lay buried within.

The shorter and more focused the manuscript became, the more appealing it grew. It was a delightfully surprising combination of chaste and raunchy, nostalgic and energetic. Most of all though, it told a story. About a friendship between two women. Explaining why that friendship arose in the first place, explaining why the friendship was finally doomed.

We sold that book direct to publishers in a competitive auction. It was published very well, got glowing reviews, and sat for weeks on the British bestseller lists. It deserved all its praise.

Tragically, Barbara died (peacefully) before the book was published, but she had met her publishers, signed a contract, seen a book cover. And before she died, she told me repeatedly, ‘Harry, this book is the crown of my life.’ Considering that, after her time in Soho, Barbara became one of the best known women painters in England, that’s high praise indeed. She used to remind me that while her art teacher had wanted her to become a painter, her English teacher had always urged her to write. It turned out that it wasn’t an either/or choice. She’d done both and done them brilliantly.

Harry Bingham is an author of fiction and non-fiction. He also runs the Writers’ Workshop which offers feedback on writing and a range of writing courses.

Metaphor for a New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:53:00 +0000

Pictures make powerful story prompts, and this picture of a crumbling sidewalk is no exception. It strikes me as a metaphor for our path thorough life and fits with the general theme of the new year and story.

Each New Year’s Day I’m reminded that life is a cyclical process. Each year exists within the “container” of twelve oscillating months that fit on a series of rectangular sheets roughly the shape of a sidewalk slab progressing through the year.

Though some may be similar, no two years are quite the same. Even on a newly poured sidewalk, you’ll find variations from one slab to the next, and by the time a sidewalk reaches the age and condition of this one, the differences among the sections are huge.

Each year in our lives has a story to tell. Although it’s anyone’s guess what it might be, it appears likely that each section of this sidewalk experienced some individually unique stresses, leading to its individual array of cracks, chunks and deformities.

This sidewalk is a visible record of the effects of a year – probably in reality a series of years. Our life writing, whether public or private is a visible record of the effects of years on our lives.

A freshly poured sidewalk traversing a lovely landscape is relatively uninteresting in its apparent uniformity and smoothness. It’s good for roller skating, pushing strollers, and playing hopscotch, but otherwise little more than a convenience for walking from place to place. A life with no challenges would be a dull life indeed.

This sidewalk is full of stories. It has repairs and subsidence and other areas that appear to be intact. Some spots are damp. How did this all happen? Is this the result of natural aging or damage? Has it experienced floods? Did a careless crane drop a wrecking ball? What might that have felt like, and how does the sidewalk see itself now? Various years evoke similar questions.

Looking toward the future, this sidewalk will need further repair to remain safe and useful. Lives sometimes need repair, and writing can be a powerful way to effect it.

Taken as a whole, this sidewalk is traveled by people on their way to a destination. Whatever the condition of the rest of the path, this section presents challenges to keep your balance and avoid stumbling. Some years are like that.

At this point my mind wanders to another task for today or tomorrow: updating my personal timeline – the rough equivalent of adding a new block to the sidewalk of my life. I see the similarity between my timeline and this sidewalk. Each year on my timeline is different. Some years were smooth, some were rough and challenging.

Like this sidewalk, the challenging years are the most intriguing, the most likely to provide insight, and the most likely to intrigue readers if I write about them.

I find a certain sort of dignified beauty in this sidewalk, and also in years of challenge.

Write now: Update your personal timeline. Start one if you don’t have one. Pick a year that was especially challenging and write about it. Describe each of the fragments, and how it came to be. What did it mean to you then, and what lessons have you learned? Use this sidewalk graphic as a prompt if it fits.

Photo credit: Bart Everson

Write Like Nobody Will Read

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:20:00 +0000

Dance like nobody’s watching,
Write like nobody will read.

These words darted into my monkey mind as I gazed at Christmas lights, thinking back to high school days when folk dancing was a favorite activity. A motley mixture of adults and teenagers gathered each week at the Rec Hall for a medley of line and couples’ dances from many nations. College kids home for Christmas made holiday dances especially festive.

There were never any lessons – you just picked the dances up as you went, with occasional pointers from old-timers. Any athletic ability in our family went to my sister and brother. I was one of those kids always picked last for whatever team was forming in P.E., so, although I loved the music and the dancing, I was never a picture of grace. On some level I knew this, but put it out of mind. I was having fun. At least until the night Kelly gave me some startling advice.

“Quit trying to make like a ballerina,” she said with a sneer. “Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look?”

Ouch! Where’s the nearest hole? I fled to the ladies’ room to do battle with my Inner Critic.

Kelly was a couple of years older than I and home on break from college. She had studied ballet practically all her life, and she was good enough to turn pro. Undoubtedly watching my awkward attempts was painful for her, and tact had never been her strong suit. Perhaps she meant well, but her words stung. Fortunately she disappeared back to school, and I soon got over the humiliation and enjoyed dancing as much as ever, perhaps more.

I didn’t discount her message. After thinking it through, I did begin to relax into the music more, and seemed to move a bit more fluidly. If I was still a little awkward, so what? It didn’t seem to bother anyone but Kelly. We were there for the joy of dancing, not to put on a performance, and in general we were an accepting group.

Today as I recalled that horrific moment, I made the obvious connection to writing. There was a time when my writing was almost as awkward as my dancing. I have drafts of two short stories I wrote in 1978. They are utterly dreadful! I keep them as benchmarks for measuring progress. When I went to college I fell away from folk dancing, so I’ve had little opportunity to refine those skills. But I have continued writing for over thirty years now, and with lots of feedback, study and practice, I’ve made progress.

Today I often dance at home alone. I dance because I love to dance. I dance like nobody is watching, which is easy, because they aren’t. I write the same way. I write thousands of words nobody will ever see for every hundred I share. Maybe if I took up folk dancing again, I’d do better at it for all the private practice.

My advice for you: Forget the Kelly’s in life. Dance like nobody’s watching and write like nobody will read. If a Kelly wanders in, look for what you can learn and forget the rest.

Write now: about a Kelly experience in your life. How did you react? Did you shut down or keep slogging away? What did you learn then? What can you learn now for revisiting the event?

Image credit: Brendan Lally

The Perfect Christmas Tree

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 16:47:00 +0000

A story of Christmas Past

I stare with disappointment at the tree in our 1958 living room that we decorated two days ago. It looks utterly pitiful — like it’s made from Tinkertoys. The flat-needled branches are sparse, and it has no fragrance. I face the ugly truth: I do not like this tree. I fight growing disappointment with the whole season, wishing it would just be over.

Just then Mother comes home from work, wrestling a huge spruce through the door. It’s almost as wide as it is tall. “Nobody else at school wanted this, so I brought it home,” she explains. Its fragrance instantly fills the house. In meer minutes my sister and I strip the puny tree and the lush new one stands in its place. Santa’s crew of elves couldn’t decorate a tree better or faster than we do. When we finish, we catch our breath in awe. The tree glows with more than colored lights. It glows with Christmas Spirit. With joyful hearts, she and I load the record player and sing our hearts out.

The next day Daddy saws up the old tree and stuffs it in the fireplace. I’m torn at the seeming brutality of burning this poor tree because it wasn’t beautiful enough. I feel more than a little guilty at rejecting it for the sake of appearances. Then I look at the new one and relax —we didn’t deliberately go looking for it. It was a gift, a gift of abundance in this season of blessing. It was a gift of Christmas Spirit, something lacking in the first tree. This is the perfect Christmas tree, and I know it will never be matched in all my years.

“Thank you for yielding your place so gracefully,” I whisper into the flames, grateful that at least the meager tree can give us the gift of warmth to help us enjoy its replacement.

All these years later, I look at our dense, perfectly shaped artificial tree with vague disappointment, then realize it’s the best tree it can be. Not even a fresh tree could live up to the legendary Perfect Christmas Tree. “Thank you for giving us joy each year and being so dependable and easy to live with. And especially, thank you for not dropping needles all over the floor!”

This simple memoir story has become part of my Christmas Tradition, to be handed down through generations. Each year it seems to take on new meaning and become richer. Others read the story and find their own meaning. I’m glad of that, but primarily I wrote the story for myself. It’s a reminder of the day I realized something important as I sat in front of that fireplace. That day was a rite of passage. Each time I read the story, I learn the lessons of gratitude, compassion and purpose more deeply and fully, and the spirit of that lush, amazing replacement tree will always fill my heart.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.

Write now: Take a few minutes and write about some meaningful Christmas memory – or some other holiday memory if your tradition celebrates another time. Keep this story and reflect on it each year. Edit as your understanding grows. Over the years it will become rich and deep, full of meaning and inspiration, primarily for you, but also for others.

Stories, Stories, Everywhere

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:18:00 +0000

One passage near the end of Stephanie Pearl-McFee’s memoir, Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter, struck me as a poignant reminder that stories are in the very air we breathe. In this scene Stephanie and a friend are dividing up the yarn stash of a friend whose rheumatoid arthritis has made it impossible to continue knitting. Story itself becomes an essential element:

… Lene tells us the story of each yarn as we take it, and slowly, we start to feel better. For the moment we are soothed, lost in the tale each yarn has to tell us.

We pay attention to Lene’s wishes. That blue mohair, the one the color of baby eyes, it was supposed to be a shawl for Lene’s friend Michelle. I take that one. I lay it in the bin and make a mental note: Shawl for Michelle. Ken gets the discounted Aran-weight tweed. Lene had planned an intricately cabled pullover for herself with that yarn. I watch Ken; he’s making the same note-to-self, recording carefully what Lene’s intentions were. The chocolate milk alpaca (a scarf for Lene’s mother, Bea) goes into my bin … .

Stephanie doesn’t mention writing these stories at the time, but telling them soothed Lene, and hearing them soothed the friends. Writing about it in the memoir surely soothed Stephanie again and surely most readers are moved by the touching account. She returns to the subject several pages later when she reports that she did, in fact, knit many items Lene had been unable to complete, and that each time she knit a gift from yarn she received from Lene, the gift tag said, “From Lene.”

This section was a tender counterpoint to most of the book, which was rollickingly funny and laced with evocative sensory imagery. I have dubbed Stephanie Pearl-McFee the “Erma Bombeck of the Knitting World,” and even though I am only a very occasional knitter, I look forward to reading her newly released book, All Wound Up: The Yarn Harlot Writes for a Spin

In a previous post I told about a friend’s tea pot collection and the advice I gave her on how to write the stories they held. Not long ago I saw her again and asked if she’d done any writing.

“Yes. I work on it every now and then, and it’s great fun. I make an extra copy of each and stick it in the pot to keep them together. That way whoever gets the pot next – not soon, I hope! – will know its story, adding value to the pots. I’ve taken pictures of each to put in the computer files. It makes quite an album. Stop by sometime and I’ll show it to you.”

Whether you need a writing prompt for practicing description skills or want to record the stories of your treasured possessions, you too can be soothed with memories as you write the stories of your stuff, and your family will appreciate having them later. You may find it useful to have those details at hand if you later write a more comprehensive memoir.

Write now: Look around the room where you sit. Find some object that’s meaningful to you and jot down a paragraph or few of memories about it. When and how did you get it? What has it meant to you? How have you used it? What memories does it hold? You might want to take a picture to put with the story and make it part of your legacy of family history.

Image credit: Katherine

The Tree of Me

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:25:00 +0000

On a whim inspired by matroyshka dolls and Growing Old: A Journey of Self-Discovery by Danielle Quinodoz, I decided to make a sketch of my “layers.” I found a tabloid-sized sheet of blank newsprint, picked up a pencil, and within about five minutes this graphic emerged showing my life from beginning to now. For the purposes of sharing and further embellishing, I redrew it with color for the boundaries. It’s still rough, as you can see by the orange blotch in the core that didn’t work out quite as hoped. But that’s okay. This is a source of inspiration and insight, not destined for the living room wall.

I was surprised as could be to see it. I’ve thought for ages about a chronological map of stages of my life. I like this one ever so much better. It’s organic and representative. As Quinodoz points out, I hold all those previous layers within me, but redefine them and cover them with new growth as I go.

When I began, I had no sense of direction. I thought I might be making a graph of roles I play. This emerged on its own. I will still work with the role idea later, as creativity further instructs.

I especially value this form, because within the layers I have space to write thoughts about that era. Here I’ve included rudimentary memories of threads of activity and my emotions and state of mind at the time. The layer boundaries are especially bold and jagged for times of great turmoil and upheaval. My world shifted on its axis at these points. The colors aren’t significant. Note that the boundaries are uneven – like the rings in an actual tree. They serve to organize memory clusters to clarify my sense of them and provide inspiration when I write.

Perhaps I’ll develop this further, but for now it’s a super-rich source of writing prompts, and it basically comprises a life-long memoir-at-a-glance, at least for me. Those cryptic notes won’t mean a lot to anyone else.

It does show chronology, because the rings expand year-by-year. I didn’t put dates on the ring boundaries, but I could. I could do a lot of things. So can you, if you give this a try. I suggest using even larger paper so you have more room to take your time and make more notes. I predict that you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the patterns and

Write now: Find a huge sheet of paper or piece of posterboard and make your own cross-section. You might sketch it roughly in pencil first, then move to the full-size sheet. Add detail and make it rich. Then write about each layer.

Writers and Depression

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Guest post by Tessa Smith McGovern

Tessa’s observations here may not apply to most simple life writers who write part time and very much for pleasure and self-exploration. But her points are well taken in any event, especially the one about choosing which content to write about. That fits with James Pennebaker’s admonition to mix plenty of bright memories with the darker ones to keep depression at bay. I thank Tessa for sharing these points. It’s always good to know the risks of “turning pro.”

According to the website health.com, writing is one of the top 10 professions in which people are most likely to suffer from depression. Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Hemingway…the list of writers who have fought depression is long. But what about people with no history of depression? How might writing affect them?

Well, let’s see. Take an otherwise healthy person, shut her up alone for hours at a time, day after day, month after month, year after year, watch her pack on the pounds (as physical exercise becomes a thing of the past), ask her to write, knowing that the end result can never be perfect and, to boot, tell her there’s no way of guaranteeing if she’ll be published, or paid.

Hmm, tricky question…

So what’s to be done? Well, one option is to choose, when we can, what we write about. Some stories cannot be manipulated. Some demand a sad ending. The bleak beauty of Alice Munro’s short stories, for example, would be lost if her endings were happy (or even bearable). But sometimes, when the first thoughts and images are just stirring, we do have a choice. We can mold content and/or conclusion.

I discovered this for myself by accident. A few years ago, I was reading my mum’s copy of the Daily Express, a newspaper designed to make English senior citizens rant and rave, when I came across an account of pensioners stealing free biscuits from their local cinema. It was so funny, and just happened to fit perfectly into the story I was writing. Each morning, I was amazed to find that I couldn’t wait to continue working on the story. This, after fifteen years of writing! Now I keep a file of strange or funny or awe-inspiring articles. Every now and then, one fits into a story, and makes the writing fun.

Award-winning author and founder of eChook Digital Publishing Tessa Smith McGovern will be chatting about what it takes to write and publish a short memoir, live on BookTrib.com Tuesday, December 7 at 3 p.m. ET. Tessa will be here ready to answer all of your questions and discuss her three essential memoir-writing tips.

Alice’s Adventures With Self

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 04:41:00 +0000

Who would have guessed that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland would be a source of inspiration to modern memoir writers? I can’t recall the last time I read this classic that I often enjoyed as a girl. A couple of days ago I snagged a free ebook copy and dug in. I noticed many things freshly.

Nobody will be surprised to hear me confirm that Lewis Carroll is a master of metaphor and brilliantly creative. And of course the illustrations delight me even more now than when I was ten.

But those are not the parts I’m referring to. I was struck by the candor and complexity of Alice’s conversations with herself. I didn’t even try to count all the various facets of herself she brought into play via internal dialogues. Note that I said dialogs. It’s not unusual to hear recommendations to include internal monolog in memoir, that is, self-talk. But Carroll takes it one step further and has Alice talking to her selves.

This technique especially fascinated me, because it seems so true to life. I suspect we all do this, that a “core self” interacts with peripheral “others”, but we do it so automatically that it largely escapes our notice. I’m working on tuning in to see how many inner channels I can find. Then I’ll practice writing some “Conversations With My Selves.” I expect that will be both entertaining and enlightening. I’ll keep you posted.

My hunch is that as we start writing these conversations, we’ll become more aware of facets of self we never realized existed. We’ll become more complex and fascinating to ourselves, and including snippets of this dialogue in stories will add both authenticity and sparkle.

Why don’t you pull a copy of Alice off your shelf, out of the library or off the web? Free eBook editions are easy to find, and you’ll surely relish it again yourself. You may get a fresh inspiration while you’re at it.

Write now: write some internal dialogue between two facets of yourself that you are aware of. Since two personas are involved, punctuate it as regular dialogue rather than internal monologue.

Honoring the Simple Story

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:27:00 +0000

Everyone’s talking about memoir. It’s a hot genre to read, and definitely a hot genre to write. More people than ever come to writing classes with the stated intention of “Writing my memoir.” I’m firmly in the camp of those who support this intention, but with a caveat: few people who bandy the term around have any idea what it means, or the difference between autobiography, lifestory and memoir.

As you can see from my oft-used “Tree of Life Writing” graphic, memoir is a complex writing form that draws on increasingly polished levels of simpler writing. At the base is what I refer to as Raw Writing, a form that flows onto the page spontaneously and unedited. Its most structured form is journaling, which is generally kept in a volume for at least a period of time. Freewriting and rants may be discarded as soon as finished.

Although it is not included in the Tree image, autobiography is another umbrella form. Memoir is a slice of life, zooming in on a specific time period or topic. It is thematic and reflective. Autobiography tends to be more documentary, concentrating on events and chronology than reflection, and it covers your entire life to date of writing. Both memoir and autobiography are build from smaller component stories.

Stories and essays are relatively simple documents, focused primarily on a single topic or concept, and usually short in length. They can be as carefully edited and polished as you wish. They are well-suited for focusing on specific events, memories, or beliefs. They’re a perfect way for letting descendants know about ancestors and family history.

Memoir is the most complex mode, frequently composed of a mélange of short stories and essays blended into an integral unit. Scenes within the larger work are derived from stories – prewritten or freshly composed – and essay material may contribute to reflective elements.

I value and teach each of these forms, but I have a special soft spot for the simple story. I didn’t yet understand the full extent of the complexity and benefits of writing memoir when I wrote The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, which zeroes in on short story writing basics, placing them within the larger context. Even in my expanded state of understanding, were I to begin it now, I would keep that focus. There is a certain dignity and power in a short, focused story.

Short stories are an ideal place for new writers to begin, and many experienced writers choose to stick with this form rather than moving to the more complex memoir. The thought of writing an entire volume of anything is enough to send most people running in fear. But a story … we all know stories. Writing a simple story seems doable. Nearly anyone can write one story. And then another. If you write one story a week, you’ll have at least fifty by the end of a single year. If you skip a week now and then, you’ll still have a respectable pile.

Once you accrue a few dozen, you may want to begin organizing and sharing them in collections I refer to in the book as “Story Albums.” These make great gifts. Although the album is not a formal memoir, it does serve most of the same purposes, and is far easier to assemble. Depending on how you package it, you can continue to add stories, occasionally, or as you write them. You’ll find general instructions for doing this in my book, and Linda Thomas gives easily followed specific ones in her most recent Spiritual Memoirs post.

You still have time to make such a gift for giving this holiday season, but you’ll have to get started soon.

Write now: If you haven’t already begun to write, get busy and write a story about Thanksgiving. Use one of these ideas as a prompt: What do you remember about Thanksgiving as a child? How did your family celebrate? What did you like and dislike most? What vivid memories come to mind? What is Thanksgiving like for you and your family today? What has changed? What do you think and how do you feel about that?

Moon as Metaphor

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:35:00 +0000

Hang on! This is not about astrology or New Age philosophy. I’m working on my personal timeline – again. I made a table timeline years ago, and refer to it often. This one is graphical. I took a tabloid-sized sheet of paper and drew a line across the center lengthwise, placing it in the center vertically. I divided the line into seven decades, since I’m working on my seventh one now. My plan is to add “light” memories, happy ones, above the line, and darker, painful ones below.

As I began jotting memories in, I realized it isn’t always clear which side to put them on. Some, like winning the Distinguished Thesis Award, were clearly on top. Others, like getting pounced on by classmates in a grad school class (I’ve forgotten the subject, but not the event) are clearly way down in the dark field.

Few are that clear. The majority are basically happy, but nuanced. Becoming engaged, for example. I was a freshman in college in Texas at the time, and my fiancé was in Cambridge, Mass. Although I was sincerely in love, thrilled at the elevation in my status, and relieved to have “landed my man” so easily and early, it wasn’t that perfect and simple. I was a sad about spending weekend evenings alone in my room studying or writing letters while most of the other girls in the dorm were out on dates. I did feel a bit of regret when a fellow I’d enjoyed dating earlier in the year asked me out again and I had to convince him I really was engaged. I sometimes wondered if I really knew what I was doing.

If I take the simple example of getting engaged, having that question popped and saying “Yes!”, or flashing that glittering stone, the memory goes high above the midline. If I take the entire cluster of memories, they scatter, with a fair number dipping below.

The implication for life story or memoir writing is that writing about a single event, like getting that ring, will be short and sweet, and, well, trite. The story will be far more interesting if I include the full cluster of memories with reflections on my doubts and moments of angst. The shadows set off the highlights and amplify their meaning. Highlights give perspective to the dark times.

Looking down my timeline I notice that some periods shine forth brightly, lit with concentrated happiness and success. Conversely a few times, thankfully not too many, dense thunderclouds nearly obscured the sun.

Noting these cycles brought me to the metaphor of the moon and its phases. The moon is so predictable. On some clear nights, especially during the leafless season, it shines so brightly that color is dimly visible. (Cones, the eye receptors enabling us to see in very low light, are not sensitive to color.) Two weeks later, to the day, the night will be inky, with varying degrees of moonlight between.

These cycles, these contrasts, are what make for great story. Using the timeline is a great way to find this contrast. Note memories for the period you’re writing about, and place them above or below the line. When you have the least hesitation, pull that memory out and break it down into components, placing each above or below the line. You may find that it expands into the far distant future, or reaches way back into your past.

Adding these details, these shadows, give depth to stories. They make it throb with life, placing it in the natural cycles of moon phases, seasons, breathing in and out, and our hearts’ squeezing and releasing to pump blood.

The shorter the story, the less opportunity for variation, but every story has room for a bit of depth. Longer ones, memoir length, may go through several cycles within the larger arc.

Write now: plot out a key memory from your past. Select a complex one, breaking it down into components and chart their locations above and below the neutral line. Then write the story.

Image credit: Wikipedia, creative commons license

Don’t Worry, Just Write It!

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:52:00 +0000

NAMW founder Linda Joy Myers has been busy posting about the memoir alternative for NaNoWriMo. In her most recent Memories & Memoirs blog post, she points out that this is National Life Writing Month. She posts four tips for writing a 50,000 word memoir draft this months in lieu of a 50,000 word novel.

Linda Joy has been extra busy. She also wrote a guest post for Nina Amir’s Write Nonfiction in November blog giving another eight tips to help you dig deeper as you write.

I suspect many writers are like me. It sounds fantastic to write an entire novel, memoir, or other nonfiction book in a single month – one of the busiest months of the year as it includes the Thanksgiving holiday and the onset of the December holiday madness. BUT … I already have three books underway, maybe four. Starting a new one seems counter-productive. So what can I do? Besides, the first week of the months is already history.

Here’s an idea: Maybe it’s cheating and maybe it isn’t. Who but me cares?

I could take the rest of the month and FINISH the memoir I started nearly two years ago. The one that’s been languishing, morphing in my mind. The one I think I know how to handle now, “when I have time to work on it again.”

Who am I fooling? When do I think I will I have time to work on it? I work on things when I decide to. When the muse whacks me hard enough to get my attention. I’m a big girl. I can make decisions. I already have about 18,000 words. That’s over 1/3. I should certainly be able to finish a draft in the remainder of the month.

I invite you to join me:

JUST WRITE!

Don’t worry about word count or ethics. Don’t worry about punctuation, grammar or even structure. Don’t worry about what your clothes or hair or make-up. Just write! By hand or computer. The idea is to complete a manuscript, from beginning to end. What better way to honor the intent than to finish a work in progress?

If your enthusiasm or motivation begins to wane, think of all the writers around the country – indeed the world! – who are feeling the same challenges, and get those fingers moving again. And sign up for the FREE NAMW roundtable discussion this Thursday, November 10, with Nina Amir and Denis LeDoux to hear more tips about writing a memoir.

Write now: think about your works in progress. Do you have a book-length one you’ve been meaning to get back to? Open that file and take a look. If you have at least 12,000 words there, you can easily finish in the allotted time. I invite you to take a deep breath, spend two hours a day, and blast through to the end.

Photo credit: Julie Jordan Scott

Giving Helpful Feedback

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:54:00 +0000

Kathy Pooler’s Memoir Writer’s Journey blog post, “The Art of Constructive Feedback in Writing and in Life”, blew me away. Everyone who works with children in any capacity should read her account of the way her grandson’s soccer coach interacts with his team. Everyone who works with people should read the post and pay close attention to the juxtaposition of that style with the feedback she got on an early writing assignment that shut her down for decades.

Her post especially hit the spot because I’ve been deeply reminded lately that strong writing – deep, meaningful writing – generally benefits from feedback of one sort or another, and yet awkwardly given feedback can do more harm than good. In an attempt to prevent such a negative outcome, writing classes I teach, I always give each student a copy of the follow Feedback Ground Rules:

Stories you hear in this room stay in this room! This is crucially important for classes and writing groups to ensure people feel safe enough to share honestly and openly. This caution is not just about story content, it’s about writing skills. Who wants to run the risk that a fellow writer or student might blab to others the sort of thing your own Inner Critic is screaming? You need to respect everything about the writing process. If you want to share an amazing story, ask the author. Most likely the answer will be yes.
Be care-fully honest. Don’t white wash your feedback, but strive for compassion and tenderness when you point out aspects of a story that don’t work for you.
State at least two or three strong points for each piece. This may include memorable (velcro) words and phrases, a feature of the story structure, great description, moving content, anything at all.
Limit comments about needed improvements to the two or three most compelling ones. Respect each person’s need to grow writing skills gradually.
Avoid opinion — I like it, I didn’t like it, that was a great story. Opinion isn’t inherently bad, it’s just too easy to fall back on opinion rather than exert the mental effort to quantify why you liked or disliked a piece.
Tell how you felt about it — how it affected you. Were you inspired, amused, touched, saddened … ?
What worked especially well?
Did the story seem to be missing anything?
What one or two things can you suggest to make it even better?
Avoid the temptation to start telling related stories — make a note of them on your story idea list.

That last item is not specifically related to feedback, but it is a frequent sidetrack in classes and writing groups. I encourage people to keep paper handy to write these ideas down while they’re fresh so they can go home and write the stories.These same rules work with one-on-one critiquing, although in this case, you may do more line-editing. Find out from the author just what information he or she needs and wants. If it’s an early draft, there’s no point in pointing out every missing comma. Stick with conceptual and structural comments.

Should you find yourself in an unenlightened group and be subjected to a barrage of negativity, have a firm talk with your Inner Critic. Tell her something like “Consider the source. Some of those comments were valid, but I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and I’m' not going to assume their mean spirits meant anything other than that they don’t know much about how to be helpful. I’ll keep writing.” You may bring this up with the group and suggest some ground rules (you are welcome to copy the ones above), or you may just find a new group.

Be kind with yourself and others, be patient with all concerned, and remember that neither writing nor feedback skills are mastered in a single sitting.

Write now: jot down some thoughts about feedback experiences you’ve had. Were they negative or positive? If they were negative, use the “Is it true” technique to explore the implications.

Matroyshka revisited

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 02:37:00 +0000

My August 16, 2009 post, “Layers of Life”, used a Russian matroyshka doll as a metaphor for hidden or embedded meaning in your life.

After reading Growing Old, by Swiss psychoanalyst Danielle Quinodoz, I realized the metaphor is equally powerful when turned inside out. The matroyshka is a perfect example of continuing to build the self over time, integrating new experiences and insights with that core of self developed in childhood. It’s essentially the inverse of the process I described earlier. From this perspective, the young child acquires experience and incorporates or integrates that experience to form an expanded worldview or sense of self.

Unfortunately, as Quinodoz reminds us, not everyone is adept at integrating experiences as they go along. Early in the book she makes the distinction between those who grow old actively and those who grow old passively. She sees the difference lying in the ability to integrate new experiences and approach life as a delightful, ongoing adventure. Those who are unable to do this live in a state of boredom and monotony. Those who live actively experience what she calls “small seconds of eternity” that closely resemble what others refer to as being “immersed in the moment” or the “now.”

Early in her career as a psychoanalyst, she bucked the prevailing convention that it was a waste of time to do analysis on anyone over the age of fifty. Much of her career has been devoted to the study of the elderly, and she has concluded that it’s never too late to help people develop an integrated view of their lives, to find the meaning in them. People with this sense of meaning live more fully and die more peacefully.

Although the book is totally focused on the psychoanalytic process, her explanations and case histories are clearly stated and easily understood by lay readers, and I read it with fascination. Part of that fascination was the realization that the process of discovering, challenging and integrating memories to find deeper meaning in life describes the process of writing memoir equally as well as psychoanalysis.

As an analyst writing primarily for other analysts, Quinodoz does not give a map for the process of analysis. If you take the psychoanalytical route to self-understanding, you select an analyst to guide you through the process. Writing memoir, the do-it-yourself route to enlightenment, may seem to be a solitary, totally do-it-yourself approach, but it doesn’t need to be so. Teaming up with at least one writing partner, taking classes, or working with a coach or therapist can help you become aware of conflicting beliefs, blind sp0ts in your writing, and areas where you need to do more processing work before integrating the material into the story arc of your life.

Both require a huge amount of time and introspection. Psychoanalysis requires a significant investment of cash. If you work with experts to discover or edit your story, memoir may also become expensive, but the primary value of memoir lies in the drafting rather than the crafting. Either route can yield transformative results.

Write now: make a list of lessons you’ve learned at various points in life. Try arranging them in chronological order, leaving lots of space to one side. Use colored markers, crayons, or something colorful to draw links between related clusters of lessons. Look for patterns and interrelationships, and note any significant obstacles you overcame in learning a lesson. Keep this document to organize stories about the lessons.

Fear of Exposure

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:23:00 +0000

I’ve done things in my life that I’m not proud of, and I’ve never told anyone about them. Do I have to write about those things in my lifestory?

I just read a memoir that left me with my mouth hanging open. I almost quit reading because of all the talk about sex, drugs and other stuff. Even if I’d lived through anything like that, I could never write about it. Is that what it takes to write a memoir?

This are typical questions about self-disclosure that I’m asked as a lifewriting coach and teacher. The simple answer is NO. If a subject gives you pause, respect that feeling. Don’t leave your comfort zone without good reason. The healthy thing to do is to write those stories in full detail. Spill your guts on the page, but keep it private at first. This will give you the health benefits of writing without the counter-acting stress of confrontations.

Once those stories are written, you have many options. You can burn the pages, or decide to delay sharing them. Depending on your relative ages, you may wait until those key players die to publish your work. But if you’re young and they aren’t old, another solution may be better. Here are a few considerations:

Look at the situation from other perspectives. You’ve probably only been thinking of this experience from your own point of view. Perhaps it looks quite different from the other person’s or the reader’s. Try experimenting by writing what you think the other person would say about it. You may find that it looks quite different, and your story may change as a result. This experiment may have additional value. In a recent IAJW member teleseminar James Pennebaker again emphasized that subjects in his research who adopted the most diverse points of view in their writing demonstrated the strongest health benefits.

Question your assumptions. Perhaps you overestimate the power of other people’s reactions. Perhaps some of your assumptions about what actually happened are a bit off-base. The techniques Byron Katie developed in The Work provide a simple process for challenging assumptions and beliefs.

Consider the value for readers. After reading several memoirs that were candid about the pain of feeling different during childhood, I’ve come to realize this is a much more common situation than I’d ever imagined, and I would not know that if those authors had not been brave enough to share their experience. As a result, I feel more comfortable openly joining their “club.”

Realize that reader attitudes are changing. Who doesn’t know that a vast sea of change has taken place over the course of a generation. My daughter’s generation could shock the socks off my mother’s with ordinary conversations among friends. They are more candid about nearly everything, and write accordingly. Even among those who are old enough to remember living conditions during World War II, many are disclosing things they would not have dreamed of telling fifty years ago.

Be compassionate with yourself. If you decide to admit to shortcomings or transgressions of various sorts, don’t just toss them out there and duck for cover. Include enough reflection to let the reader know what lessons you learned. Extend the same compassion and understanding to yourself that you would to a grandchild or any younger person who was feeling fears, pressures to conform, or general lack of insight similar to you experienced.

Never include anything simply for shock value. If, for example, your story involves sexual experiences, it’s okay to close the doors for privacy after the reader knows what’s going on behind them. Include only those details necessary to serve the purpose and move the story along.

These considerations barely brush the surface of this deep topic. For what promises to be a thought-provoking discussion about the issue of self-disclosure, sign up for the free NAMW telesummit on Friday, October 21 and dial in for the fourth session: Young Memoirists Talk about Truth, featuring Elisabeth Eaves, Nicole Johns, and Anna Mitchael. Everyone who signs up will receive an email link to listen to replays if you can’t dial in live.

Write now: think of a story you are afraid to share and work through the considerations above. You may still not want to share it, but I guarantee you’ll see the situation somewhat differently as a result.

Photo Credit: Wesley Oostvogels

Everyone Wins With Memoir

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 01:10:00 +0000

Last weekend at a panel discussion on various forms of electronic publishing, someone in the audience mentioned that the number of publishers listed as accepting fiction submissions in the current edition of Writer’s Market has shrunk dramatically from previous years. “Only a handful are interested,” she lamented.

This could be a sign of the turmoil currently swirling through the traditional publishing industry. Perhaps more significant is the surging shift of public preference toward memoir. It’s tippy to compare the memoir craze to the glut of reality show programming on television, but both feature presumably real people with the emphasis on real. Few people seriously believe reality shows aren’t scripted, but catch a memoir writer playing fast and loose with the facts, and the blogosphere conflagrates. People want to believe memoir is true. They relate to it.

Maybe the memoir mania springs from a sense of isolation due as people turn increasingly often to Facebook and text messages rather than personal contact. Memoir offers a sense of genuine connection with the author. Reading a memoir can offer hope to those in similar situations and reassurance to those who may see their own lives in a more positive light by comparison. Light or humorous memoir is pure fun to read.

Memoir may both entertain and benefit readers, but it benefits the author even more. I’m currently reading Growing Old, by Swiss psychoanalyst Danielle Quinodoz. The book focuses on the enormous value elderly people derive from reviewing their memories and attaining an integrated overview of their lives, for better or worse. Her observation is that people who are able to view their lives in this meaningful way experience more joy in living, especially in their last years. They tend to approach aging more actively, retaining curiosity and involvement with life and the people around them, and they are more likely to die peacefully and serenely.

As I read, I’m struck by the thought that this benefit of living more joyfully and meaningfully is available at any age, and although her focus is totally on psychoanalysis, the integrated overview she describes fits memoir perfectly.

I’ve written a number of posts here and on Writing for the Health of It about the physical and emotional health benefits of writing. The “raw” writing modes of freewriting and journaling are beneficial for exploration of specific issues. “Processed” writing in the form of stories and essays serve well to focus memories of events, people and reactions. Memoir draws on both raw and processed components to provide an integrated overview of a specific time or aspect of life, lending greater meaning and depth.

Psychoanalysis can lead to profound transformation for those who can afford it. The rest of us can invest in paper, pens, and maybe a few guidebooks (The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing is a great place to begin if you’re starting cold, and The Power of Memoir is superb). Taking a class, locally or online is a great way to hone your skills. You can enhance your results by joining a writing group specializing in life writing – start one if you can’t find one already meeting. Join an online group like the Life Writers Forum or the National Association of Memoir Writers. Or find a writing coach to work with. You can work with a coach for a long time for a fraction of the cost of psychoanalysis.

However you do it, whether you publish your memoir or not, you’ll gain enormous perspective and insight on your life. You’ll win even if nobody ever reads it. But the time has never been better to publish your story. The publishing industry has never been more approachable, and the self-publishing option is wide open.

However you go about it, both you and your readers win with memoir.

To learn more about writing and publishing memoir, sign up for the FREE National Association of Memoir Writers’ fall Telesummit on October 21. Jennifer Lauck will discuss the topic Memoir: A Hot Genre in Today’s Marketplace during the second of the five hour-long sessions. Click here for more information and to sign up. Everyone who signs up will receive an email with a link to listen to replays, and NAMW members can download for later listening.

Write Now: sign up for the NAMW Fall Telesummit

Photo credit: Lissalou66

Accessing Intuition

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:29:00 +0000

I recently wrote a review of Someone to Talk To, Samantha M. White’s compelling memoir of her long process of building a life of serenity, love and happiness after falling into a pit despair when her young daughter died in a fatal car crash after a string of traumatic events. Since writing the review, Samantha and I have exchanged a number of emails about writing and memoir, and I’m delighted that she agreed to share the following thoughts as a guest post.

My rule for intuitive writing: While writing, don’t edit. Editing is the job of the brain; writing is the job of the heart. The heart knows no rules. Intuitive writing is what comes from the heart.

I believe the voice of my intuition has always been there, that we are probably all born with it. Parents, teachers, friends, and the media, in the process of “civilizing” us, overlay it with “rules” – lots of “don’ts” (”Don’t waste paper, don’t talk about others, don’t talk about sex,”) “always” (“Always stand up straight, always start a sentence with a noun phrase, always keep your prepositional phrases short,”) “never” (“Never wear white after Labor Day, never use an exclamation point at the end of a complete sentence”) and “shoulds” (A chapter should have a structure, contain action, a lady shouldn’t wear trousers in public,” etc.). I learned when I was still a teen-ager that cocktails were before dinner drinks, cordials were served after the meal. Red wine went with meat, white wines with chicken and fish. Those rules were as important as using the correct fork at the banquet table and sticking to the correct subjects in my speech and my writing. It was all part of the same very long list of Rights and Wrongs.

The rules were good to know, in order to not appear clumsy, gauche, or ignorant. But rules can pile up and eventually become so numerous that they hold the door to our intuition shut by their sheer weight. They become a barrier between us and our intuition, which is the free expression of our inner voice, our heart voice.

So accessing intuition, for me, was about judiciously discarding rules. In violation of what I had been taught, I wrote in incomplete sentences and about forbidden topics, and revealed my true self, weaknesses and strengths alike.

Does that suggest we would have better access to our intuition if we were not conscientiously “civilized” by our elders? Probably. But intuition without thought wouldn’t make for skill. I needed to know the rules AND to give myself permission to break them, first knowing, in every case, the reason why I was doing it, and measuring whether my action would cause anyone harm, and if it supported or violated my ethics and purpose.

So I guess my take on intuition is: know the rules of good writing, and then consciously put them aside and write from the heart. Write the initial drafts with confidence that they will never be seen by the reading public. Journal writing is especially valuable practice for accessing intuition, especially when we finally learn to trust that no one else is going to read it. Then we write as if we were talking to ourselves, telling ourselves only what is true and important, without regard for anyone else’s opinion of it. It helps open the door previously held shut by concerns of what others will think of us.

If writing for publication, go back afterward and check whether the writing conforms to good grammar, etc. Allow violations, but know the reason why. Always have an editor you can trust to both know the rules and respect your heart. The first step in writing a good paper, article, story, or book is to first write a “bad” one. It’s not really bad, of course, just probably in need of lots of good editing. Know the difference between editing and writing. Start with the writing.

Samantha M. WHite, MSW, LICSW, is a psychotherapist and life coach in private practice. She has earned college degrees in Pre-Med, Chemistry, Computer Science, and Social Work, achieving her most recent degree, the MSW, at the age of fifty-five. Her career has spanned the fields of medical research, education, health care administration, business and medical, hospice, and clinical social work, and she is a writer, educator, and public speaker. She lives in New England with her jazz musician husband, plays folk harp and percussion instruments, and enjoys kayaking on quiet rivers and ponds. Visit her website at http://www.samanthawhite.com/

Write Now: make a list of as many “rules” as you can think of that were uploaded into your head to govern your life. Then write a story about one of them, and how it has influenced you. Let intuition be your guide as you write, real and raw.

Fact or Fiction?

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:40:00 +0000

An ongoing debate rages in the memoir world about Truth. What are the limits? How much creative license is too much? Where do you draw the lines between memoir and fiction?

The case for fictionalizing memoir is growing increasingly prevalent and strong. Proponents claim that all memory is fiction to begin with, since memory is based on perception and perception has to be interpreted. No two people perceive things exactly the same way, ergo perception is fiction. Thus all memoir is fiction, so we might as well call it that to begin with and avoid controversy.

Other positive points the fiction camp claims include:

Freedom to disguise characters and place, thus shielding yourself from disgruntled acquaintance, relatives, and lawsuits.

Freedom to embellish details as you wish.

Freedom to distort circumstances to enhance a point.

Freedom to write in third person and include other people’s points of views.

Freedom from concerns about inaccurate or incomplete memory.

Some truth can be expressed more poignantly in fiction than sticking to real life circumstances would allow.

Your muse has more room to dance, play, and toss out delectable insights when unfettered by reality constraints.

These are all valid points and they have artistic merit. There are times when fiction is a powerful alternative. But if you look closely, you’ll notice nearly all those points are based on fear. When the fiction decision is made from fear, it may be a cop-out. This fear may stem from the possibility of censure or offense, from insecurity about writing skills, or from anticipated consequences for baring your soul.

A case can be made that these are all surmountable, and that the rewards of writing your truth in your voice as your true story are likely to be greater than the rewards of writing fiction. Some point out that writing fiction is no guarantee that people won’t attribute it all to your personal experience anyway, as Kathryn Harrison found out when she wrote The Kiss.

Harrison’s first published book was a novel, Thicker Than Water, about a consensually incestuous relationship between a man and his twenty-year-old daughter. Critics claimed it was really a memoir. In truth it was fiction, though based on her own true story. According to her account while keynoting a writer’s conference I attended a few years ago, after writing her third novel, she became blocked and had to write the incest story as a memoir, The Kiss, to get it out of her system. Critics read the memoir and claimed it was fiction. She read parallel passages at the conference, and the memoir was more sparsely written with fewer details.

So how do you know which form will work best for you? It’s always a personal decision and the author’s choice. If you want more information to guide you through this choice, be sure to sign up for the 2011 Fall Memoir Writing Telesummit sponsored by the National Association of Memoir Writers. Eight experts will join NAMW founder Linda Joy Myers to discuss various facets of topic Truth or Lie — On the Cusp of Memoir and Fiction.

Click here to see the list of speakers, times, and topics, and sign up for this free event. Even if you can’t listen live, everyone who signs up will receive a link to listen to replays.

Write now: pull out a favorite memory and write the story as fiction to explore the difference it can make.

My Ruby Slippers

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:01:00 +0000

Reading is one of the most effective ways to improve your writing, and the good news is that this can be a do-it-yourself project. But simply scanning words until you find out “who done it” isn’t going to get you very far.

I’ve posted several times about the value of keeping a log of wonderful phrases, dialogue and detail. Writing reviews has sharpened my ability to dig more deeply for structure and nuance. I strongly encourage you to post reviews on Amazon anytime you read a book that’s worth a bit more study.

Taking this one step further, author interviews are a great way to learn, both by doing the interviews and reading them. One of my current memoir favorites is Tracy Seeley’s book, My Ruby Slippers: The Road Back to Kansas. After reviewing the book, I was asked to interview Tracy for Story Circle Network. She predictably did a great job of answering. One question specifically addresses my current passion for writing description:

Sharon: You use such lovely descriptions, especially of emotions and feelings, for example, “The ghosts of my dozen childhood moves and my father’s leaving had laid their chilly hands on my heart.” Do you have any secrets you can share about how you access these succulent similes?

Tracy: Boy, I really don’t have any secret techniques. I wish I did. Similes usually just come to me, if I sit quietly and wait and pay attention to the mood and feeling I want to convey. I listen, and gradually it arrives. That sounds completely unhelpful, I know.

One thing that may help is that I really pay attention to the metaphorical power of individual words and then develop it. Which is what happened with your example.

Just to explain a bit further. It’s fair to say that I was haunted by the many times my family had moved and then by my father’s leaving. We use that word “haunted” all the time. So much so, that we don’t feel the full weight of it. So it really wouldn’t have had any power if I’d written, “I was haunted by my father’s leaving.” It’s become a cliché, and so it’s empty. But haunting led me to ghosts, which I thought would be too heavy-handed in the passage, so I just waited a bit, and the chilly hand just arose out of nowhere. Not a whole ghost, just a hand. Immediately I recognized the power of that image. The chill adds a physical sensation to something that’s not really physical, which brings that moment an added dimension. So when the ghosts of the past laid a “chilly hand on my heart,” the image conjures the right mood and conveys the emotional effect of my past, but it’s also indirect and suggestive—and that’s always more powerful than something explicit and obvious. So if I had a secret, it would be sit quietly and let the metaphors speak through the words. Then make sure the metaphor suits the situation in all of its connotations, its moods. And keep pushing until you arrive at something surprising and fresh.

Everything Tracy wrote is great. I hope you’ll click over and can read the rest of the interview here, and my review here.

Write now: read a memoir and write a review. Include your thoughts about the book and what it meant to you. Mention the structure and what you liked or would like to see handled differently. You can include a brief synopsis of the story, but what I find most helpful in a review are people’s reactions. Those help me find more meat as I read the first time.

Not Just for Tuesdays

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:14:00 +0000

I must not be a Tuesday person. Today is Sunday, but since I hadn’t read the book, it didn’t occur to me to wait yet another two days to read Tuesdays with Morrie.

When the book was first published nine years ago, I cynically thought it couldn’t possibly live up to all the hype, but was also deterred by the fact that my feelings about that name were on the cool side, and who wants to read about a dying old man? These less than admirable facts I neglected to confess. I’ve been asked dozens of times if I’ve read it and always mumbled something about it being on my list. It finally got pushed to the top of the list, and I think at just the right time. I’m certain I would not have appreciated it as much nine years ago.

The fact that I was not ready to read this book until now carries a lesson for lifestory and memoir writers. I always remind people that we should write for ourselves first, because there are no guarantees that family will ever be interested, and even if they are, your words may mean more to them later. That’s especially likely to be true of younger family members.

Back to Tuesdays. I’ve since learned that books getting rave reviews usually do live up to the hype, but even more than the message, the structure of this book means way more to me today than it would have back then. I’ve learned how to read — like a writer, that is. The first writerly thing I noticed was Albom’s superb use of words. A couple of years ago I began keeping a list of what Sheila Bender refers to as “Velcro Phrases,” so named because they stick in mind. I described this process in a previous post, “Hang onto Inspiration.” I made many new entries as I read today. Some similes I especially enjoyed include:

. . . he waved his arms like a conductor on amphetamines . . .

. . . the sagging cheeks gathered up like curtains.

ALS is like a lit candle: it melts your nerves and leaves your body a pile of wax.

I noticed that Albom uses a unique dialog convention. He puts Morrie’s words in quotation marks. His own remarks lack them. The reason isn’t entirely clear, but it appears that he mixes the drift of his remarks in with reflection and summaries of the conversation rather than using them as an integral part of an ordinary conversation. Whatever the case, it works well, and the average reader would probably not notice.

His structure also appeals to me. He uses the metaphor of a final class with a beloved professor as the basis of the book and uses the metaphor to compile the parts: background history, synopsis of characters, and class session summaries. In reality, I strongly suspect that at least in the beginning, the conversation each visit covered more than the topic of the day, and some topics may have spanned several visits. But who would want to read a transcript? The way Albom spotlights each of the thirteen themes with a session of its own highlights and clarifies each in turn.

His use of “intersession notes” prepares the reader for each visit with flashbacks and other relevant material without distracting from the discussion during the visit.

Albom has accomplished what I dream of doing. He has written a concise volume filled with timeless wisdom that slips straight through the eyes into the heart, and created a literary masterpiece in the process.

My final thought regarding this book is that he celebrates one teacher who touched his life in such an all-encompassing way. In a very real sense, books like this one are my teachers, both for the content and as an example of fine writing. I honor and celebrate my teachers by mentioning the books.

Write now: if you don’t already have a list of Velcro Phrases, use the instructions in “Hang onto Inspiration” to start one. When your list is set up, read a book and begin making entries. Add a section at the end for other notes about writing style and structure for each book you read.

Gift from the Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 20:07:00 +0000

Are you among the growing number of people searching for ideas for more personal, low-budget gift ideas for people on your Christmas or Hannukah list this year? Many are motivated by the sagging economy, others by a desire to cut down on frivolous consumption and a general shift toward sustainability.

One gift you can give, in place of or in addition to others, is the gift of story. If you already have a pile of life stories and you’ve been thinking about pulling them together into a volume, you have plenty of time to pull it together and place your order by Thanksgiving or shortly after to ensure delivery before Christmas.

If you don’t yet have a pile of stories, you still have time to write several. You could write a personal story for each recipient, recalling a favorite memory of that person and why they are special to you. You might write humorous or poignant stories about your own life or perhaps shared ancestors.You can include essays about your beliefs and values. The list is endless.

Many years ago Thelly Rheam, the original Story Lady from California’s Cardiff on the Sea, began writing short vignette stories documenting her life and lessons she learned, planning to distribute stories she’d written through the year to family members each Christmas. The year she began, she gave each child and grandchild a binder with labeled dividers for each decade in her life and an assortment of stories already filed. In subsequent years, they received envelopes with additional stories and instructions on where to file them in the binder. She has set aside funds and made arrangements for the collection to be printed in bound volumes upon her demise.

Writing a memoir, a rewarding though complex undertaking, is one way to organize your stories, and but it’s far from the only way, and no single memoir can encompass all the stories that come to mind.

In The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing you’ll find oodles of ideas for organizing collections I refer to as story albums. These can range from a random assemblage of miscellaneous memories to an compilation of family recipes including the story of each, or a composite of photos and the stories surrounding them. This khelpful book covers all the basics from inception of the idea to writing tips and prompts and layout tips for self-publishing.

Publishing options abound. High-end photobook publishers produce gorgeous full-color volumes, but options for accomanying text are limited, and price soars as page count rises. No-setup fee Print-On-Demand services like CreateSpace or Lulu, are economical alternatives for commercially printed and bound volumes if black-and-white print is adequate. They can also handle color printing, though at a much higher cost. For special projects, you can print pages at home or a copy shop and put them in binders or similar alternatives.

Thinking outside the box, they don’t have to be printed at all. You could make your own eBook in pdf format, using one of the free pdf “printers” such as PDF24. Smashwords is a free service that coverts print documents to Kindle and other eBook reader formats. Or you could use the free Audacity software to digitally recording yourself reading your stories for an audiobook. Going one step further, you could use the free Windows Live Movie Maker to combine those recordings with photos and turn them into a movie. Similar applications are available for Macs.

Due to limited space in this post, I can’t expand on individual options. If you have questions about specific ones, please leave a comment and I’ll cover them in a future posts.

However you go about it, give your family the gift of story, for their reading pleasure and to preserve a legacy of your life.

Write Now: write a story to share with at least one person as a gift this holiday season.

How to Write the Killer Query

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 12:28:00 +0000

Does the thought of finding an agent or publisher give you vapors? If so, you are in good company. Query letters are among the most important documents an author writes. Whether you are a full-time freelancer or a wannabe one-time writer hoping for publication of a memoir, your future hangs on that one page. It can make or break your chances of seeing your words between commercially printed covers.

Writing great query letters is a special art form, and not one that we learn in any classes in school. Some people complete their MFA in writing without learning this crucial skill. So what’s a person to do?

The traditional way to learn is to find a good book. You may find something in your library, but this is an important topic, and it’s worth having something on hand to refer to whenever you need it.

I must include a disclaimer here. Since I had any clue at all about how to write, I’ve only written one query letter and received an acceptance within half an hour of sending the email. That was to a local newspaper and I included the story cold, so it wasn’t a true query letter. Both my traditionally published books were pitched in a face-to-face meeting, without so much as a proposal. Remember the old saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”? That does help. Because I’m always as busy as I want to be without tracking down additional writing assignments, I don’t write query letters, so I can only offer suggestions.

What I suggest, besides scanning the titles on Amazon, is to surf over to visit Query Shark. That site has an amazing collection of query letters that have been critiqued by Janet Reid, an agent with the FinePrint Literary Management Agency.

Janet suggests that you read all the posts and learn from them. Now that there are more than 200, perhaps the most recent hundred will do. Then, if you wish, you may submit your query letter in hopes of having it anonymously critiqued. There are explicit instructions on how to accomplish this and increase the (slim) odds yours will be chosen. She focuses on fiction, but her Q&A page says she occasionally runs examples from other genres (like memoir).

A couple of paragraphs way down one page on the AgentQuery site advises you that memoirs are marketed like fiction, so Janet’s models should give you terrific guidance.

Miss Snark, the literary agent seconds AgentQuery’s advice that the memoir must be finished and polished before querying. She adds further that “You get one shot on this. Don't **** it up by querying before your ms is ready.” Check out other topics on her site. She retired after two years, but her helpful posts remain, and her blog writing format differs from QueryShark’s.

On her PubAgent blog, Agent Kristin advises that “Writing a memoir is not therapy.” Focus on the artistic merits of your work, not the fact that writing it changed your life. Art sells, therapy doesn’t.

Lynn Griffin has uplifting news in her “Easy-Peasy Query Letter” post on The Writers’ Group blog. “Writing a query letter for fiction or memoir should take no more than 15-20 minutes tops. Assuming, of course, you've been researching agents while writing your book.”

Research. Aw, yes. All agents want to read queries they way they ask for them to be written. Read and study their sites. Know what they handle, how they want to be approached, and anything else they tell you. Then write away. Your odds will be much higher if you study this subject before you start collecting those infamous rejection slips. Perhaps you’ll win the submissions lottery on your first submission.

Write now: read a couple of AgentQuery’s columns, then practice writing a query letter for your story or memoir. Who knows? You might find someone to send it to, now or later.

You’re Never Too Old for Stars

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon Lippincott) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:53:00 +0000

Sometimes I’m as surprised as anyone when I hear the words that come out of my mouth. That was the case recently when I suggested to 85-year-old Jack that I was going to make him a star chart to reward him for sticking to his determination to write at least fifteen minutes each day on his memoir project.

“A star chart? What on earth is a star chart? I’m not into astrology!” he quickly informed me.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing like that. It’s a tool that parents and teachers use with kids to get them to do things like making their beds or turning their homework in on time. It’s a kind of game. You’ll get a star each day you write. You already have five. I’m going to send you your stars as soon as we hang up.”

He was a little dubious, but he liked getting the email with the stars. I send him a new one every week or so with an update. He hasn’t missed a day of writing in 47 days now. Some days he writes for the minimum fifteen minutes, other days he might write for as long as two hours. Usually it’s closer to half an hour.

“I’ve got to tell you, I was skeptical when you told me about that star chart thing, but I’m surprised how much I like getting those stars. It’s kind of like having perfect attendance at Rotary for the last fifty-two years. When I start something like that, I don’t give up easily!” he told me a few weeks later, grinning like a little kid.

Especially considering that he had started working on this project half a dozen abortive times over several years before we met, this is phenomenal progress, and he’s eager for the world to know how powerful star charts are.

Jack’s progress got me excited. I’m going to make one for writing blog posts – an undertaking that has become too easy to put off in the crush of other activities.

I like to make them in Word, starting with a basic table like the one you see above. You can use the Draw toolbar to make a basic star shape, then copy and paste that into a cell each time you earn a star. You can award stars for completing tasks on specific days, or you can accrue them for results apart from time. For example, Jack gets them for any amount of writing, but there has to be at least fifteen minutes each day. He only gets one star whether he writes for fifteen minutes or two hours, and he gets no star if he doesn’t write.

Another way to do it would be one star for each fifteen minutes or one star for each page, or … you get the idea.

Jack proved that you are never too old to benefit from a star chart. How about you? You are the star of your story. Would a star chart help you get it written?

Write now: think of a writing project – or something else if you prefer – that might move along more smoothly if you had a place to give yourself stars for your efforts. Make a chart, on the computer or a plain sheet of paper. If it’s real paper, you can glue on old-fashioned stars, or draw them with a marker. Decide on the conditions for awarding your stars, then, however you do it, give a try.