Points to Ponder Before Tarnishing Memories

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.

When Memories Morph

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.

Add Your Voice to History

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!

Don’t Wait Too Long

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

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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!

Connecting Dots to Find Story

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.

Amy Cohen Discusses The Fountain at the Crossroads

Earlier this year I published A Humble Story Lives On, a post based on the work of Amy Cohen, a distant cousin of my husband’s. Amy has been busy over the last several months lovingly publishing a posthumous memoir written by Ernest Lion, another shirt-tail relative who survived the Holocaust at Auschwitz.

Amy asked for my guidance in preparing the manuscript for publication, and I became intrigued with her project as well as the story. In this post Amy explains how she came across the story and why she decided to publish it. I find it especially intriguing that a story written late in life with no known plans for publication could be found and brought to the world by a stranger. It just goes to show that you never know where your words may end up.

SL: Amy, how did you discover The Fountain at the Crossroads?

AC: I was researching the family of one of my Schoenthal cousins—Rosalie Schoenthal. She was one of only two siblings of my great-grandfather who did not immigrate to the US from Germany in the late 19^th century. She married Willie Heymann. All but two of their many children left Germany and escaped the Holocaust. The two daughters who stayed in Germany were killed by the Nazis. In trying to learn more about the lives and deaths of these cousins, I found out that one of Rosalie’s granddaughters, Liesel Mosbach, had married Ernst (later Ernest) Lion. Although Liesel was killed at Auschwitz, her husband Ernest survived. One online source included a link to a memoir written by Ernest Lion.

I clicked on the link and printed out the 200+ page manuscript. I read it in one sitting over the course of a day, tears streaming down my face, unable to put it down until I reached the last page.

SL: What did finding the story mean to you?

AC: Although the fact that Ernest was a relative initially drew me to his book, I quickly realized that his story is the story of more than six million people. It’s the story of how the Germans tried to strip them of their humanity and lives. But Ernest, like countless survivors, refused to surrender his humanity or dignity. The narrative brings you into his experiences and also his mind, allowing the reader to understand the reality of life at Auschwitz and perhaps even more importantly what it was like to survive during and after that experience.

This book reveals both the darkest and best of human nature. Ernest’s ability to persist, to escape, to build a new life in a new country, to find love and purpose is inspiring and deeply moving.

SL: How did you decide to publish it?

AC: After reading the book, I felt strongly that it needed to be read by others. But aside from a few links to the rough manuscript, there was no way for people to find this 200 page manuscript. And with no chapters and crude formatting, it was difficult to read.

So I decided to see if I could get permission to edit and publish the manuscript to make it more readable and publicly accessible.

SL: What challenges did you face?

First, I had to find out who had the rights to the book. I knew Ernest was deceased and that he had a son, but I had no way to contact him. Ernest had acknowledged a number of people in the book, including Randall Wells and Suzanne Thompson, his writing instructors at Coastal Carolina University. Through the university, I got in touch with them and got contact information for Ernest’s son Tom. I soon learned that Tom was the sole heir to Ernest’s estate and thus owned the book’s copyright.

Tom liked the idea of making his father’s book more accessible, so I began editing the manuscript. Wanting to preserve Ernest’s voice and leave content intact, I did nothing but add chapter headings, fix typos here and there, and reorganize one section so the chronology flowed more smoothly.

 
The second greatest challenge was figuring out how to publish it. That’s where you came in, Sharon, with advice on how to create a professional looking format. Your important suggestion that I use CreateSpace made the process of getting the book on Amazon in both print and Kindle format relatively easy.

SL: What are your hopes for this volume? 

AC: I hope that a multitude will read the book. We set the price low to keep it affordable. Our hope is that readers will gain a deeper understanding of the Holocaust and human nature.

 
I am hoping that schools and libraries will put the books on their shelves. I am hoping that the book will be reviewed in places where it will draw the attention of history buffs. We need help spreading the word.

---

Fountain at the Crossroad is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions. You can find them here. Whatever small profits may accrue will be donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum in memory of Ernest Lion.

For an extensive array of family history stories collected and written by Amy Cohen, visit her Brotmanblog: A Family Journey.

Who Owns Which Memory?

I know three sisters who remember life differently, and sometimes things I hear from them drop my jaw, at least mentally. For simplicity here, I’ll call them Annie, Betsy and Connie, in order of age. All are in their mid-eighties.

One day I got an email from Connie with a scanned letter attached. The letter was from her aunt, confirming that this aunt had indeed taken Connie as an infant to her house to care for while Connie’s mother was sick.

“I can’t wait to show this to Annie! She has sworn for years that Aunt Laura never took me home with her, she just took me to a motel!”

Apparently, when Annie saw the letter, she humphed and changed the subject. Obviously this development did not square with her memory of things, and as the older sister, she was supposed to be the authority. 

During a recent visit with Annie and Connie, we got to talking about their grandfather. He let me drive his old car all over the place when I was only eleven. He even lied to the Department of Motor Vehicles so I could get my driver’s license when I was twelve. He told them I was fourteen,” said Annie.

“That’s interesting. He did the same thing for Connie,” I said.

“What?”

“She told me the same story about him taking her to get a license when she was twelve and letting her drive thirty miles to Turkey Town by herself to get something he needed.”

Annie looked at Betsy. “That’s not possible. He didn’t live near us when she was that age.”

Betsy shrugged. She didn’t seem eager to get involved. I changed the subject.

Which sister owns that memory? Did Connie hear Annie tell the story often enough that she started thinking it had been her? Stranger things have happened.

As it turns out, I may be the one with the creative memory. Connie affirmed that it was Annie’s story. “I hardly ever spent time with him when I was young.” Well … whatever. In the overall scheme of things, who cares?

This all goes to show that much of family history is myth, and a changing one at that. One key thing we collectively agree to is that the old man was a scoundrel who bent rules when it suited him and ignored them much of the time.

From the larger perspective, that matters more than which granddaughter got to drive when or where. I’m semi-sorry I sought to clarify the source.

Writing tip: Do some freewriting or journaling about conflicting stories within your family. (This may be best left unshared.)

Triumph at the End of a Rocky Road

The note above shows one of a rapidly growing list that Carol B has received from family members after privately publishing a volume of family history laced together with relevant aspects of her personal story. She swells with happiness at each one. These notes are more than usually rewarding. The road to this outcome has been rocky. Her stories sizzle with intrigue. That eventually presented a problem.

Carol, her parents, and a family friend (I omit her full name at her request to protect her family’s privacy), spent decades gathering stories and documents from county records and other sources, documenting purchase and sale of property, births, deaths and marriages, police and jail records, newspaper articles and pictures. Piles and piles of pictures. She took careful notes as relatives chewed the fat at family events.  She even sought out help from her local historical society to gather added information.

Eventually she wove memories and facts into stories. Lifestory writing group members pointed out unclear areas, missing material and more. Her strong writing grew polished in both content and structure. Then forces of darkness emerged.

Her family’s history includes mayhem, madness and murder. It’s all a matter of public record, and mostly forgotten, though ripples remain in family attitudes and traits. Still, she was loathe to publish it all without warning the family. She told everyone whose names appeared in the book what she was up to and asked their permission to share stories relevant to their immediate family members. With the exception of one person within her family, she was offered nothing but support and encouragement.  She did not have anyone else read her book, as she was not willing to write a book by committee.  As it turned out, the faith that family members had in her was almost unanimous. Others showed their trust by giving full permission to use their names and their particular family stories.

However, there was one family member who, without even reading the book, objected on principle. “There is no reason to dig all that stuff up again.”  Said Person would not discuss it with Carol and did not respond to numerous requests to be named in the book, then cut off  direct communication.

Carol’s inner critic went nuts. What if I’m sued?  Maybe I’m too critical. Maybe my book is too negative.  Even if I do expose the people in my book to public scrutiny, these are the stories of my family. What should I do?

Her voice had the sound of defeat as she told me, “That person has gobs of money and can afford to sue me on a whim. Maybe that will happen. Maybe I should just drop it. Maybe I should just share the Word file with anyone who wants to read it.”

“You’ve told dozens of people you’re doing this, and they all want to see it finished. What about them? Will you be letting them down? You’ve set aside funds to see it through. How can we work around this?”

Note to readers: don’t try to handle this alone. Get plenty of perspectives. 

“Do you think I’ve been too critical?  Is my book too negative?”

“NO! But I’m not always the best judge of emotional tone. Let’s get one more opinion.” I recommended another writer I know who excels in this area. Her response was supportive. Carol regained her grip.

She decided she would proceed with the project with these caveats:

• She omitted all references to Said Person beyond a couple of picture captions where she cites the relationship without a name.  She decides to include a vintage photo of Said Person, but includes only a first initial and maiden last name.  To do otherwise would have made her uncomfortable, since she did not want to purposefully leave anyone out of the family history.  She also decided to mail Said Person a copy of the family history book. To date, there has been no acknowledgement of receipt though communication on other subjects has been resumed. 

• In the Acknowledgments she states: “I have remained faithful to the stories that were passed down through the family and relied on my own memories and those of other family members for additional tales. Throughout the process, I maintained my belief and intention to cause no harm.”

• The back cover includes a disclaimer of sorts: “… For decades she has collected stories from relatives and public records. She compiles those stories with personal reflections to tell the family’s story with truth and honesty to the best of her understanding.” 

She also firmed up her decision to keep publication as private as possible.

This last step required thinking out of the box. Carol is facing serious health problems and wants to ensure that her extended family will be able to independently order additional copies for years to come.

In line with her decision to keep the book private, she vowed to avoid all promotion and publicity. She is eager, however, for others to know of her experience, even though they won’t be reading the book. Buoyed by the outpouring of gratitude from family members, such as the note above, she has asked me to share that story, hoping to inspire others who battled doubts about sensitive disclosure to persist and find their own way around obstacles.

I’m happy to oblige, emphasizing to readers that publishing privately with limited distribution can be a strong and rewarding option for those who shy away from telling all to the world at large.

As the fan letter notes, Carol is hard at work on a second volume, a personal memoir. Will this one also be kept under wraps? Who knows? If she opts for open publication, you’ll be among the first to know.

Points to Ponder: What tense material might slow down your writing project? What creative workarounds can you come up with? Who can you turn to for support and fresh ideas?

Points to Ponder: What tense material might slow down your writing project? What creative workarounds can you come up with? Who can you turn to for support and fresh ideas?

A Humble Story Lives On

Hettie Stein never dreamed hundreds or thousands of people would learn about her life when she hand-wrote her lifestory on forty pages of notebook paper sometime around 1975. She wrote separate, personalized copies for each of her three grandchildren, my husband being one. We have not seen either of the other two copies, but I scanned ours, saving the images in a PDF file and also transcribing them into a Word document for easier reading by later generations.

Now the world can read about Hettie’s life on Amy Cohen’s blog, Brotmanblog: A Family Journey, beginning with Part 1 and share our delight in these accounts of a long-gone way of life in simpler times.I thank distant cousin Amy for finding our family and pulling so many resources together into a compelling story.

As you can see from the graphic below, excerpted from Hettie’s story (which I gratefully borrowed back from Amy’s blog), the writing is as primitive as a Grandma Moses canvas in both form and message. As Hettie explains in her story, she chose to leave school after eighth grade (in 1898). Her reasoning was that like other women of her day, her lot in life was to marry and raise a family, and no housewife needed more book learning than she already had, so why exert herself?

This lack of formal education shows in her writing, but that did not deter her for a moment. Thank goodness! This humble, unaffected story reflects her authentic heart, big as all outdoors, and the fact that she wrote it is the sign of a satisfying life. She never had material wealth, but what she had was enough. I have never met a kinder, more positive person. Hettie loved everyone with childlike enthusiasm, and was always up for an adventure. I feel blessed for having been part of her family.

Hettie decided one day to write these stories. She just sat down and did it, though it took her months to finish each one. She wrote each story in the form of a letter to that grandchild, warmly laced with references to memories of “your mother” and “the time you and I …”. We have not seen the volumes she wrote for her two granddaughters, but presumably they cover much of the same material, customized with slightly different words.

She died in 1987, more than a decade before I preserved her work for the family and the world. Now it’s treasured by great- and great-great-grandchildren and will hopefully be passed down even further.

I often mention her amazing accomplishment when I’m encouraging people to write. “If Hettie could do that, anyone can. You don’t need to produce a literary masterpiece. Whatever you write is better than nothing and will be treasured by generations to come.”

Hettie wrote by hand, on the simple paper she had. She made a manila paper folder to hold the pages and fastened it all together with brads. Even without those manila covers, in only a few years, the acidic notebook paper had begun yellowing. Scanning put a halt to that process.

If by some amazing coincidence, you decide to write a legacy manuscript by hand, acid-free paper is easy to find today. More likely you’ll sit down at a keyboard and print acid-free copies. But even if you write on unfolded paper bags or the backs of envelopes, your descendants will treasure your work.

Points to ponder: If you’re trying to get traction, what obstacles prevent you from “just doing it”? Are you concerned that you writing won’t measure up and your family will laugh or sneer? How good is “good enough”? If you are well on your way toward finishing a story, ponder how satisfying that feels.

Photo Scanning Tips for CreateSpace

My heart nearly broke when I checked the resolution of a photo in a client’s family history/memoir I was preparing for upload to CreateSpace.com for printing copies for family members. When I copied the document photo and pasted it into IrfanView (my favorite free photo editor for low-end needs), I saw that the resolution was only 72 dpi (dots or pixels per inch). That’s a small fraction of the pixel density CreateSpace requires. This was the case with nearly all the several dozen photos in the book.

I had the gut-wrenching task of explaining to my client that she had a choice: I could resample the existing images to trick CreateSpace into believing they were 300 dpi . . . or she could rescan them.

How I wished that she, like the majority of people scanning old family photos, knew all along about scanning at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. Here’s why it matters:

CreateSpace will sound an alarm when it analyzes an uploaded document and finds even one image of less than 300 dpi. For good reason. Lo-res images will look even worse in print than they do onscreen when zoomed above 100%. Ignore that warning at your own risk.

The left photo above is scanned at original size at 72 dpi. The image on the right is exactly the same picture, scanned at 300 dpi. Notice the crisp, clear detail in the high-res version compared to the blurry approximation on the left. That’s the sort of result you can expect with any image printed at 72 dpi.

My client wanted her volume to be top quality in every respect, so she opted to rescan as many photos as she still had available. For the rest, we stuck with small sizes and I resampled the existing photos as 300 dpi to stabilize them for printing. That turned off the CreateSpace alarms, but nothing could recreate lost detail. Still, those photos add value to the story and they are better than nothing.

Many of us scanned hundreds of pictures fifteen or twenty years ago when scanner technology was new and file size a concern. A 3” x 4.75” photo scanned at 300 dpi produces a file larger than the 1.44 megabyte capacity of the 3.5” floppy disks we used back then. We scanned at 72, or perhaps 96 dpi. I have a few hundred files like that myself, with the originals clear across the country, as many of hers are now. Those low-res files will work fine for eBooks and online viewing, but they are not print-worthy.

The tips below will help you get the best possible results for your publishing projects. If you decide to have someone else do layout for you, getting the photos right before you hand over the file will keep costs down and save you lots of aggravation.

Terminology

Resolution – the number of dots or pixels per inch. At 72 dpi, a square inch of image will have 72 pixels horizontally x 72 pixels vertically for a total of 5184pixels. At 300 dpi, that will be 300 x 300 for a total of 90,000, allowing for more than 17 times as much detail.

Resample – this word carries a touch of magic. If you change the resolution of an image, software uses samples from the image to calculate how to best condense or expand information to cover the desired amount of space. Increasing resolution spreads existing information thinner and is unable to add more detail.

Tips for preparing photos for publication

Scan at 300 dpi and 100% resolution – or higher. If you have a photo that’s 2” x 3”,  scan it at 600 dpi or higher to give you a high quality image printable at larger sizes so you can enlarge it enough to let people see detail. 600 dpi will allow you to double the size of the original in print. 900 lets  you print up to three times larger. Most old film photos lack the crisp resolution needed to successfully enlarge more than that.

Resample and enhance. If you aren’t able to rescan those old images, resample them to 300 dpi turn off the alarm.

Size in Microsoft Word to fit space on the page, then copy the image and paste into IrfanView or another editor to check resolution. Resample to 300 dpi at the precise size of the image in your manuscript. Replace the “temp” image with the resized one.

This matters because Word does a poor job of resampling, and images resized within the document generally look terrible when printed. This is partly due to changing the resolution as you resize in Word. Resizing is a nuisance, but worth the effort. I’ve tried not doing it and the results were not pretty.

Crop images with a photo editor. You  can do this in Word, and it might be okay, if you start with a 300 dpi image and don’t change anything else about its size. Check the quality of the image in your proof copy of the finished book.  For best results, crop in IrfanView, Photoshop Elements, or something similar and check to make sure the final image is 300 dpi.

Use an image editor to convert color images to grayscale if you plan to print in black and white. You can print from color or use Word’s image editing function to do this, but it’s not your best choice.

I’ll do another post soon on using your scanner interface. For now, scan big and pose questions in comments.

Write now: take a break from writing and scan a photo or two. Insert it in Word and play around with sizing. Download IrfanView and practice resampling. Tip: Resizing is on the Image menu. Ctrl+R will get take you right there. Have fun!

Six Things I Learned Going from Memoir to Fiction

Invited guest post by Carol Bodensteiner

Long time readers may be surprised to find a post about writing fiction on this blog about life writing. While it’s true that my focus is on memoir, lifestory, journaling and other forms that draw upon actual experience to express personal truth, sometimes the freedom of fiction is more effective in conveying truth. Carol Bodensteiner found this to be true. She has successfully written in both genres and her experience moving from memoir to fiction has lessons for all.

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I’d been a business writer all my life, so I was used to working with facts. Memoir was a logical first writing step. Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Girl, tells the stories of my childhood growing up on a family farm in the middle of the United States, in the middle of the 20^th Century.

When I finally raised my head from writing, publishing, and marketing the memoir, I looked around for what I’d write next. I turned to family-inspired fiction, which I’d never written before.  My novel, Go Away Home, which I indie published in 2014 and was acquired by Lake Union Publishing (an imprint of Amazon Publishing) later that year, is the result of that effort.

The road from memoir to fiction brought many adventures and a lot of learning. Here are six things I learned along the way.

1) A family story can be a great launching pad to fiction.

Go Away Home was inspired by my maternal grandparents. My grandfather died of the Spanish Flu in 1918. Throughout my life, I’ve been intrigued by my connection to this major world event. As someone used to writing from facts, a family story gave me a starting point: A story I cared to write and people and places that were familiar.

Writing the story as fiction was necessary for many reasons. One was that I didn’t have enough facts to write it any other way. Of course I never knew my grandfather and even though my grandmother lived until I was well into my 20s, I never asked her a single question about him or their lives together. And she was not the type to share. So though the story began with family, it is fiction.

2) Don’t get stuck on the facts

Once I got into writing the story, one of the biggest challenges was letting go of the facts. Since the genesis of this story rose from people in my family, and I knew a bit about the people, places, and events, my inclination was to use those facts. But I quickly found that the facts didn’t work for the story I was ultimately telling. They didn’t create a good story arc. There was no drama. On his website, Write the Truth, Robert McKee said, “The weakest possible excuse to include anything in a story is: ‘But it actually happened.’”  Having gone this route, I believe him.

3) Do get stuck on the facts

Since Go Away Home is historical fiction, research was critical to creating the time period accurately. Clothes, transportation, hairstyles, technology, colloquialisms. The list of topics I researched and fact checked was long. Readers of historical fiction really care about the details. Writers must, too.

Research also helped shape the story. One example: Family lore was that my grandmother went to a sewing school. Research revealed that the town in question didn’t have a sewing school, rather that young girls apprenticed with seamstresses as a way to learn an important life skill and to meet a man to marry.  The idea that seamstresses were invited to their clients’ house parties had terrific dramatic potential, so I ran with that.

Another bit of fact to fiction. My grandmother took pictures, but the whole part in the book about the main character’s work for a photographer and her relationship with him is entirely fiction.  Most of the book is that way. Tiny fact. Huge fiction.

4) Planner vs. Pantser

Writers fall into two general camps: Planners and Pantsers. I wrote my way into Go Away Home, discovering the story through countless re-writes – by the seat of my pants. I always knew the end of the story; I didn’t know how we got there. In the first draft, the story started in 1900 and my main character Liddie was 10. In the second draft, the story started in 1915 and Liddie was 19. In the published draft, the story starts in 1913 and Liddie is 16. Believe me – those changes create seismic waves throughout the story.

Having used this highly inefficient “pantser” approach once, I’m reasonably certain that I’m a “plotter” at heart and will be more plan-ful in future writing.

5) Fiction is freeing

While I thought it would be easier to start with some facts because that was what I was used to, the reality was there was great freedom in starting with nothing. As the story developed (pantser), it became clear that connections were missing. I needed a scene to show my main character’s inexperience with men. No problem. I made up a guy. I found it was great fun to let my imagination run. Over and over, I filled holes with scenes that met a plot need.

6) New craft to learn

I learned a lot about creative writing as I crafted my memoir, much of which was also applicable to fiction. Dialogue, scene development, visual characterization – all come into play in both genres. Plotting was a new challenge in fiction writing, as I noted earlier. Developing multi-dimensional fictional characters was another challenge.

I used a number of techniques that contributed to creating the real, individual people living in my novel. I visualized people I know who were somewhat like the characters I had in mind. Writing exercises helped to identify key traits and to express them in fresh ways. I used Enneagram research to flesh out the positive and negative traits of various personality types.

From memoir to fiction, from craft to research, I will always be able to learn something new about writing, and for me, that’s great fun.

Go Away Home is available on Amazon in paperback and ebook formats.

Growing Up Country is available on Amazon in paperback, ebook, and audio book formats.

Carol Bodensteiner – Bio

Carol Bodensteiner is a writer who finds inspiration in the places, people, culture and history of the Midwest. After a successful career in public relations consulting, she turned to creative writing. She blogs about writing, her prairie, gardening, and whatever in life interests her at the moment. She published her memoir Growing Up Country in 2008. Her WWI-era, debut novel Go Away Home was acquired by Lake Union Publishing, an imprint of Amazon Publishing. It launches July 7, 2015.

Carol’s online links
Website/blog 
Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook

Write now: think of an interesting ancestor or other person who has influenced your life that you know relatively little about. Drawing on Carol’s experience, write a short story about how you imagine this person’s life might have been. Don’t worry about facts. Just let that story rip. Have fun with this!

Not Just for Tweens

If a random person had handed me a copy of Shannon Hale’s novel, Ever After High: The Story Book of Legends, I might have flipped through the pages and admired the stunning design, skimmed a page or two and handed it back unread. I would not have known what I was missing.

Fortunately for me, the person who handed me the book was Sarah, the granddaughter mentioned in the two previous posts. This book moved into her life, luring her away into remote corners of the house and keeping her up half the night.

When Sarah finished reading the book, she began talking about it in fascinating depth and detail. She mentioned that the characters were the children of fairy tale people like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Prince Charming, and a long list of others. These charmed children all attended Ever After High the boarding school for all descendants of legendary characters. In a keystone event, second year students ceremonially claimed their legacy and pledged to relive their ancestral stories to keep those stories alive for the world. Should they refuse, the story and all characters in it would go POOF!

Sarah was intrigued by the fact that Raven Queen, the daughter of the Evil Queen (who poisoned Snow White), didn’t want to relive her mother’s life. She explained that the book was about Raven’s adventures as she made up her mind whether to sign the pledge. She loaned me the 300 page book to read, but reclaimed it when I was only 50 pages in so she could read it again herself. I was so intrigued that I downloaded the Kindle version.

I quickly discovered that this book is masterfully crafted, multilayered and rich, and definitely not just for kids. Raven’s struggles with self and with others are heroic, her insights profound. The issues she struggles with – personal identity, self-determination, and more – are epic and universal. Every page sizzles with action.

The part that gave me goose bumps was the insight about Story and its power to shape lives. Raven helped all the other characters, both royal and common (yes, they did have discrimination issues there), see that they are the masters of their own stories, something precious few adults in today’s world realize. They are not bound by the past – they can write new versions. They are free to write their own “Happily ever after” stories with an entirely new cast of characters if they wish. In fact, they write stories forward as well as recording the past.

That message fits perfectly with the noblest mission of memoir: process the past, pick your own path, and write a bright future.

There’s so much more to be said about this book, about finding and following Truth, about Story and differences, and many more things, but I’ll leave it to you to read and discover as you wish. I’m grateful this astute young lass convinced me to read it.

I was thrilled that Sarah was eager to discuss the book and already seemed to understand that she doesn’t have to live like anyone else, that she can invent her own life. She was excited that the book put this hunch into words and brought it to life for her. She has many years to map out and edit her “blueprint” story, and a lot more years to revise as she goes.

This book may shape her life in some small way. Isn’t that what we all hope for, that a book, a story, even a few words we write may shape someone’s life? That can happen, but only if we write!

Write now: take a cue from Ever After High. Spend some time considering how closely you are bound to the story lived by one of your parents or other relatives. Write a few stories about the similarities between you. Explore aspects of your story you’d like to change, then write a new story with the direction you prefer. Share that story if you like, or tuck it away and let it work its magic, leading you along the path you wrote of.

How Long Will Your Words Last?

Who would expect a diary to last hundreds of years? Someone told me a few years ago about conversion journals written by Quaker women as part of what might be called an initiation into the faith. If my source was correct, the women were required to keep these diaries, presumably to demonstrate the strength of their faith and their worthiness to be accepted as members of the Religious Society of Friends.

The Lippincott tribe is descended from Quaker ancestors Richard and Abigail Lippincott, who arrived in the colonies in the mid-1500s seeking relief from persecution by the Church of England. A few years ago my husband received a copy of the Quaker marriage certificate of his grandfather’s great-grandparents, signed by everyone who witnessed the ceremony. He decided to donate this historic document to the Special Collections kept by Haverford College. During a recent visit to deliver the document, I asked to see some of these women’s conversion diaries. Unfortunately the collection includes nothing specifically identified as a conversion diary is included in the collection, but they do have a sizeable collection of other journals. I scanned the list and found a promising volume written by Anna. I’m chagrinned to realize I neglected to note her last name or the dates of the diary, but it was referenced as a “spiritual diary” and I do know that it dates to pre-Revolutionary times, so it’s about 250 years old. 

With a bit of ceremony, after I completed the formal registration and request, the volume was brought forth from it’s protected location and placed on green velvet-covered foam blocks that positioned it for reading.

“Don’t worry about harming it,” the librarian told me. “It’s sturdier than it looks.” He chilled my blood by picking it up and flexing the spine to demonstrate. The volume consists of hand sewn signatures. I couldn’t tell for sure how they were held together, because the spine was covered, but many seemed quite loose. The pages felt a bit slick, due to an invisible layer of ultra-sheer silk applied to protect them and avert further aging damage.

The text was challenging to read, written in flowery old script. Anna was thrifty with her paper. She used small handwriting and close spacing between lines, further complicating the reading by our eyes, unaccustomed to her style. Occasional ink blots didn’t help.

How I would have loved to sit there for a week and deeply ponder her words, puzzling out obscure ones and ruminating on meanings to plunge into her world. Unfortunately, our time was limited, and I had to make do with skimming several pages while my husband poured over Minutes of Cropwell meeting where his ancestors played leading roles. What I found was a powerful testament of faith, reminding me of the first four lines of the magnificat or Song of Mary:

My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.—Luke 1:46-47

Such flowery, passionate language surprised me, coming from a devoted member of a sect traditionally known for stoicism.  Perhaps that element of surprise underlines the importance of this document. It challenges me to revisit assumptions. It informs me more accurately of how things really were. And isn’t that exactly what most of us hope our words will do? Set the record straight at some future time and inspire others to expand understanding?

That old diary and the Meeting Minutes are sturdy. Even without preservation they would probably remain legible and valuable for at least another century. Will our digital output endure as long? I can’t imagine it will. I’m reminded that a copy or few, printed in durable ink on acid-free paper, will increase their odds of long-term survival. Unless you plan to burn your journals, use archival quality volumes to  create a legacy for centuries to come.

Write now: make a plan for preserving print copies of at least your most important stories. Look for sources of acid-free archival quality journals. Then write something something that will set a record straight about your life or family.

Real Writing, Rough or Polished?

Authenticity is a big issue for lifestory and memoir writers and daunting to consider. Which is better and more authentic, those first rough drafts, or stories you’ve polished to a flawless sheen? After wrestling with this question for a seeming century, I’ve come to the conclusion that they are both authentic and real.

A family example

My mother began writing her autobiography late in her life, and her health failed before she finished. After her death, I pulled a thick folder of drafts and notes into a coherent, unpolished, story that gives a comprehensive picture of her life before she met my father. I shudder to think how much would have been lost if she’d spent time polishing!

My father is the opposite. He polishes every word. His stories are magnificent, and we have a dozen of his hundreds.

If you focus on facts and creating a legacy of history, rough works. If you focus on art, polish matters. In my opinion, both are authentic. Rough reflects honest effort to connect. Polish reflects dedication to order and esthetics.

Rough serves well to convey passion and spontaneity. In an earlier post, “Stories Around the World,” I wrote about LifeMemo.com, a site rich with real stories from everywhere. I keep going back. Raspy rawness in those rough outpourings moves me intensely. Strong emotional connection clings like a cocklebur.

Polish slides smoothly into my heart with incisive focus. Poetry may fly over my head, but lyrical phrases in poems or prose resonate within me like fine crystal bowls.

Both work. The key to the power in either case is to write from your heart. No hedging, no hiding. If you are going to write it, write it! The message I get from raw writing is that those people trust their message enough to put it out there “as it is,” messiness, and all. Like poetry, not all messy stories work, but heartfelt stories transcend messiness.

Polished writing clarifies and refines the message. Many find joy in finessing a phrase with robust writing skills. We want to tie silken word ribbons around readers’ hearts. We study, seek feedback from multiple sources, and practice until fingers and minds grow numb.

Raw writing gets memories out where they can be seen, shared, and analyzed. Polishing stories develops insight and refines your view of the world. Investing the effort to grow as a writer delights readers and shows your dedication in developing your gift.

Lumps of raw coal provide warmth, power and comfort. Diamonds delight. In the end, I see it much like the difference between Sunday singers’ heartfelt hymns and operatic arias. Each has a purpose and place, and each appeals to different tastes.

Based on my family example, if you must choose, and you have any descendants, I urge you to focus on rough quantity first. After you’ve assembled that legacy, be creative. Edit and polish to your heart’s content.

Write now: read stories on LifeMemo.com, paying close attention to how they affect you. What elements do you most strongly connect with? How can you tap into that power in your writing? Pay back the pot by leaving a simple story of your own for the global tribe.

How Do I Start Writing My Lifestory?

“I want to tell my grandchildren about my life, but when I sit down to write, my hand freezes and no words come  out. I don’t know where to start or how to do it. What can I do?”

“Do you use email?”

“Yes.”

“Try this: Open a new email message and write a long email to your grandchildren. Start at the beginning. Tell them when and where you were born and who your parents were. Then start telling them about things you remember from early in your life. Tell them what things looked like and what you thought and felt about them, why they mattered. Write about friends you had and important people in your life. Just keep writing, talking from your heart in email, just like they were sitting there with you. You can send the email, or copy it and paste it into Word. Or both. Can you do that?”

“Yes, I think I can do that. That sounds easier than writing stories!”

When people hear that I teach and write about life story writing, confusion often tumbles out. Many people have tried this email approach with good results. A few write by hand, sometimes on stationery – remember that lovely old letter paper? That works too.

Something about writing letters seems less intimidating than writing a story. You can keep using paper to write more stories, or switch to Word.

I included dozens more tips for getting started in The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, like  setting up a folder in My Documents (or wherever you keep your Word documents) named “Life Story” or something similar. Save drafts of your stories in that folder so you can find them later.

For now, don’t think about editing. Keep writing and adding to the pile. This is one time that quantity trumps quality. Rest assured that you are always going to start with rough drafts. Even professionals with decades of writing experience write messy first drafts, so you are in good company.

The reason for quantity is to capture as much as you can while you are able. My mother began writing her life story around the time she turned 70. Her health soon declined ending her writing. After she died, I found piles of notes and drafts. I had to piece them together, but we have a complete record that stops just when she met my father. We can fill in the rest, but the early stuff was totally new. If she’d stopped to polish early drafts to a shine, those fascinating stories would be lost.

If you need help remembering or knowing what to write about, Google “lifestory writing prompts.” You’ll find a million.

Now, get those fingers moving!

Write Now: whether you are just starting or you’ve been writing your lifestory or memoir for years, open a blank email window and write about your birth and first year. Everything you write will be from records like your birth certificate and from hearsay. That’s okay. Write it the way you heard it, and include any thoughts it brings to mind. You may be surprised what comes out in this informal setting.

Is Memoir a Betrayal?

“Writers are always selling somebody out,” wrote Joan Didion at the beginning of her first essay collection, 1968’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

This sinister quote was included in Boris Katcha’s feature article on the New York Magazine site discussing Didion’s brutally personal new memoir, Blue Nights. Katcha considers Didion’s words “a statement of mercenary purpose in the guise of a confession: not a preemptive apologia but an expression of grandiose, even nihilistic ambition.”

How might this apply to “ordinary people” writing lifestory and memoir? How many memoir writers have grandiose or nihilistic ambitions? My previous post, “Above All, Cause No Harm,” emphasizes that shadows give depth to a character, and that speaking our truth may be inconvenient or painful for others. So, yes, in a sense, even without Didion’s mindset, memoir can be seen by some as a betrayal, in at least a small way.

Most thinking people will agree that this is a matter of degree. Mentioning that Aunt Agatha was portly won’t raise nearly as many eyebrows as sharing the news that Uncle Elmer groped children, specifically you.

So here’s the ethical dilemma. Assuming it is true that Uncle Elmer groped children, even if “only” you, most would consider that Uncle Elmer betrayed family trust, and yours  most of all. Perhaps by opening this wound to light and air you will help yourself and an entire family heal and move on. Perhaps you will inspire others to speak out and help rid society of this evil, or at least give future generations the strength and awareness to teach children to speak up so we can deal with it quickly before permanent damage is done.

In this case the question may be, if Uncle Elmer betrayed trust in general and yours in particular, is disclosing this fact in a published memoir betraying Uncle Elmer? Betraying the family? I leave that for you to decide. There is  no right answer.

Are hurt feelings a betrayal? Who owns reactions? Does Aunt Agatha ever look in the mirror? Does she think nobody knows she is the elephant is in the room? Is she truly unaware that people whisper and snicker behind her back? If you know Aunt Aggie’s feelings will be hurt, perhaps you don’t need to mention her size and eating habits, at least not so bluntly. Perhaps she’s eating herself into an early grave and you can wait her out. If it is an important story element, you’ll have a decision to make.

On balance, published memoirs do tend to include “juicy” material, perhaps because most people who feel motivated to take on a writing project of that scope generally have some sort of traumatic event or series of events to report, in the belief that doing so will have benefit for others. But even these thorny stories have rose petals strewn among them.

Decisions about what to include and what to leave in the closet are always an individual decision. Use these questions to help make your own:

• What is my purpose for including this event or detail?
• Does it further the purpose of the story?
• Am I using it to gain sympathy or a laugh at the expense of the person I’m writing about?
• What are the long term consequences likely to be?
• Do the anticipated costs of  expected turmoil outweigh the benefits?
• What will that person think? Others who know the person?
• Can I generalize enough to mask the identity of this person?

You may think of other questions to add to this list. I’ll continue writing about this thread in future posts, so please participate in the conversation by posting additional questions and other thoughts in a comment.

Write now: a draft of a story with juicy content that you aren’t sure about sharing with anyone. Write the draft without consideration for propriety or anyone’s feelings. When you finish, look back through the story and underline sensitive passages. Consider each one. How does it contribute to the story? Would your message be clear without that line? Is there another honest way to say the same thing in a less offensive way?

Guest Post: Recipes for Living

In this post Guest Blogger Judith Newton shares the back story about the food theme that serves to weave together numerous subthemes in her newly released memoir.

My memoir, Tasting Home, is about the healing and connecting powers of cooking and eating with others, a theme that came to me early in my life. Since as a child I’d found my mother’s meals to be the most secure form of nurturing I’d received, for me, as an adult, cooking became the only sure way I knew to create a sense of home. Tasting Home deals with some painful episodes in my life, but I wanted readers to experience the ways in which cooking helped me to establish emotional connections and a sustaining sense of joy. It is for this reason that the memoir is loaded with scenes in which I invite readers to the table, by recreating what the food tasted like, what surroundings it was eaten in, and the ways in which it bound me to others.

Food memoirs were popular by 2009 when I began Tasting Home. Some came with recipes and others did not. I decided to include recipes as a way of inviting readers to enter a communal space. Although I could share food experiences with my readers through telling my story, I wanted to give them a more lasting way of creating pleasurable moments in their lives. I think of recipes as gifts. I wanted my readers to feel what I often experience when I read magazines like Woman’s World — that I have entered a place in which women share stories, give advice, provide comfort, and hand on recipes.

Recipes also captured the changing cuisines and the spirit of the many decades I wrote about. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, for example, struck me as very much a product of the 1960s in the wild optimism and ambition it demanded of those who used it. (Julia Child’s recipe for Veal Prince Orloff went on for three pages when my mother’s recipe for spareribs in the 1950s took only one side of a 3 by 5 card.)

Recipes for the fifth section of the memoir, which covers the 1990s and 2000s when I was hosting buffets to build a cross-racial community on my campus, are often dishes that combine cuisines and that are easy to serve to a large crowd —goat cheese tamales, oven baked polenta with tomato fondue, Sonoma Jack cheese, and chiles en nogada, stuffed chiles in walnut sauce.

I also baked a lot from Martha Stewart’s Entertaining — lemon curd tart made with sweet Meyer lemons and tons of butter, pear frangipane with glazed pears on a bed of almond paste, a chocolate cake surprisingly flavored with whiskey-soaked raisins. Recipes helped the memoir become a book that invited readers to give parties, to bring exuberance to living, and to feel that , despite the suffering one might endure, life could be joyful, intense, and thoughtfully led. As one of my readers wrote about an early scene “you were in a moment of grace and you took us there with you.”

Huffington Post Food blogger Judith Newton is Professor Emerita at UC Davis and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. On March 1, She Writes Press released her culinary autobiography, Tasting Home: Coming of Age in the Kitchen. The next stop on her blog tour is Eat, Drink & Be Merry Magazine.

Write now: pick out one of your favorite recipes that brings back memories and write the stories behind it.

Back to Basics, Part 1

After whizzing past this blog’s seven year mark three weeks ago, I’ve realized how much ground we’ve covered. It’s time to review of some basics, and terminology is a great place to start.

I’m often asked to define and explain the  differences among six terms in common usage for describing written accounts of personal history. This overview should answer any questions.

Autobiography — a chronological account documenting events of your life from birth through the present. Given the amount of material that is generally covered, these works tend to emphasize basic facts with relatively little reflection and insight.

Memoir — a narrative account of a specific, bounded aspect of your life. You can write many memoirs to emphasize different facets. Typical examples of memoir content include military service, career experience, surviving a hurricane, illness or various sorts of abuse, or perhaps your experiences with quilting, cooking or a favorite sport. Formal memoir is an integrated story using fiction techniques such as an ongoing plot (story line, story arc), scenes, dialog and more. Like autobiography, memoirs are typically book length and divided into chapters. Unlike autobiography, they incorporate insights, emotions, and other elements to emphasize a message in the included material and bring it to life for readers.

Life Story (lifestory) — short, self-contained stories about specific events and experiences. These stories focus on things you did or things that happened to you. They may be combined into anthologies or “story albums” for sharing with others, and they may be incorporated as scenes in memoir or autobiography. Language and structure of life stories may be more or less formal and polished, depending on your levels of interest and skill. These stories are a great way to ease into life writing.

Personal Essay — stories about your beliefs, values and opinions. In their purest form, personal essays focus on thoughts and feelings, life stories on actions and experiences. In reality, the line between them blurs, and the most compelling stories have elements of both. Distinctions between them are meaningless.

Journaling — spontaneous accounts of anything that comes to mind: events, thoughts, hopes, fears, the weather, rants and more. Journal writing is helpful for sorting things out and making sense of life, and purely spontaneous journaling has documented health benefits. You can write journals like letters to the future, intended as a legacy, but may lose some health benefits in the process.

Freewriting — similar to journaling, but usually destined for the wastebasket or fireplace. During sessions of freewriting, you write spontaneously, without thought of form, spelling, or other elements of shared writing. It’s useful for getting ideas onto paper where you can see them and further refine them for sharing with others or just making sense of them for yourself.

Based on levels of complexity, freewriting and journaling are the simplest forms, intended only for personal review, not sharing with others. They serve well to gather your thoughts before writing more material for others to read. Life stories and personal essays are the next rung on the ladder, presenting your thoughts and ideas in and orderly, logical flow. Autobiography and memoir are the most involved, drawing on elements of both lifestories and memoir.

Please understand you need not make a choice. Each form is a tool, and you can use all of them. Many people begin with life stories, then integrate those into an anthology and/or autobiography. After writing the overview, they may drill down to explore certain areas more deeply in a series of memoirs. But if all you do is write a few simple stories, that is a noble accomplishment.

Write now: Ponder these various forms of writing and explore ways each may help you achieve your life writing project goals.

Documentary Memoir

When I first began writing lifestories and teaching workshops to help others do the same, my emphasis was on preserving family memories and creating a legacy of personal and family history for future generations. That picture gradually enlarged to include documenting your way of life in what will soon be times gone by.

In spite of a growing emphasis on transformational, healing and confessional memoir, historical documentation still serves a valid and important purpose, one that should not get lost in the scramble to bare more psychological skin. Well-written documentary memoir can be both fascinating and thrilling.

British author Ian Mathie is remarkably skilled at this. I read each of his four  engrossing volumes of memoir straight through. I was unable to tear my eyes from the page as I read about his experiences during the 1970s in various parts of northern Africa where he worked as a water engineer for an unspecified British Foreign Service agency. Rather than commuting from cities, he preferred to live in remote villages among the people while teaching them to dig reliable wells with natural filtering systems to provide a sustainable, safe water supply. He began schools with native teachers to spread these skills to other areas.

At times he was in the jungle. Other times he was in one desert or another, and occasionally he did live in cities. He encountered witch doctors, tribal chiefs, and ordinary villagers. He was invited to dinner by four different presidents, including Mobutu. He drove all over in Land Rovers, rode trains and camels, and often relied on his small Cessna. He was a genius at working the system.

But these are not books about “The Further Adventures of Ian Mathie.” Despite the fact that his life was indeed filled with constant adventure, the emphasis in his stories is on the people he encountered, the people he came to care so deeply for, his friends for life — which unfortunately wasn't long. Most of those people and cultures were victims of one revolution or another.

The books document lifestyles of people who had highly evolved cultures, ideally adapted to an environment which was already endangered when he lived among them. My understanding and respect for the wisdom of prewestern, native cultures soared, and I expect enthralled anthropology students will be citing Mathie’s accounts in piles of research papers for decades.

Few of us have stories as inherently exotic and powerful as Mathie’s, but even ordinary life can be described in compelling ways and may seem exotic to your offspring  in fifty or one hundred years. Imagine how fascinating it would be to read the details of your great-great-grandparents’ lives more than 100 years ago. Even if all mine did was haul in the harvest and milk the cows, I’d love to know how they went about it.

Each of Mathie’s volumes has a different structure, so each has a lesson to teach on how to write as a bonus beyond the amazing content. All four of his volumes are available in print on Amazon. The first, Bride Price, is now also available in all eBook formats as well as text documents on Smashwords, and the other titles will soon follow.

Write now: write a description of your day today (or a recent one of your choosing). Rather than simply listing things calendar style, describe how you did them. Pretend you are writing for someone from 200 years ago and explain what a dishwasher is and how it works. What sort of blankets are on your bed. What does your house look like? What did you do at work if you went there? Fill them in, and tell how you felt about each activity. You may find your days are more interesting than you’d realized!