Merry Christmas
What a memory rich season this is, perhaps because it’s so full of ritual and repetitive tasks. As I wrapped a few gifts this afternoon, I used some ancient ribbon that I swear could have come from my great-grandmother’s attic. She died when I was four. The ribbon has shiny satin threads — on one side. The other side is dull paper. It works well for puffed bows that are ever so much more elegant than the commercial ones that you simply peel and stick. As I fluffed half a dozen bows, I remembered sitting on my parents’ bed wrapping presents fifty years ago, and learning to make elegant bows. The packages had to be perfectly wrapped, with crisply folded creases, and neatly balanced ends, taped just so.
This year my hubby received his Christmas gift early — a record turntable that plugs directly into the line-in port on a computer. This is the first time in a dozen years that we’ve been able to listen to our old LP albums. We converted half a dozen decades-old Christmas albums to MP3 files. Even with a few hisses and pops, those old songs sound more like Christmas than the newer CD’s we’ve purchased.
We no longer set up a large tree, opting instead for a collection of permanently decorated table-top trees. But those wee trees pack just as much spirit as their full-size cousins, and pondering the glow of the mini-lights reminds me of The Perfect Christmas Tree.
Over the years, Christmas customs at our house have changed dramatically from intense observance to nearly ignoring it, to something more balanced, but the memories of early Christmases remain, and traditions stand firm. They are the touchstone. This is the time of year that brings people together. Whether in the mall, around the eggnog bowl, or in worship services, we meet, we greet, and we all wish for Peace On Earth. Ultimately, that's the Reason For the Season.
I wish you a Merry Christmas, and hope that you’ll find a few minutes in the post-Christmas lull to sit in the glow of the tree with pen and paper and capture some of your Christmas memories and stories. That’s a great lead-in to a strong story start for the New Year that’s only hours away.
Write now: some notes of Christmas memories that you can transform into stories in a few days. What do you remember about Santa Claus? How did you learn to wrap gifts? What was the most exciting gift you ever got? Ever gave? What was your menu for Christmas dinner? Did you enjoy the day? Why or why not? How has Christmas changed for you?
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
How long should a story be? As long as it needs to be.
I could end the blog right there. That pretty much says it all. But, you’d still be wondering what on earth that means? Is it okay for a story to be told in a single sentence? Should it fill one page? Two pages? Is twenty-nine too many?
Don’t agonize over length. Each story will dictate its own length as you write. Some may run on for many pages, and others may fit in a single paragraph, like this one:
My most embarrassing moment came the year after I graduated from college. I had studied German for two years, and thought I knew a few words. But one evening I attended bridge club, and the the hostess’s mother-in-law was visiting from Austria. She had helped Ossie prepare elegant pastries for dessert. I wanted to tell the woman how much I enjoyed the treats, but she didn’t speak a word of English. Calling upon my best German I said, "Das kuchen sind sehr gut." (The cakes are very good.) She looked at me, shook her head and said, "No speak English." I blushed and tried again, more slowly, with the same result. She looked so embarrassed, and I was horrified that she didn't even recognize that I was speaking her language! Believe me, that was the last time I ever tried speaking German!
This entire story is complete within the single paragraph. It tells who was involved (Ossie's mother-in-law and me), when (a year after graduation) and where it happened (Ossie's house), what happened (I gave up speaking German), and why (I feared further humiliation). It has a theme (embarrassment), a beginning (introduces the topic of embarrassment), a middle (describes an embarrassing moment), and an end (embarrassment put a stop to my further use of German).
Very short stories like this one are generally referred to as anecdotes or vignettes and incorporated into larger stories, but they can stand on their own. Write them and file them away. If you find further use for them later, that’s great. If you don’t, someday somebody will find that story and read it with a smile and gratitude.
Write now: about an embarrassing moment of your own, letting the story dictate its own length.
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
When strangers hear that I teach classes in lifestory writing, they often confess, “I’ve been thinking about doing something like that myself, but I have no idea how to go about it.” While some people start with their birth and write their way through the calendar, another approach is easier for most people to follow. I call this the scrapbook approach to lifestory writing, in the sense that scrapbooks are a compilation of bits and pieces of random material, or a collection of related tidbits. I recommend the scrapbook approach to anyone who doesn’t instinctively reach for a calender, because you can fit the random stories to a calender later if you decide to use a chronological approach.
In the scrapbook approach, you write stories about your spontaneous memories, regardless of chronological order. I’m a scrapbook writer myself, and I might follow a story about my preschool years with another about signing up for Social Security. Some stories are three or four paragraphs long, while others go on for several pages. I have a huge portfolio that bulges with about five hundred miscellaneous stories now, roughly sorted into about a dozen file folders. Several years ago, I parked a few early ones on Ritergal’s website, and I selected a baker’s dozen to illustrate points in The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, but most are slumbering in the depths of my file cabinet.
Themes are beginning to emerge, attracting clusters of stories, and later this year I plan to begin organizing these themes, weaving them together with some narrative, and filling in blanks with related stories. Perhaps I’ll publish a volume with several themes, one theme per chapter or section. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t clear yet how to do it. When the time is right, it will happen, and if it doesn’t, at least I leave stacks and piles of random stories behind to entertain and enlighten future generations.
If you read memoirs thought-fully, you’ll begin noticing that many are formulated with chapters comprised of a collection of short stories, many perhaps only three or four paragraphs long. Some authors may write the stories specifically for the book, but others do as I’ve mentioned above, culling through collections and assembling the appropriate ones. Who knows how many of these authors set out to write a published volume when they first put fingers to keyboard?
So, if you are unsure where to start, quit fretting. Just sit down and write the first story that comes to mind. Then write another. If you need help coming up with a topic, click on the Prompts label below and skim through the blog articles that come up, or click over to the 236 Creative Writing Prompts website and write your heart out. If you have compiled a story idea list, you are way ahead of the game! Over time, you’ll cover the important parts of your life map. If you get around to organizing the stories in tidy volumes, that will be a wonderful accomplishment. But if all you leave is a pile of drafts, your family will still be thrilled.
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
Countdown: 35 days until the release of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing on July 1. Stay tuned for ordering details.
The other day a friend gave me a guided tour of her collection of teapots that fill several shelves in her dining room. This one was from China, and another was over a hundred years old. She found a fancy one with a rose pattern in an antique shop in London. An exquisite Belleek pot occupied a special place. As she showed me each one, she took it from the shelf and fondled it like a pet while she told how she came to have it.
“These teapots are like windows on your life. Each has quite a story to it. Have you written them down?” I finally asked.
“No. Now and then I think of it, but I just never seem to get around to it.” She paused. “I think one of the reasons I’ve delayed starting is not knowing how to go about it,” she finally admitted.
“Don’t try to do this all at once,” I cautioned her. “Just do one pot at a time. Pick any pot, put it on the table in front of you and sit down with a blank piece of paper and pen. Write a short note telling how you came to have this teapot. Did you buy it yourself? Where did you find it? What was the shop like? How did it catch your eye? What made it special? Was it a bargain or a splurge?”
She looked intrigued. “That doesn’t sound so hard. I think I could do that, but surely there’s more to it than that.”
“There doesn’t have to be. Just getting the place and price down would be valuable. But I can tell by the way you hold these pots that they each have special meaning for you; the more of this meaning you include in their stories, the more interesting the pots will be to future owners. Have you ever wondered what their lives were like before you found each other?”
She was nodding eagerly, so I went on to suggest that she include details of occasions when she used that specific teapot. What memories of friends were associated with each? Did one make tea taste different from another? What would make her chose any given pot on a particular day?
Beyond that was the matter of arranging the finished stories. She liked the idea of an album she planned to name “All My Little Teapots,” with a picture of one pot on each page, and the story of that pot pasted beside it with lovely scrapbooking paper to set it off. If the story was a long one, and a few would be, she would allow more pages in the album for it. She quickly realized that she’d need a rather large album, because she’d need to tell the stories of the friends and relatives who gave her the pots, and the trips she’d taken to find others.
“I’m so excited about this now! I can’t wait to get started!” From the far-away look in her eyes, I could tell that her muse was paying a get-acquainted visit, and I’d best get out of the way.
I can’t wait to read the stories she writes. Do you have a collection or few around your house? You can add value to the collection by recording its story, and just think what a great excuse it is to spend time with each item. Don’t let it gather another coat of dust before you set pen to paper.
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
