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.

Discover by Doing

“I don’t really know how things will turn out until I start making them. They don’t always look like I thought they would, so sometimes I’m surprised.”

My eight-year-old granddaughter Sarah was talking about the clothespin doll she was wrapping in a scrap of cloth when she told me this, but she could have been talking about writing. She is also a budding writer, though most of her story-making remains in her head at this point.

I covered her doll making process in my previous post and explained how observing her expanded my creativity. Here are a few tips I gleaned that apply to any creative endeavor, especially writing.

Remain open to possibility. The doll pictured above became an Evil Queen, eventually  named Medusa. Sarah didn’t know who the doll would be when she began. Its identity emerged from the choice of spikey silver hair and black fabric and grew with the addition of lace and lamé.

Stories often work that way for me. Sometimes fanciful stories emerge from freewriting and their significance and meaning for my personal or life story become apparent only later. Other times I may know the bones and drift of a life story, but  my reflections often refract in new directions, adding unexpected elements. Based on my observations of Sarah, I’m ready for lots more freewriting!

Bounce back from mistakes. Sarah discarded several scraps that didn’t look “right”, didn’t quite fit, or didn’t please her. “Sometimes I have to try lots of things before I find what works.” Doesn’t this sound just like the editing process for writers?

Take a break when you need it. These dolls joined several she brought from home to become characters in a sequel she began writing to a book she dearly loves. I saw in silent awe as she made notes on a clipboard to set up the story , then began acting it out. “I’ll work on it more later,” she decided when she hit a snag.

Accept dead ends. “Or maybe I’ll just start over.” Sarah does finish projects, but she has no qualms about abandoning the ones that don’t please her, at least if they aren’t assigned projects for school. Aside from homework and chores, her equivalent of adult work tasks, everything she does is play. What a liberating way to view self-assigned writing projects.

Use organization tools. Sarah didn’t need tools to plan her dolls, but she is using them for writing projects. Her school begins teaching story organization tools in kindergarten, and I wish I’d had time to learn more about them. Her abbreviated notes looked like an outline of sorts, a cryptic sketch of plot. It reminds me of story idea lists, outlines, mind maps, and other planning tools covered in previous posts.

Play with your work. In my opinion, this is the key. Sarah asked various forms of the question, “I wonder what if …” constantly. “What if she had a silver cape? …” “What if” is said to be the most powerful tool a writer can use. It pushes us into the Land of Make Believe, perhaps better understood as the Land of Unlimited Possibility.

You can use “what if?” to explore writing techniques, and you can also use it as a way of examining alternate views of past experiences: “What if she really meant … ?” or “What if something else was going on that affected that situation?”

Realize that imperfections add character. This is a touchy tip, a tw0-edged sword. Sarah’s dolls are quirky and rough cut, exuding the power of primitive art. They are perfect for her purpose, capturing the heart of her vision, but they are imprecise, with blobs of glue peeking beyond hairlines, ragged edges, and more. Would they work as they are in the marketplace? Hard to say. Perhaps our biggest challenge as writers is retaining the freshness of a draft while editing out major flaws. Over-editing can sanitize the life out of a story or interject additional sparkle. Keeping the right balance between Heart and Craft is an ongoing challenge.

Another side to this tip is that imperfections in the people you write about (yourself included) add character to the people and the story.

My time with Sarah as we made these dolls and I watched her begin developing a story was a powerful reminder that life can be an ongoing writing workshop. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Write now: take a play break with your writing and indulge in fifteen or more minutes of freewriting. Explore the results and look for material you can polish into a memorable story.

Onerous Grammar Rules Suspended

Lifewriters of the world, rejoice. In response to growing pressure from writers overwhelmed by the economic crisis and other stress sources, leading grammar authorities announced that many basic grammar rules that have plagued people for centuries are being suspended.

“These demands came partly from the burgeoning Print-On-Demand and related self-publishing venues. Authors seeking to gain control of their own destinies feel unfairly burdened by the need to have professional editing. This decision will allow them to maintain their integrity and self-respect as they churn out material that would have been considered deplorable even last year,” reports publishing industry expert Sasha Greinhaus.

“We hope to make writing fun again for ordinary people," quipped Jack Merrigeld, a critic noted for scalding rebukes of the grammatically inept. "I have seen the light. I've become awakened to the power of personal choice and freedom of expression.”

Typical of the rules suspended include

• The need for complete sentences. Thought fragments are fine. Just get those words on paper.

• Comma regulations. "Commas have always been the most baffling and misused piece of punctuation. Authors should use them whenever they feel appropriate and let it go at that."

• Dialogue formatting. Don't worry about those pesky quotation marks, or where the commas and question marks go. Just write what you want to say and let the reader puzzle it out.

• Dangling participles. "You've probably remember this phrase from school days and have no idea what it means. Now prepositions are fine to end sentences with."

More about this exciting news can be found on the website http://www.aprilfool.com.

Write now: do some freewriting by these new guidelines which have always been appropriate for freewriting. Maybe you'd like to write about April Fool jokes you have enjoyed through the years. Whatever you write about, have fun.

Lifting the Clouds of Depression

“Lifting the cloud of depression is one of the documented benefits of expressive writing, aka life writing, especially in the form of journaling, rants or freewriting.”

I got sidetracked after I wrote that sentence and before I sat back down to finish this blog post, I checked my e-mail. There I found the latest edition of Amber Starfire’s stellar Journaling Through Life Ezine. The first sentence in her feature article reads, “A recent article on health said that feelings of helplessness and lack of control are significant factors contributing to depression, particularly for women.” Well, hey! You know the saying, “Great minds run in the same channels.”

Back in the ‘70s when I was a psychology grad student, Locus of Control was all the rage, and research papers and theses (including mine) in psychology departments all over the country incorporated Rotter’s Locus of Control Inventory. A strong correlation was found between a strong external locus of control and depression.

Translated to Plain People Language, that means that the less control you perceive yourself to have over your own life, the more likely you are to become depressed.

Back in the day, I scored high on internal locus of control. I just found a self-scoring version on the University of North Carolina’s psychology department site. I don’t recall finding the test irritating thirty years ago, but today my preferred answer would be “neither one” for most questions, rendering my score personally meaningless. My path to that change of perspective could make a excellent personal essay topic.

In spite of being out of sync with questions on that scale today, I still subscribe to the message of Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning that others can control every circumstance of our lives, but they cannot control our attitude. To me, that’s the ultimate in Internal Locus of Control. To date, the most powerful tool I’ve found for maintaining attitude control is “root writing”, a term I introduced in my Tree of Life Writing post.

By root writing I mean rants, freewriting about puzzling situations, and journaling in general — personal writing best done “underground” and left unshared. This writing helps synchronize head and heart and maintain that sense of personal control.

Which brings us back around to the well-documented value of expressive writing for lifting the cloud of depression. Or maybe keeping it from settling in to begin with. There’s nothing like a good session with my journal for maintaining serenity and optimism.

Write now: click over and take the Locus of Control Inventory, then journal or freewrite about the thoughts you have about your score. If you are subject to depression, try using James Pennebaker’s formula for exploring some of the “out-of-control” circumstances that may be contributing factors.

Telling Those Untold Stories

I’m honored to be a featured guest on Sue Mitchell’s inspiring blog today. It takes a writing village to create something meaningful and turn stories into bonds that unite communities around the world. I’m happy that we can share and enlarge this village together. 

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You know those times when you’re looking around online, happen on a website, and feel like you’ve struck gold? That’s how I felt the first time I landed on Sharon Lippincott’s The Heart and Craft of Lifewriting blog.

. . .

On your blog, you provide a wealth of clear and practical lessons on improving your writing. At what point in the process of writing a memoir do you think writers should begin to concern themselves with the craft of writing and when do you recommend freewriting, without worrying about quality?

I advise beginners to focus on quantity rather than quality, especially if they are near or past Medicare age. I base this partly on the fact that my mother did not tell anyone she was working on her life story and died leaving two or three versions of rough draft, but nothing polished. Once I found those drafts in her genealogy material, I was able to piece them together into a coherent and complete narrative of her life up to the point of meeting my father.

. . . Click here to read the rest.

Color Me Obsessive

Ebullient. Effervescent. Inspired. Words fly around my mind like popcorn at its climax. It all started with a writing practice challenge from Ybonesy over at Red Ravine to set a time for five minutes and write, non-stop, listing every emotion we could think of. Five minutes: now that’s a challenge I can do. I can spare five minutes. I recently bought a tiny timer to keep on my desk, mostly to prevent the pizza from burning while Sarabelle has control of my brain, but also to time freewriting exercises. When the timer beeped, I had a list of 64. I was pumped, stoked, thrilled, energized. I was also hooked.

For two days now, clusters of words have sporadically popped afresh. Yesterday afternoon I dared to hope I’d top 100. Before supper I’d surpassed that goal. Then the fire flared again, and by the time I went to bed last night, the count was up to 185, and 200 seemed possible.

Some nights I would have lain awake, obsessed with the search. Last night I fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow, but Sarabelle's insistent whispers woke me early. “Brain dead ... stymied ... pumped ... now get up and add those if you value my help!”

Others may be able to jot messages from their muse on a notepad by their bed and go back to sleep. I’m not one of those people. Sarabelle is a relentless taskmaster. Relentless. Isolated. Exhilarated. The list flew right past the 200 mark. Bashful — now why didn’t I already have that one? Up — another case of overlooking the obvious, and the 225th entry.

Am I done? Will there be more? I think the pot will sit quietly for a while, but I do anticipate more after-pops. I can never predict what Sarabelle will come up with.

You may wonder why on earth anyone would need 225 words to describe emotions, especially when bashful, shy, and reticent all mean the same thing. (Reticent — entry #226!) The simple truth is, you don’t, unless you strive for colorful writing. Even then, you still don’t. I could surely have derived this list in way less time, and probably have twice the entries if I’d simply clicked the link to my favorite online thesaurus.

But I love a challenge, and this one has paid off in an unexpected way. As the list grows, I find that the act of compiling it strengthens my ownership and command of the words on the list and forces me to examine various emotions more deeply than I ever have. There may another bonus. In a comment, Ybonesy writes that in a workshop she attended, a UCLA professor mentioned that a rich emotional vocabulary is linked to a rich emotional life. Presumably focusing on the nuances of variation hones our awareness of our internal states.

Lest I stray off topic, for the purposes of writing, a rich vocabulary enables us to keep our writing fresh and lively, and to paint deliciously detailed descriptions.

Vibrant. Zestful. That’s 252 and counting. Did I mention compulsive? Obsessed?

Write now: make your own list of emotions. Take five minutes to get it started, then let the list grow like a sourdough starter, one bubble at a time, for two to four days, stirring occasionally to keep it lively. You can make it even more lively by following Ybonesy's suggestion to freewrite about specific words.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Coming to My Senses

I recently spent a few days on retreat at a friend's house in southern California. Something about the mellow gold and ocher hills and spare landscape of the Golden State strikes me as magical, profoundly relaxing and invigorating. In the stillness of the coastal hills, without the distractions of daily life, I’m able to get in touch with the essentials of life more deeply than usual.

One morning I walked up the steep hill above the house. I went alone, with no agenda and no planned destination, just wandering along a road lined with magnificent mansions scattered among simpler California classics dating back fifty years or more. I went early enough in the morning to avoid the full heat of the day and intense sun exposure, but late enough for the slight chill and haze to burn off.

Warm sunlight activated all sorts of fragrances, and I began to “come to my senses.” Sights, sounds, and smells took on unexpected intensity. I delighted in a sudden burst of fresh, moistly cool fragrance as I stepped beneath an ancient pine tree shading a variety of blooming lilies and other garden plants set in a moist mixture of mulch and dry needles. The scent was intoxicating.

Further along, I noticed a small daisy-like flower that looked like drops of vivid paint splashed on an otherwise bare canvas of muted adobe-colored dirt. I became aware of a multitude of birds chirping a lively chorus in the tree tops, and the churning of an earthmover in a nearby canyon. Houses loomed like mysteries, evoking a sense of pleasantly cool darkness within their thick walls. From the condition of the exterior and landscaping, I could sense distinct personality imprints of their owner, imagining the nature of accumulated belongs inside.

My awareness alternately focused within my body. I noticed how my breathing strained as I walked up the hill. I felt the pull of muscles not often called so intensely into play. I felt my heart pound as it pumped extra blood to oxygen-starved tissue.

I wondered as I wandered. I wondered at the sights and sounds around me. I wondered at the sensations within, at the memories this all evoked, and I wondered what to do with all this awareness. How can I work some of these intensely personal observations into my writing​? Here are a few ideas I came up with to anchor such treasure on the page:

• Turn the walk into a story or essay. If all I do is report on the walk itself, it will be as dry as the dirt under my feet. But if I use the walk as a thread for stringing memory snips triggered by the sensory input, a story will emerge.

• Use fragments as freewriting triggers.

• Take an existing story set in similar surroundings and use this experience to polish descriptions.

This list could be much longer, and serves merely as a tiny preview of the type of material we’ll cover in the Make Your Stories Sparkle teleclass I am teaching for members and friends of the National Association of Memoir Writers next month. Please join me on June 30 for a free* preview conference call to learn more about the class. Those who sign up for the call will receive a link to download a recording the phone call, so you can listen later even if you are unable to participate in the live call.

Write now: go on your own mini-retreat by going for a walk in a park, the countryside, or even the sidewalks around your neighborhood. Location matters less than awareness. When you return, sit down right away and record your observations in a journal or anything you have at hand.

* There is no charge for the call, but normal toll charges will apply to dial in.

Finding Starts in Personal Essay Writing, Part 1

Today’s post is the first of a three-part series by noted author Sheila Bender. Sheila has become one of the leading national experts on writing personal essays. Her book, Writing and Publishing Personal Essays, is in its second edition. With her books, her online classes, coaching, and myriad of other services, she has helped thousands benefit from the humble art of personal essay.

Although it might not be obvious, those of us who write personal essays can benefit greatly from not knowing what we have to write about.  That is surprising to people who think of the essay as researched knowledge with a professorial, didactic tone.  But to write an essay is really to “assay” or test out a hypothesis about something.  If writers walk around with a head full of ideas and think they have to commit to writing them, they miss the hypothesis part of the process, the part about finding something of interest to test.  In other words, the essay is an exploration, not an initial knowing.  Because of this, I like to utilize exercises for finding topics that model not knowing as a way of beginning essays.

After the following directions for a series of three freewrites, I will show you how to mine the collection of material you create to discover your hidden essay topic.

First Freewrite

Go to a place you have not previously come to write.  It can be the corner of a room or a chair facing a different window than you usually face; you might sit at a café or park bench new to you, or even your car will work if you do park somewhere other than your habitual spot.  In fact, just getting out of the driver’s seat and sitting in a passenger seat could make any parking spot new for the purposes of this freewrite.

Begin your freewriting by describing where you are and what you see where you are.  You can add in what you think you will be able to see in the near future.  Then involve your other senses to stay “in scene” and really deliver the experience of the place you are describing. A sound or sight, smell or texture, or even the taste of something you are eating or have waiting for you for lunch will offer new experience and associations.  So stay specific. Don’t be cursory.  Don’t write, “Here I am again writing before I go into work and there are cars as usual and I am tired as usual.” Instead stay in the moment and record details from where you are:

Here I am again writing in my journal before I go into work and I am parked dangerously close to the white line that separates my space from the next car’s slot.  That spot is empty now but within minutes someone will drive in and our cars shall remain close, shoulder-to-shoulder, for the eight hours of the workday.  I hear the fibers of my wool scarf like Velcro releasing as I pull the scarf from off my coat collar and I smell the boiled egg I’ve packed in my lunch today and think of the animals that have scent glands and release smells as warning or to mark territory like this sandwich might if I let it out on my desk. When I open the car door, pulling the hard plastic handle will be like a handshake I don’t quite want to make with a person I must depart from though I don’t feel our business is done.  I will leave my scarf in the car so I don’t later forget to replace it around my neck.  What secrets does it keep wrapped up here on the seat till I return?  I will enter the cement-chilled air of the basement garage heading toward the chrome-lined elevator.  I will go up and up, hoping the crowd of my thoughts will stay warm and hatching until I return.

Next post: Instructions and prompts for two more freewrites.

Sheila Bender is the author of over a dozen books, including her newest Behind Us the Way Grows Wider: New and Collected Poems, A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief, Creative Writing Demystified and Writing and Publishing Personal Essays. To learn more about her books and her online classes and instruction, visit  http://www.writingitreal.com.

Recipe for Story Writing

For several years before Yahoo! abruptly pulled its plug, I contributed to the Yahoo! Lifestory group almost daily. Every time I'd post something about a personal memory, I pasted the email body into a continuing WordPerfect document, together with the date. As a result, I have over one hundred pages of prime memory scraps recorded in a sort of album of random stories, all written in short periods of time.

In reading through this collection, I noticed one that I wrote in response to a member who mentioned that she was striving for balance. My reply was a form of freewriting, a technique often recommended for overcoming writer's block. If you have ever experienced this affliction, perhaps you'll appreciate these recycled thoughts:

What is this balance you are looking for? Time for writing about life and time for living it? The pain preventing balance of body in chair? The delicate balance between gushy detail and rich description? Balancing an egg on a pole on the tip of your little finger? Or walking a tight wire across Grand Canyon?

Balance. I imagine that if I ever find perfect balance, I shall levitate into the next dimension, freed at last of gravity and fumbles.

Gravity. Now there's another nice concept. Perhaps gravity of spirit is more cumbersome and oppressive than gravity binding feet to terra firma. So, there is yet another balance to strive for, between grumpy gus and airhead. But wait. Who needs balance? The next dimension sounds more appealing all the time!

Now look what happened: A blank email screen is a direct challenge. My fingers take over where my mind may falter. Mindless sounding or profound, I'm often as surprised as anyone at what pours forth. Here's my recipe:

Connect fingers with keys, engage heart, and let the words flow. Test with mind to see if the words are worth sharing, and/or need tweaking. Press save, send, or delete accordingly.

I've polluted your mind for writing about balance. Why don't you write a few lines about chaos, passion, iciness or a whip? Be bold and share your experiment as a comment to this post.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

It's All in How You Look at Things

Old woman or young girl?

You know how sometimes the same information keeps coming at you from all sides? The classic illusion puzzle illustrated above has taken over my life lately. It began as I wrote in my journal yesterday morning and realized that I could look at a situation from 180º around for a point of view my  more to my liking, then I could clearly see both points of view. "It's all in how I look at things," I wrote.

That reminded me of another favorite illusion, and rather than finding it elsewhere, I made my own. Notice how the bars and word look shaded? Click the image for proof they're not. 

Click and wait 4 seconds for alternate view

Within the next twenty-four hours, I noticed references to this sort of reframing several places. Unfortunately, the notes I made on the sources were mental, and like most great story ideas that aren’t written down, they vanished. (Note to self: write things down!) One was in a book I read. Another was in a blog, and the third in an email newsletter. I even found a link to a webpage with some amazing illusions, and video explanations. You can explore it on your own.

The relevance for us is that things are not always as they seem, and in many ways, everything we see is an illusion. We can often choose how to view it, and these choices can lead to inner peace and healed relationships. That isn’t always easy, and sometimes assistance like you’ll find on the Yoism website is the only way you’ll be able to make the shift.

Here are a few tips to use while you write in your journal or ponder a knotty question in a story. Look at a specific aspect of a situation and ask:

• “Is this true?”
• “How else could I explain things?”
• “What is the hidden gift here?”
• “How might (the other person) see this situation?”
• “What can I learn from this?”

In each case, write your answers down. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t experience an immediate shift in outlook or attitude. You may need more data or practice at alternate view and explanations. Whatever the case, you’ll get some great mind exercise and keep your mental muscles limber and lithe. You may find this exercise is a lot of fun, and even humorous. It may yield a story idea or few. You may feel more creative as a result. You may even become a more forgiving, grateful and accepting person.

Write now: if you’ve ever had a dramatic reversal of attitude write a story or essay about that event. If you haven’t think of a puzzling situation and use freewriting or your journal to practice looking at it from different angles, using one or more of the questions on the list above.

The Power of a Question

“She hears voices.”

“He talks to himself.”

Until recent years such observations conveyed suspicion of ... insanity! Or maybe the dazzling brilliance of an eccentric genius. Few people want to be thought of as the first or qualify for the second. Could that be why so few people know about this powerful journaling technique?

Posing questions in your journal and then writing down the answers may be the single most powerful tool available for insight, healing and problem-solving. The more you use it, the stronger it grows. This technique is recommended by all leading journal experts for developing insight, solving problems, enhancing creativity and more. Let’s take a quick look at a few Power Questions and how to use them. Later posts will explore specific questions in more depth.

The first step of the simple process is to describe a troubling or puzzling situation, then follow it up with a question like one of these:

What can I learn from this?

An ideal question to pose after recording anger, hurt or fear arousing incidents and events.

Is this true?

This simple question is an offshoot of The Work of Byron Katie. Whether you are writing or obsessing, it’s a great way to break your chain of blame and negativity. It’s also a way to protect yourself from overoptimism.

What would (insert name) say about this?

Some variation of this question opens the door to understanding other points of view that may provide the key to resolving differences, or removing thorns from sticky situations.

What would I rather be doing? 

What gives me the most pleasure? 

What’s my payoff for continuing down this path?

How do I really feel about this?

The more often you pose questions to yourself, the more easily they will come to you. The second step is to start writing answers without any conscious effort to find them. Set your Inner Critic aside and just write. Let the words flow. You may be surprised at some of the answers that appear on the page. Don’t settle for the first answer that pops out of your pen. There may be many, and the most productive may lurk at the bottom of the bottle.

Where do these answers come from? Some say the creative subconscious. Others may claim they come from Spirit in whatever form you understand it. Maybe imply The Universe. Who cares? They work. Do yourself a favor and give them a try.

Write now: briefly describe a puzzling or emotionally draining situation. Begin a new paragraph with the question, “What can I learn from this?” Spend at least five minutes freewriting answers without conscious thought on your part. Read the answers and continue to drill down with more questions about juicy answers. Finish with a simple “Thank you.”

Photo: Wikimedia

Your Own Magic Crystal Ball

Imagine that you have a magic crystal ball that sees the past as well as the future, able to change the shape and color of events. The other day I was blessed with such an experience, though the ball was nowhere to be found.

It happened in the early morning as I wrote in my journal. As my coffee began to kick in and my fingers limbered, I began writing about a person from my school years, someone I’ve always believed “made my life miserable.” I’ve even been known to claim (only partly in jest) that said person “ruined my life.” Suddenly I dropped my pencil as a voice in my head blurted out a startling message:

She didn’t ruin your life. She didn’t even make you miserable. If anything ruined your life, it was the way you compared yourself to her and came up short in your own view. Plus the way she had a few people skills you hadn’t yet learned. But that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with you. Besides, was your life really ruined, or simply nudged around an inevitable corner?

You know that feeling, that great big, whack on the side of the head “DUH!” moment? I had one of those moments. Had anyone been watching, I would have been the classic image of shock. My jaw dropped and my eyes widened. I simultaneously felt a surge of energized excitement and a wave of relaxation. My shoulders dropped as if a huge load had lifted, and I sank deeply into my chair. “Wow!” I said, in a loud whisper so as not to awaken my still-slumbering spouse. “Wow!” What other word would do?

With that thunderous insight, whole chapters of my life flipped into a new configuration as quickly as if I’d clicked on “re-sort,” and my understanding of the peculiar relationship I’d had with this classmate flipped 180º. Suddenly all was very right with my world — or I should say even more right. I knew more certainly than ever that everything in my life has happened specifically to bring me to here, to now, and that’s a very good thing. Some would say healing occurred. Perhaps. I call it growth in understanding.

Would I have come to this understanding without my journaling practice? Maybe. Would I have thought of this if I didn’t spend time writing stories about my life? Could be. One can never be fully certain of things like this. Obviously sages through the ages have acquired great wisdom through mediums other than writing, but there is no question that the  discipline of journaling and related forms of life writing will increase the odds.

This discovery is not something I had consciously sought. For over half a century I had taken that relationship and analysis for granted. Why change the story now? That is indeed magic. It’s a blessing, and although I didn’t seek it, I did set the stage by sitting here, day after day, with my hand moving a pencil across the page. Without question, writing about the person opened this door.

If I could give everyone in the world a gift, I would give them a journal with an endless supply of pages, a pencil with a perpetual point, and the desire to write.

Write now: about a pesky relationship from your past. Do it as freewriting, leaving your mind open to the possibility that you may have something to learn. But don’t do it with expectations — just hang loose and see where it goes. At the very least, you’ll have the makings of a story on that topic if you want to continue writing about it.

Where’s the Story?

Over a million people visit the Getty Center and Villa in Los Angeles each year. I’m one of them. I’ve been to the Center a couple of times and last week I visited the Villa. Like other visitors, I’m blown away by the splendor of both places. The architecture is magnificent and objects and art are displayed with great care and respect.
Nevertheless, I have the sense there, as in other museums, that something is missing. As I circled the last roomful of antiquities in the Villa, I had a sudden flash of insight into what that missing element might be. My friend and I had just confessed that the prolonged standing and ambling on hard floors has become increasingly difficult over the years. Our backs were screaming for a break.
“It’s all blurring together at this point,” she said. I concurred. I also realized that it had been blurring together all along for me.
“These objects were never intended to be viewed this way,” I blurted. “They lack context in here. They are as dead as the mummy in the other room.” I glanced at a display of household utensils and my eyes fell on objects that looked like small sauté pans with ridges in the bottom.
“I find it mildly interesting that the Roman glitteratti used things like this to wash their hands at meals, but still …” I paused briefly as a thought took form. “There’s no story here!” I blurted.
Her eyes widened in sudden recognition of this obvious fact.
“These objects were never intended to be viewed this way. They were made for a purpose, and when we look at them one after another, apart from their context, they barely hint at the dramas they were involved in. I want to know who dipped her fingers into that bowl. I want to know what she was doing at the banquet, what she ate, who she talked to about what, what she wore, how many outfits she had to select from … I want to know about the servant or slave who brought that bowl to the guest and what his or her life was like. I want to know about the life of the people represented by those statues, and what others thought of the statues,” I added, pointing to the room we’d just left. 
Some of these objects fire up my imagination with hints of story, but it’s all based on modern accounts by historians making guesses little more educated than mine. Other objects hint at creative stories of design and implementation. I fill in a few blanks with imaging's of my own, but they raise more questions than they answer.
Perhaps we’re becoming jaded, my friend and I concurred. Perhaps we’ve lived too long in an era of full disclosure and developed an over-reliance on realistic depictions in any media.
As I left, I realized yet again that my mind had been craving story to add relevance to what I saw, to compare it to what I know and store it away. When the “real” story isn’t available, I speculate and fill in the blanks with fabricated context and story – or I move on and ignore the object.
I also realized that there’s nothing inherently wrong with this. Those objects did stimulate my imagination. I could weave some of those details into stories of my own making. But that’s not nearly as satisfying as knowing the “real” story, and that’s what I insist on in reading material. If a story has large holes, if it’s obviously leaving out key details and context, I’m unlikely to finish reading – unless the story is about a relative and I know enough context to fill in the blanks. That won’t be the case if too much time has passed.
Write now: pluck a couple of memory fragments of objects from your mental storeroom. Find pictures of them if you can, otherwise describe them clearly. Then do some freewriting about the stories those objects fit into. Tell how they were used, what purpose they served. Then go beyond that and work one into a scene showing them in use. Include your thoughts about them, even if you only mindlessly picked them up. These details will breathe life into your stories and help later generations understand life as we lived it. You’ll be creating a living museum of dead objects.

The Best of Intentions . . .

Before the crack of dawn this morning I woke up, glowing with excitement about a essay idea that probably came from a dream. The vision was luminous and the concept was crystal clear. I knew that the minute I sat down at the keyboard, print-ready copy would pour forth in minutes. How could I risk drifting back to sleep and forgetting? Sarabelle is a ferocious taskmaster.

I slid from between my warm covers out into the cold, dark room, reaching for robe and slippers. I came down to my computer and ... I had fifteen e-mails. And ... I answered a couple. And ... here I sit, looking at a puddle of story that melted in the heat of the thought required to respond to those e-mails. Turning my mental energies to the thought required to craft those replies was blowing a strong wind across the surface of the previously mirror-still pond reflecting my idea.

Rats! I know better! How could I let this happen when I left my cozy bed for the specific purpose of recording it before it went poof?

Well, no point in beating myself up about it. I could pull out my journal and do some freewriting to see I can recapture the thought. But it's way more tempting to slip back between those warm covers and see if Sarabelle might be compassionate enough to give me a second chance. In any event, next time I have an epiphany (in the early morning or later in the day), I will not allow e-mail or anything else to distract me from recording it! I’ll at least get enough of it onto my story idea list to make sure I can recapture the moment.

Write now: start a story idea list if you don't already have one. That might be a piece of paper that you add to and check things off of. It might be a cigar or file box for collecting random scraps of paper, or a document on your computer. However you manage it, be sure you have one!

A Picture Can Spark a Thousand Words

 Nothing can get words and memories flowing for a life writer quite like a picture. Whether you’re journaling, writing a simple story or crafting a memoir, pictures can bring back memories as fresh as wet paint, and having the picture as a focal point may enable you to revisit the memory from many angles.

The general wisdom is that looking through your own  photo stash will spur memories. I gave an example of how that can work in Photographic Memory Jolts, in October 2007.

Before the days of digital cameras, most people only took photos on special occasions, so reminders of everyday life are rare. Fortunately, there is an alternative: browse through magazines and picture books, or do keyword searches on sites like Flickr.com to find thought-provoking photos.

When you find a picture that resonates with you, tear it out, or copy digital ones into a writing prompt folder. Write about it right away, or stick it in a collection to use when you feel stuck or want to do some freewriting. I pulled the picture above from a pile of illustrations I tore out of magazines a few years ago to use as writing prompts for myself and writing groups. I love the look of astonishment and maybe a few other things on that fresh young face. The pile has served well, and writing from it is a popular group activity.

Whether you find pictures from your own photos or enticing new sources, here are tips for using them to best advantage:

• Let your mind wander as you look at the picture. Run your eyes over various aspects of it. For example, in the one above, notice the expression on the girl’s face, her wide eyes and gaping mouth, the time of day, the expanse of table. Look at her hair, perfectly combed into cute pony tails.
• If this is a familiar picture, try to look at it as if you have never seen it before and set aside as many memories as you are able.
• Assess your feelings about the picture. Do you feel happy? Sad? Anxious? Indifferent?  Excited?
• Ask yourself what the picture reminds you of.  Make a few notes about any memories that come to mind.
• If the picture is of someone else, try putting yourself into the other person’s situation. For example, pretend you are the girl in the picture above. What might you be seeing that has your eyes popping? Were you ever in a situation where you reacted like that? Do you think others know she’s there?

After dwelling on the picture and thinking briefly about your reactions and memories or imaginations, begin to freewrite about whatever comes to mind, keeping the picture in sight as you write. You may be surprised at what comes out.

If a picture evokes especially powerful emotions, try writing about it another time or two taking different perspectives each time. Your creativity will get a boost, you may have material for a great new story, and you may have some fascinating and helpful new insight for unclogging a memoir or your life.

Write now: find a pile of old magazines and start a collection of meaningful pictures to use as writing prompts. Keep them loose to reuse, or paste to the page you’re writing one. Alternatively, copy and paste a significant picture into a new document and write about it on your computer.

Sighting In Your Story

When I was about ten years old, my father took my sister and me to the NRA sponsored Junior Rifle Club where we learned to shoot .22 rifles. I earned almost all the badges, stopping short of total accuracy in a standing position. The first thing we had to do each week was to sight in our rifles. I don’t recall exactly how we did this, but the point was to adjust the sights on the rifle by a few microns one way or another until we could actually hit what we aimed at. This involved shooting several rounds from a stable position until a consistently accurate pattern emerged.

Sometimes writing a story (or any other focused and purposeful piece) is something like that. Sometimes you may not even realize that you are “sighting in a story.”

Such was my experience yesterday. Through unfortunate timing, we learned of the death of a dear friend via voice mail, and later by e-mail. The event was not a surprise, but still a shock. As I began composing e-mails to notify our family, and then a few of my own close friends, a message began to emerge. I considered copying our friend’s family on the last one two, but that didn’t seem right. They deserved some words of their own.

By the time I got around to composing a few comforting paragraphs specifically for the family, I had settled into the process. The core purpose and message were clear. The rest fell into place around it, guided by a picture I selected to enhance the point. Although it still took some time, I don’t think I could have written what I ultimately did without the warm-up of the earlier versions to others. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, they allowed me to “sight in” the message that mattered most.

I have not shot a gun since before I graduated from high school, and hadn’t thought of the “sighting in” process for as long. It simply came to me as I reflected back on the experience of writing that piece. Other terms may be even more appropriate. “Nibbling around the edges” would work. It could also be likened to Michaelangelo’s description of carving a marble statue: “I look at the block of marble, see the image inside, and chip away everything that isn’t part of that image.”

I often toss out a few drafts before I settle into a story. Just as you can’t run at ultimate speed when you first hit the road, your words won’t generally flow as smoothly when you first reach for pen or keyboard. Sometimes it may take days or weeks to warm up to a big story. Don’t let that phase you. Hang in there, stretch and warm up by doing freewriting, writing e-mail or letters (just don’t let them crowd out your “real” writing!) or simply launching into a draft that may well be tossed. You’ll find that core story, and just the right words to tell it.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Unimaginable Story

“A gunman went into an elementary school and killed 18 children and 9 adults!” My husband’s voice cracked as he told me this, and I looked up to see his face contorting.

It took a minute or two for the full implication of what he had told me to sink in. I immediately grabbed my laptop – I wanted to know the story, right that minute! It took only two clicks to find it. The more I read, the more stricken I felt.

“Students were told to close their eyes by police as they were led from the building.” I read. The story went on to say that children were led out in a line, with each child placing a hand on the shoulder of the one ahead.

I had to stop and catch my breath. How can we possibly fathom or make sense of such unimaginable horror? That someone could be so deranged, so tormented, that he could gun down children at their desks?

I want to know the story. All of it. Why did this person do this? How did he come to this state? What were the children thinking as this occurred, and how will their families handle the situation to keep it from scarring these kids for life? How will the community cope and heal?

Some of the back story, especially about the perpetrator, will fill the pages of papers and the web for some time to come. Much of the story I want to know is written on the pages of the future just now, but I hunger to know.

What more powerful example that Story is the operating system of the human brain? Story is the way we make sense of life and all that transpires. I’m writing my thoughts and reaction to this event in my journal, and writing this post about it as part of my attempt to come to grips with it. Will this click it into perspective right away? Probably not, but I feel better for trying, and my awareness of the ubiquity of Story is sharpened to a finer edge.

Right now this story stands on its own, but as time passes and I think about it more, I fully expect that it will link with other stories I remember, stories about school, about guns and violence, grief, tragedy and loss. Seeking more about this story helps me feel connection with that community and the people involved. Hopefully the story will ignite compassion in hearts all around the world, not just for the victims’ families, and those traumatized by today’s event’s, but also for the tormented soul who was driven to this abominable act. Story explains. Story sows seeds of healing.

Write now: pull out paper and pen – or use a keyboard – and do some freewriting about this incident and your thoughts about it. How does it affect you? How do you feel about it? What does it mean to you? How does it change your point of view about anything? Does it remind you of anything? If it does, write a story about that.

Image: “Maternal Grief”, sculpture by Carl Johan Eldh. Exhibit in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Dantes Plads 7, Copenhagen, Denmark

Writing Your Way Out of the Dungeon of Despair

I shiver with cold dread at the sight of this picture. I took it myself four years ago, inside O’Brien’s Tower near the tip of the Cliffs of Moher in western Ireland. This day, our first full one on the Emerald Isle, was suitably dreary and gray, utterly mystical. Along with a sizable contingent from the much larger crowd of visitors staying within the official viewing area, we dared the “Beware of Bull” and “No Trespassing” signs to walk the mile or so out to the tip.

Since we had no guide, I could only speculate that the tower had been used as a dungeon. I felt trapped, claustrophobic and helpless in those confining walls, even knowing I could turn around and leave whenever I wanted. I felt frozen in place.

Recently a fellow writing group member mentioned that she was feeling stuck with her memoir project, and this picture came to mind. When she saw it, she immediately replied, “Yes! That’s it! That’s just how I feel — surrounded by dark stone walls on every side.”

Nearly anyone who takes writing seriously comes to such a point sooner or later. The five steps below outline a suggested map for finding your way out of the dungeon:

• Put your project on pause. You won’t make any progress until you resolve the underlying issues.

• Use freewriting or journaling to explore what’s holding you back. Begin with lists of whatever comes to mind when you ask yourself the question “What is keeping me from writing about (whatever)?”

• Use Dr. James Pennebaker’s method for exploring each item on the list.

• Continue journaling and writing until you find the “story” behind each obstacle. That story should result in a new perspective that sets your mind and heart at ease.

• Seek professional counseling if you can’t get unstuck by yourself within a reasonable time.

You don’t have to be stuck on a writing project to benefit from this process. I intuitively stumbled on it over thirty years ago and have been using it sporadically ever since. What a delight to discover that over 200 scientific studies have validated its power to bring improved physical health along with serenity and happiness.

My friend is exploring her blocks, but she claims she’s making progress. Although her current writing is private, she reports that she’s finding piles of new material to write openly about soon.

By the way, the process above result in a fascinating change of view such as I just experienced when I did some research on the Cliffs of Moher and O’Brien’s castle. I learned that it was built for the entertainment of friends, complete with a marble table, parties and pipers. Who knew? I can see it differently now, and the dread is gone.

Write now: make a secret list of things that may be keeping you from writing important stories from your life. These are the stories that can have the most impact in advancing insight and personal growth, even if you never show them to a single person. Simply making the list and shredding it can be a hugely liberating act.

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.)

Everyone Wins With Memoir

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 can help you 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 free 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.

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Photo credit: Lissalou66