I Feel a Story Coming On

This morning I awoke with a story coming on. I could feel that itch in my brain starting to build, but I tried to shove it away. I lay in my bed, all cozy under the comforter, thinking how nice it would be to drift back to sleep, but that thought was shoved aside by thoughts of crayons; not just any crayons, but specifically Crayola™ crayons, the kind I used to get each year when it was time to buy school supplies.

Giving in to the inevitable, I lay there thinking about Crayolas™, and the first sensation that came to mind was smell. Every time I think of crayons, or colors as I generally referred to them when I was a kid, I can literally smell the petrochemical scent of paraffin and pigment. No matter how old or used the box of crayons, that scent remained as strong as the day they were made. I remembered the thrill of opening a brand new box and the delight of drawing fine, crisp outlines with the sharp tip of a new crayon with its entire  paper wrapping intact. I thought of bearing down hard with a rounded, worn tip to get rich, intense color, and how that heavy coating of wax would flake off and stain my hands, making them feel funny. I thought of the waxy feel of the worn sticks and the colors on the paper. I thought of the glee of pouring those worn stubs into an old shoe box when I got new ones.

I thought about other aspects of crayons, along with coloring books, realizing in third grade that I couldn’t draw as beautifully as a couple of the other girls, and related memories. That took me to making inkblots between workbook pages when we graduated to fountain pens in third grade, and art class and poster paints, and fifth grade with lantern slides and….

Then my mind drifted to the matter of composing my story. How would I write about Crayolas™? Scent, colors, box, waxy feel, things I did with them, memories of using them, my feelings about drawing, story structure, how to begin, how to end . . . . Glancing at the clock I realized I’d been pondering Crayolas nearly half an hour. My pulse had risen, my mind was racing, and clearly I was not going to drift back to sleep. This story bug was virulent and too developed to ignore. The only cure was to sit down at my computer and do a brain dump. What you are reading is that dump, and now I can move on to other matters.

Do you ever feel a story coming on? What do you do about that? And how do you write about scents and the feel of waxy sticks in your fingers, and colors, subtle or screaming?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Thank You

Thank you to all my loyal subscribers who have not been notifed of the last few new posts. I'm still learning all this blogging stuff, and finally thought to look in the right place. Now I've found the setting on bloglet.com that had inadvertently clicked off, and everything should work again. I hope you'll come back, catch up, and bring your friends.

For the rest of you, if you would like to receive an e-mail with a link to the latest blog post, just enter your e-mail address in the field in the sidebar. I'm a privacy freak myself, and Bloglet's privacy policies satisfy me. Your identity will never go further.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Laughing and Learning

Every now and then lifestory writers need a humor break. The following lines have all been published, as written, in local newspapers. The unintentionally awkward phrasing in each is guaranteed to get at least a snicker. Perhaps you can think of ways to reword them for improved clarity and precision. The best way to avoid similar sources of hilarity in your own stories is to let them age for at least two or three weeks before your final edit, or to have someone else proof read them for you.

• Lost: small apricot poodle. Reward. Neutered. Like one of the family.


• For sale: an antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers.


• Four-poster bed, 101 years old. Perfect for antique lover.


• Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to take home, too.


• We do not tear your clothing with machinery. We do it carefully by hand.


• Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children.


• The hotel has bowling alleys, tennis courts, comfortable beds, and other athletic facilities.


• Sheer stockings. Designed for fancy dress, but so serviceable that lots of women wear nothing else.


• Man, honest. Will take anything.


• Man wanted to work in dynamite factory. Must be willing to travel.


• Used Cars: Why go elsewhere to be cheated? Come here first!


• Christmas tag-sale. Handmade gifts for the hard-to-find person.


• Wanted. Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

It Takes a Village

Yesterday I attended a memorial service for a distant relative. The service was of the sort where people spontaneously offer stories and tributes, and I learned a lot this woman about from the collective stories told. I had no idea she was a candidate for sainthood. Those who spoke gave glowing testimony to her strength, wisdom, loving nature, helpfulness and dedication. They spoke of the powerful impact she had on their lives. One woman referred to her as a crone (a sage older woman capable of exerting powerful influence).

The tributes showed a side of her I’d occasionally glimpsed, but I never personally witnessed that public side of her. I saw the private, sit at breakfast in your bathrobe and chat over tea side of her. I saw the side of her that railed at ill health, the side of her that grieved over the fact that her sons so seldom visited, the side that despaired over the state of the world. My perception was of a melancholy person and our roles were somewhat reversed from those the others spoke of. She was their confidant, I was hers.

I chose not to speak, unsure how to celebrate that very human side of her alongside her public greatness. In the overall scheme of things, it seemed that her strengths and contributions were what deserve to be memorialized and remembered. At the moment I felt the need to respect the privacy of the moments. Perhaps I did her and the others a disservice by my failure to anchor her feet to the ground, but I think on some level they all knew this.

I could not have seen such a full picture of this woman on my own. It took a village to describe her many dimensions.

We can collect the input of the village of family members to prepare memorial or family history stories of those who came before us. We can also provide a similar sort of village in the stories of our own lives by writing of our relationships with a variety of different people.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

A Dream Revisited

I came across this dream fragment in an old journal, and find it more relevant now than it was when I recorded it a dozen years ago:

… I was sitting in a room with people who were setting out to do stuff I used to do (working with Girl Scouts, I think). I seemed to be there to teach them something. I definitely wasn't an integral part of the group. I was surprised to notice that they were digging through a box of old books that I had bought and read ten or fifteen years ago and later donated to the library book sale. These people were avidly reading those old books with great excitement. I was embarrassed that I didn't remember a word in them, and that they were sort of battered and out-of-date. But I was pleased by the new interest, and I felt confident I could answer the questions I knew they'd ask….

My immediate understanding of the dream when I woke up and remembered it was that we each learn lessons when we are ready to learn them, not a minute sooner. A book that contained the precise messages I needed to hear a dozen years ago would be stale to me, but it may be perfect for someone else today.

I also heard another message explaining why the old books seemed stale to me. Quite often, when I first discover new ideas or viewpoints, I feel as if I just split the atom. I mull over the new ideas, exploring all the angles, and twisting them to fit into the context of the world as I have understood it. At some point, something happens much like clicking the last piece into an online jigsaw puzzle in the Shockwave player. The borders of individual pieces remain embossed into the picture image as you work. Upon completion, the borders vanish, and a perfectly smooth image emerges. When my understanding of the new concept is complete, the borders around the new information disappear. It is fully incorporated into my working body of knowledge. At that point I’m hard-pressed to assess how much of my understanding derives from the original material, and how much is my own adaptation. I still remember reading the source material, and being excited about it, but the specifics blur.

Most memories work in a similar way. Our experiences blur together and form an integrated memory. Even vividly unique memories that don’t blend in with others take on new hues through time. Each time we replay them, they are minutely altered by the act of remembering, the circumstances of the moment, and our emotions at the time.

Just as this dream has developed additional value from exploring its meaning, memories we share in our stories derive additional value when we include our reflections on the meanings that come to surround the memory.

Dreams can be powerful additions to your written life story if you remember them, or keep a dream journal. What dreams might you remember that you could use in your stories?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Food Writing

In looking through my recipe box earlier today, I found a recipe for Date Nut Loaf, a sinfully rich and decadent concoction my mother made every year at Christmas time. Of course that recipe sent me back several decades to the days when my major involvement with dinner was setting the table and eating it. I began thinking of family recipes in general. For many different reasons, we eat rather differently today, and memories of those foods are both nostalgic and comforting.

I’ve already begun writing about recipes. I have one story, Crunchy Frosting, that I wrote about the time I used granulated sugar instead of powdered sugar to ice a cake. I thought it was fine, but nobody else in the family liked it. That story includes the cake recipe as well as describing my thoughts and actions while baking the cake. I’ve also gathered a collection of recipes for all the Christmas candy Mother used to make. Those recipes include brief paragraphs of memories of helping make the candy, and tips for ensuring that it turns out right.

When I finish this post, I’m going to make a list of dinners I remember from childhood, like fried chicken, baked Spam, macaroni and cheese, and pan-fried trout, fresh from a mountain stream. None of those are foods I ever fix anymore, and they deserve to be memorialized. I’ll also include foods I used to fix in the early years of our marriage like Glop, Recycled Chicken, and Honey Granola Peanut Butter Chocolate Stuff. I’m an impulsive right-brain cook, so those foods didn’t have formal recipes, but they also deserve to be recorded for posterity. I can tell about the disastrous Chocolate Stew, and the $.50 dinner special of breaded oysters and discovering the delectable economy of pork loin roasts.

If I write one recipe and context story a week, I can have that collection done in time for Christmas gifts, maybe this year, maybe next. This volume won’t be competition for Ruth Reichl’s scrumptious food-based memoirs, Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me With Apples, and Garlic and Sapphires, but my life doesn’t center around food the way hers does, and mine will be written strictly for family.

How about you? What foods do you remember growing up with? What foods did you learn to fix when you were young? Realizing that many readers are likely to be men, who probably didn’t grow up cooking and may still not, it’s okay to just write about the food and not include recipes or instructions. But how could a lifestory be complete without mention of food? You may also want to write about memorable meals away from home, dorm food, or other food experiences

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Objects as Memory Links to People

Did you notice the new logo at the top of the page? This logo is part of my own lifestory. The tiny image hangs on the wall above my desk and reminds me of the beauty of the human heart, in all its various moods. I may have been staring at the picture when I came up with the name for this blog. It’s a legacy from my mother, a talented painter, craftsman and art collector. This wee little piece spoke to me when it was time to disperse her collection. I’ve had it hanging one place or another for over ten years now, and it has inspired messages in many e-mails, several essays, and now this blog entry. I always feel uplifted when I look at it.

I don’t know why Mother bought it. I like to think that she also found it uplifting. I like to think that it’s something she would have painted herself, had she thought of it. She uplifted and inspired others most effectively through her art. The painting triggers memories for me of Mother at her best, when she was painting in her studio, or sitting at the workbench where she crafted innovative stained glass objects and similar things, or working in her sewing room where she produced exotic fiber arts creations. She was a gifted multi-media artist in a time when multi-media was still thought of primarily as a description of multiple art forms.

I’ve never felt inspired to pick up a paint brush, and the time I used to spend at my sewing machine is now spent at my computer, but I did inherit her versatility. I just apply it in different ways, with words and digital graphics. I love to experiment with different forms of writing and ways of enhancing the writing with layout and graphics.

This painting serves as a touchstone for examining my relationship with my mother, and relationships form a key part of our lifestories. Do you display pictures or other items acquired from your predecessors that you can weave into your lifestory? What memories do they bring back to you. Try sitting for a few minutes with a blank piece of paper and write about one item. How does that item connect you to the other person?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

I'll Never Edit This!

A friend recently showed me a story she had written. The touching story was written straight from her heart, and I suggested it could be a valued contribution to one of the many websites that feature inspirational writings. “But before you submit it, you need to tighten it up and focus it a bit,” I suggested.

She took a deep breath and blurted out, “I’ll never edit this, or anything else. It will just have to stay as it is, and I think it sounds like me; like I talk.” She went on to explain that she couldn’t edit it even if she wanted to, because she has no idea where to start, or how to do it.

Touché! It does indeed sound as if she wrote it, and I was pained to realize that my words had provoked the defensiveness I heard in her tone. The story is written exactly as she speaks, and she speaks with energizing passion. For the purposes of sharing with friends and family, her story doesn’t need to be edited, and may be appreciated all the more, precisely because it does sound exactly like her. However, those who don’t know her may become distracted in spots by conversational rambling, and a good edit will increase the likelihood that it will appear on one of those websites to brighten the day for countless others.

Her story is a good test of my mantra that any lifestory you write is okay.  This is a good place to put that message in context. Any lifestory you write is better than not writing anything. Your first priority should always be to get stories written, in whatever form or shape they take. Once they are written, you have the choice of going back and revising them, or simply leaving them as they are. Neither choice is better than the other, and your choice should be guided by your purpose in writing as well as your interests and abilities. If you have no interest in editing them, so be it. That’s okay!

On the other hand, if you do want to polish and tighten them, but you aren’t sure how to go about it, stay tuned to this blog for tips that will guide you down that path so you can deliver crisply written stories that still sound “exactly like you talk.”

The fact is that as they listen, people filter out a lot of the rambling everyone does in conversation and remember only the underlying story.  This filtering is harder to do when you read. Most writers can cut the word count in the first draft of a story by 30% to 60% and generate more feedback that “This really sounds like you,” than would happen if people read transcripts of actual conversation! The edited version filters out all the things that people don’t hear when you talk. Fortunately, when people read lifestories, they generally understand the difference between carefully crafted edits and raw accounts that reflect the spontaneous nature of the writer, and appreciate either one for what it is, so you can't go wrong with either choice.

A third possibility is to have a friend or family member edit them for you. Just be sure, if you chose this third option, not to give away ownership of the story.  It’s still your story, and any editing should be of style, spelling and grammar, not content. Before you agree to let someone else work on your writing, be sure you can trust the person to respect your views. Don’t let others talk you into changing facts and feelings that reflect your own experience and truth.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Wrapping up Your Stories

Anonymous posted a comment to the Fascinate Your Readers lifestory writing blog suggesting “You might be really creative and make it interesting and worthwhile for them.” This reader then goes on to share a delightfully colorful story about the adventures of (his?) grandparents.

My first thought was that Anonymous was suggesting that having grandparents with colorful stories was enough to entice readers. Indeed! Anyone want to hear about my great-great-grandmother who presumably opened the first brothel in the Yukon? I always get takers for that story.

As I read, I thought about the way colorful content can stand on its own. The need for creativity arises when the content of life is less shocking and colorful; when the sun shines on dirt-brown days through a filtered haze over the flattest of prairies. Therein lies a challenge — to find the wonder in those days and transform them into a gripping testimony of endurance or some such thing.

Then I was caught up short when I reread the end of the comment and finally noticed that Anonymous ended with an unexpected twist that I missed the first time through. Grandmother had given copies of Grandfather’s Story to all the grandchildren, wrapped up with a place setting of the family china. That was indeed a resourceful, and surely welcome, gesture and I’ll bet they did read the story.

The lesson for me was a reminder to read with an open mind, rather than formulating a response ahead of time — had I done that I wouldn’t have missed the ending on the first reading. The lesson for all of us is to think outside the box and look for novel ways to wrap up our own stories. Few of us will have such extravagant adornments as that place setting of china, but a smaller momento would do.

In fact, my favorite resource for unusual ways to showcase your stories is the book Living Legacies: How to Write, Illustrate and Share Your Lifestories, by Duane Elgin and Colleen LeDrew. This elegant gem of a volume includes streamlined instructions for writing lifestories, together with elegant layout examples and instructions for scrapbook pages that combine the stories with memorabilia to illustrate them. I highly recommend this book.

Many thanks to Anonymous for the suggestion, and for sharing the adventures of some spirited ancestors. I’d like to remind Anonymous and others that the HeartandCraft YahooGroup welcomes new members with stories to share, as well as suggestions and questions about lifestory writing.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

ImPROMPTu Story

I just looked at Sheila Finklestein's latest Picture To Ponder, a more-than-weekly e-mail newsletter I subscribe to that features her thought-provoking nature photography. This issue, which you can view here, features a feral green parrot that looks for all the world like a parakeet.

Memories kick in and I'm transported back to childhood and my heart squeezes with longing for Pete, our family's wunderbird. We bought Pete before he had left the nest, and he was never sure he wasn't a person. He had an amazing vocabulary of over twenty words. Some of his phrases included:

• A bird can't talk.
• I'm a little varmint.
• Pass the birdseed.
• Hello.
• Here, Elmer
  

This last one was accompanied by a whistle that was so much like my father's that Elmer, the not quite as bright beagle, would come running, and then look foolishly around when he didn't see any people. Pete also mastered the art of summoning my sister, though she knew it was him. He often mixed the sentences up in creative new ways, muttering to himself, "A bird can't pass the little varmint Elmer, (three whistles)" or something like that.

Pete spent much of his time loose in the house, and how I miss the tiny tickles of his wee little claws on my fingers, and on the bare skin of my shoulders and neck. He loved to burrow under my long hair and hide in the warm darkness. While he was in there, he'd gently peck at the roots of hair strands, giving me a mini neck massage. Sometimes he pecked lovingly at my cheek, or rubbed his silky feathered head against it. That felt like angel kisses.

Not everyone was enchanted with Pete. One night my father brought a visiting British engineer home for dinner. The man's pate was shiny as a bowling ball. Pete was fascinated, and zoomed in to explore, much to the Brit's consternation, but the worst part was at dinner. Pete made a three-point landing in the mashed potatoes. We knew what a clean bird Pete was, and Mother simply took him in the kitchen to clean him up, while the rest of us helped ourselves to potatoes. Our guest discretely ate roast beef without potatoes. Pete was in his cage for the rest of the evening. I can only imagine the horrified tales the man told when he returned to civilization.

This bird also had healing powers we humans would love to emulate. One afternoon the family sat around working a jigsaw puzzle on a card table in the living room (remember how families used to do things like that, before t.v., computers, GameBoys and all the other life-style enhancing gadgets we have today?). Daddy gave Pete a sip of his beer, a treat Pete especially relished. It doesn't take many sips to ground a parakeet. Pete was soon on the floor, and my sister didn't realize he was under the table. She moved her feet, catching Pete's foot under hers, and when he jerked it loose, his leg snapped.

We all felt terrible. Daddy called the vet, who suggested splinting it with a soda straw. Pete wanted nothing to do with that. He pecked that soda straw off in short order. For around six weeks Pete perched on one leg and spent a lot of time preening his broken leg with his beek. One day he gingerly put that foot on the perch. By the end of the day he was moving normally, and you'd never know the leg had been broken.

Pete had to leave our family after my baby brother was born. He had never forgiven my sister for breaking his leg and had begun biting her ferociously, so he was already living on borrowed time. When wee little 4.5 pound Ronnie came home from the hospital (he was born six weeks prematurely, but that's another story you can read on Ritergal's Story Site), Pete zoomed in to check him out, once again landing on a bald head. That infant may have been small, but his lungs powered a shriek that filled the house. Later that day Pete went to live with a friend of the family who had always admired him.

Now and then I think about getting another parakeet, but I realize that Pete was one of a kind. The likelihood that I'd ever get another bird who could fill Pete's perch is so remote that I prefer to live with a loving memory rather than inflict my disappointment on a substitute.

I was prompted to write this lifestory in response to an impromtu trigger. Maybe this story will trigger one for you. What pets did you have growing up? What did your family do on Sunday afternoons?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Fascinate Your Readers

“How do I know my descendants are even going to care about this stuff I’m writing?” This question arises every now and then, and it’s a good one. You can’t know, and you can’t make them care, but there are a couple of things you can do to make your lifestory writing rewarding and increase the odds that they will care.

The first thing to keep in mind is that unless someone else has specifically requested that you write your lifestory, you are primarily writing it for yourself. You can derive immense benefit and satisfaction from writing it even if no other living soul ever reads it, and there is no guarantee they will.

The second thing you can do is to master writing techniques that will fascinate your readers and compel them to keep reading. “Oh, dear,” you think, “I just don’t have a way with words, and besides, I really don’t have time to spend a week polishing each sentence I write, even if I knew how, and besides, that wouldn’t sound like me anyway. I need to be true to myself….” And so it goes.

Gentle lifestory writer, take heart! Don’t beat up on yourself! This particular post was inspired by a note I made myself several weeks ago. This cryptic note has a primary secret for writing compelling lifestories. It says

“Stories that lack insight and interpretation are generally dull and empty sounding.”

The other sentence on the note card continues, “specifically regarding forebears and other family members,” but the main thought applies to writing even about your own experience.

For example, consider this short passage: “Every year we went to Grandma Bell’s house for Thanksgiving. The house was packed with cousins, and we all ate too much. On Christmas….”

A typical reader may not even take time to answer the obvious question, “So what?”

Now take that beginning and describe the cousins, and the quirks of those cousins. Describe the tantalizing aroma of roasting turkey, punctuated by the fragrance of pumpkin pie, and maybe Uncle Jake’s pipe tobacco adding a pungent overtone. Tell your family how the younger children had to sit at card tables in the other room, the one with the gray walls, flower-printed sofa, maroon drapes pulled tightly shut, and coffee table moved against the end wall and how much you looked forward to being an adult and sitting at the “real” table where people were civilized and talked about important things.

Tell how Cousin Sam always pinched your arm so hard the bruise lasted for three weeks after, and Cousin Beth cried and threatened to tell, but Cousin Tony always cracked a joke that calmed everyone down and kept the peace and how Cousin Tony was always your hero, and you hoped to marry a man just like him when you grew up. Let your readers know that you looked forward to holding the new babies, and didn’t even mind being sent to the kitchen to help clean up, because the girls had a super time gossiping when you didn’t have the boys tormenting you.

Be sure to include your later assessment that Thanksgiving has never been the same since you married and began dividing Thanksgiving between your family and your spouse’s. Tell them how you earnestly hope that as time goes by, your children will know their cousins, because even though some of your cousins tormented you, they were among the most important people in your young life. Family matters!

With the additional details, you’ve painted a more vivid picture, so your reader will feel included in the feast. You’ve also answered that key question, “So what?” You’ve told them why the memory matters to you, and what difference it has made in your life.

Even if you leave out the details like maroon drapes, and even if you aren’t good at including details like the tantalizing aroma of roasting turkey, that last paragraph about the meaning of the annual pig-out session will add meaning and interest to the story, and help your reader understand why you bothered writing the story.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Writing With All Your Senses

When I read these days, I’m especially alert to the nuances of word use, and how writers use words to paint vivid pictures. One of the major differences that sets the work of best-selling authors apart is their use of all sensory modalities in descriptive passages. Three of my role models in this respect are Sue Grafton, Rosamund Pilchner, and Anais Nin. Reading some of their descriptions simply gives me goosebumps. I know I’ll never write exactly as they do, because each has her own personal voice. Rather than imitating others, we must each strive to develop our own unique voice as powerfully as they have done.

With that in mind, and also perhaps the inspiration of having recently worked through the lessons on 42 Days of Writing Passionately with Julie Jordan Scott, I pondered memories of my own youth and experimented with writing with all my senses:

My heart still returns to the northern New Mexican mountains where I grew up, and as it does, my mind drifts to sensations more than specific events. I remember . . .

A gentle breeze wafting vanilla scent of sun-warmed pine trees, whispering through the boughs and kissing my bare shoulders with heart-melting warmth.

My dark brunette hair, hot to the touch from brilliant sunshine.

Hardened pine sap nuggets, warmed slowly inside my cheek until it's soft enough to chew into a waxy wad tasting like essence of earth itself and leaving my mouth feeling industrial strength clean. But beware of slightly soft stuff -- its turpentine taste lingers into the next day.

Scaling the side of a cliff, scrambling for each foothold, hands clinging tightly to gritty, flesh-shredding lava rock, focusing too intently to think about getting down again.

Heart-stopping terror of bikes racing down hills, miles from home and parents, feet off the pedals, daring each other not to crash -- long before helmets and pads were ever invented, or cell phones for summoning help.

New-fallen snow, dazzling diamonds sharply contrast with green-black pine and fir boughs.

Careening in head-first esses down steep snowy curves with ice crystal spray stinging my cheeks. Our breath rose in white clouds while we panted our way back up the slopes, red-mittened hands frozen in place on icy ropes as we pulled our sleds up the slope to try again. Then we’d retreat to a toasty warm kitchen to sip mugs of cocoa that fragrantly steamed our glasses with each sip.

Marshmallows roasted to gooey perfection inside crisp brown shells.

Soft, fuzzy whiteness of early spring Pasque flowers, blooming on the rusty needle-strewn forest floor, renewing the hope of summer soon to come.

Heady fragrance of pinon pine smoke, old as Earth herself, evoking wispy pueblo ghost spirits with each breath.

The balm of yellow corn tortillas and longhorn cheese soothing the fire on my tongue set aflame with burning red chili. Softly creamy tortilla, cheese and chili in sharp contrast with crisp, pungent onion and crunchy cooling lettuce, all in one soul satisfying stack of enchilada, topped by oozy fried egg, with icy sherbet for shock. Hot enchilada, icy sherbet, endorphin rush . . . it feels so good to hurt so bad.

Those mountains shaped my life and my abiding love for the woods. Alone in the woods, I was my own best self, free from all expectations, pressures and competition. I knew even then that the forest had healing powers. The memories from those mountains pull me back to being my own best self, and remind me to keep them in my soul.

Rosamund Pilchner I’m not, but maybe someday I’ll come closer. Meanwhile, what sensations do you remember from your early years? How have they affected your later life?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, YahooGroup style

One of the most powerful ways to get started and stay inspired to keep writing is to participate in a writing group. Most people don’t have ready access to a writing group of any sort, much less one that specializes in lifestory writing, but take heart — a group is as near as the screen before you.

Online writing groups offer several advantages. You don’t have scheduling conflicts or deadlines, you can read and write at your own convenience, you can participate in your jammies, and you can even join under a user name (Yahoo ID) other than the one you sign checks with, so nobody needs to know who you “really” are. You may connect with writers in far flung parts places.

Several years ago I participated in a lifestory writing YahooGroup that was wonderfully active and helpful. Every time I posted a message that was more than a few sentences of appreciation or encouragement about another member, I copied my story into a growing WordPerfect document to create my own archive. It is fortunate that I did save copies, because that group suddenly went POOF! for reasons that never were disclosed.

What a sad thing to have that group disappear, but because it did exist, I have around 150 pages of stories that I wrote over a period of four years, mostly in response to things people mentioned in their own stories. Few of these stories are longer than four paragraphs. Most are tiny memories documenting the Good Old Days, adequately covered in two or three paragraphs. Topics are as diverse as family holiday traditions, camping trips, my experience with The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965, or my sons’ Dr. Demento inspired hijinks. Few of these stories would have been without the inspiration of the YahooGroup.

Today I have an invitation for all of you to join a new YahooGroup, Heartandcraft, set up in response to requests for a place for you gentle readers to put your own stories. The simplest way to subscribe is to send a totally blank e-mail to heartandcraft-subscribe(at)yahoogroups(dot)com. (Please note that you need to edit that e-mail address. I don’t want to generate dozens of spam members by posting a direct link!) If you have a Yahoo ID, you can click over to http://groups.yahoo.com/ and search for heartandcraft to join with your ID, which will allow you to search the archives, download the PowerPoint slide shows (there is a complete guide to proper use of punctuation marks there), and view related links.

If you need assistance in signing up, or if you have questions about anything relating to lifestory writing, please e-mail me directly at slippincott(at)adelphia(dot)net. By the way, your e-mail address will not be visible on the YahooGroups member page, so membership does not make you spam bait.

I hope you’ll join the group, then write a short story telling who you are and what interests you about writing lifestories, paste that story into the body of an e-mail and send it to heartandcraft(at)yahoogroups(dot)com. If you’re not quite ready to post, please join anyway, and hang around until you feel inspired and brave.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal