Label That Feeling

One primary difference between the writing of someone like Sue Grafton and yours is that she writes about Kinsey Millhone, a fictional person, and you write about yourself. Your challenge is to make yourself as real to readers as Sue makes Kinsey to me. One of the main ways she does this is by describing Kinsey’s reactions to events. She has me right inside Kinsey’s skin and head, feeling anxious, smug or delighted right along with her, right down to bodily sensation.

In a quest to sharpen my ability to describe feelings and reactions, I recently began paying close attention to the way I’m feeling at any given moment. As I set my mind to do this, I'm thinking about it increasingly often, and I’m becoming aware of a wide range of subtle nuances. Right now I’m feeling gentle excitement about getting this blog written. A couple of days ago I was screamingly frustrated over that website block I wrote about earlier.

You may have to stretch to find specific names. I recall a grad school seminar once where a classmate said, “Why do we have to be so specific about labeling feelings? What’s the difference between being gently piqued and flamingly furious? Why can’t we just say, ‘I’m angry!’ and be done with it?” Ordinarily, that may be good enough, but it won’t pique readers’ interest nearly as well as precise and imaginative descriptions.

Naming the feeling is a first step. The next is to pay close attention to your bodily sensations as you experience the feeling. How do you experience anxiety? Does your stomach clench? Your neck knot up? How about your shoulders? Mine rise in quest of my earlobes! My breathing becomes shallow, tight and rapid, and lack of oxygen may lead to some minor lightheadedness. My whole body may tingle.

Yeeks! I’d better write about something else before I provoke a panic attack here! Describing feelings is powerful. I’m getting into my own story where a minute ago I was happily excited.

This observation leads to a fringe benefit from describing feelings and reactions: The next time you feel frazzled, beat-up and distressed, write a description of the feelings to get them recorded for future reference, then turn your attention to writing intently about a time when you felt really great. You don’t need a whole story, just couple of paragraphs about your ecstatic glee, and how you felt your could fly, or whatever it was. Shifting gears may be quite a jolt and difficult to do, but give it a try and see how you feel after writing those feelings from memory.

As I read Stephanie West Allen’s recent blog post about the mental health value of labeling feelings, a huge grin spread across my face. I leaned back in my chair with lifted head, tingling with pleasure and waving my fists in glee. Dang! I thought, I knew it all along, and now the neuro-scientists have shown why!

Whether you want to liven up your writing or simply increase self-awareness, invest some time in becoming more aware of your feelings. Practice labeling them and record the accompanying sensations. Whether or not you become more real to your readers, I promise you’ll become more real to yourself.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Countdown: Two more days. Two more days! until the formal release of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. Check with your local bookstore next week, or click over to Amazon.com right now.

The Sweet, Sweet Taste of Victory

It’s time to celebrate a new arrival. For weeks I’ve been working on building a website. These weeks follow a few months of avoidance, procrastination, and other forms of writer's block. Initially I thought I knew enough HTML and CSS (if you need to ask, you don’t want to know) to pull one together in a reasonably short period of time, say a couple of days.

Suffice it to say that as I began the journey through my out-dated web editing program, into some open-source freebies, and out the other end into a bare-bones text-editor with absolutely no frills, and concurrently through dozens of pages of on-line tutorials, CSS reference pages, and an actual printed-on-paper book of HTML instruction, I was certain I saw a white rabbit running before me. I lost sleep over links that wouldn’t work, bum style codes, and a host of other problems.

As recently as last night, I was ready to throw an ax through my computer tower. “I don’t need this grief! The world doesn’t need this page!” I wailed. In spite of my determination to remain calm and patient, the stress level soared.

Fortunately, a good night’s sleep worked wonders. Today I managed to get the errant codes calmed down, get the files moved from my hard drive onto the website that has been sitting empty for a couple of months, and you are invited to the unveiling of a major milestone in my recent life:

www.sharonlippincott.com

You’ll notice that the site name is The Heart and Craft of Life Writing. You may wonder where the story went. I went visionary and purposely left the S word out. As is the case with many types of projects, when you walk a few miles down the road, you round a bend or two and see new vistas. I see now that life writing is a more inclusive term than life story writing.

Life writing is any form of writing that springs from real experience, your own or others. It encompasses forms of writing that technically are not stories. For example, writing private pieces for healing, not sharing. Family histories are life writing. Personal essays are life writing, though technically, they are not stories. Life writing can even include fictionalized accounts drawn from your own experience or that of family members.

The Heart and Craft of Life Writing is built on a broad foundation to last for many years. I intend it to be a resource-rich site, where you can easily find links to helpful references, read stories and articles. I plan to have articles from a number of writers. I get enough writing practice with this blog! As time goes on, there should be some podcasts too.

Whether you’ve knitted an afghan, run a marathon, given birth, or finished a manuscript or website, the taste of victory is sweet. It makes the pain seem worthwhile when you've managed to overcome all the obstacles mankind, the universe and your own mind place in your path.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Countdown: Three more days until the official release of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. But you don’t need to wait. Amazon has already begun shipping copies.

Shrinking World

We weren’t the first people on the web, by any means. Our first contact was through AOL, about fifteen years ago. I clearly remember the first time I clicked on a link to an international site. I didn’t even know for sure what I was doing, but suddenly text appeared on my screen and I knew I was probing an electronic brain located halfway around the world, in real-time. That absolutely blew my mind! I could sit at my computer in Pittsburgh and instantly make things happen in Rome. I sat there, shivering with awe at the way the world had just shrunk.

Today I click international links several times a week, sometimes without realizing it. The novelty has worn off. But I’m still thrilled when I check the traffic log for this blog and see how many people are visiting from every corner of the earth — it's exciting to see this interest in writing lifestories uniting people from everywhere. And I still get goosebumps when e-mail arrives from strangers around the globe. Today was such a day. I had a lovely long e-mail from Celia Jones, down in Melbourne, Australia, halfway around the world.

Celia has been writing lifestories and various types of articles for awhile now, and she sent links to some of her work. One article stood out as something I wanted to share to right away. It’s about Celia’s experience as she began writing about her own life. She describes several resources that she found helpful. As soon as I read the first one, about songs, my mind ran wild with my own music-based memories. I could hardly bear to finish reading before I started writing stories of my own.

Rather than repeat what she already wrote, I’ll simply urge you to click here and go read it for yourself. Be sure you have a pencil and paper or notecards on hand before you click. I guarantee you’ll also be flooded with story ideas. I’ll follow up with a related thought in a day or so, Stay tuned.

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Countdown: Zero hour has arrived early. Reports are in that copies of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing are flying out of Amazon’s warehouse and already arrived in reader's hands. Place your order today!

Two Minutes 'Til Midnight

Here it is, late in the evening, and I’ve been “gonna” write a blog for ... I don’t want to think about it, much less write about it! Two days ago I told myself, well, I can let it slip one day. That will be okay. Nobody seriously expects something every second day all the time... Yesterday's inner voice was much the same. Today I started telling myself, I’ll get it in. I absolutely will get it done. And if I don’t, it’s only one more day. I’ll for sure do it tomorrow.

Do these voices sound familiar? I hear the chorus of agreement! It’s not that I haven’t been writing. I have! Just not blog posts. I’ve been writing web page source code. I can do basic HTML tables with my eyes shut, but go much beyond that, and I’m swimming in deep water with no life preserver.

I’m writing this source code for the new Heart and Craft of Life Writing site that will appear online, surely by the end of the weekend. I’ve dreamed of having my own website for years, and did set up Ritergal's Story Site on ThirdAge.com in 2001. That was fun, but I became overly ambitious on page design, and didn’t continue to feed it. Now, with the books ready to hit the shelves, it’s definitely time.

During this time of tedium, Stephanie West Allen, a fellow writer and blogger, sent me this cartoon, which she also posted on her blog. I can definitely relate. This is how I've been feeling much of the time for the past few days, while trying to find the missing > or whatever is keeping my page from displaying properly.

Web Code Writer -- well, dang! The animation isn't working. Go see it on Idealawg.

All told, writing code is not so different from writing stories. I began with a clear purpose and a sense of what I want the page to look like. I even sketched a layout, to make it easier to keep track of the tables, much as you might write an outline for a complicated story. After much wheel spinning with presumably user-friendly web editor programs, I backed out to a simple text editor and typed it all in. For me, in the long run, that’s simpler and gives clean, lean, fast-loading code. That was my initial draft. Then came the endless changes and tweaks and flipping through references to get it to the point I want it to be.

Even the trial and error with the web editors is similar to writing stories. For some difficult stories, I start on the keyboard, then try writing by hand, and maybe move out to the sun porch (in the summer) or scrub a floor to get the words flowing, or something similar.

I’ve learned a lot. I have a lot more to learn. All writing is like that. Until the day I die, I expect to be finding new and innovative ways to thread ideas and memories together and get them on paper. I hope they’ll delight, inspire or enlighten others, but if not, I’ll enjoy the trip. That’s what I also hope for from my web adventure.

Meanwhile, back to the initial topic of blog posts: Yes, I did get behind. Sooner or alter, we all do. Were this not in a public forum, I’d probably let it slip and not beat myself up. As things stand, blogs and writing groups are the two most powerful ways I know to keep the words flowing. I highly recommend both, and I thank you readers for the comments that let me know you are there and relating. You make it all worthwhile!

And now, two minutes before midnight, here we are: a finished blog. I did it!

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Countdown: Seven more days until Shelf Time. Get involved: Urge your bookstore to stock The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. Request it at your library, and tell your friends.>

In My Write Mind

“You aren’t listening!” My hubbie knows how to get my attention. Not listening is a powerful accusation!

“Sorry!” I reluctantly shift my attention to him. It’s not easy. I admit that I wasn’t listening because I was in my Write Mind. This is the term I use to explain the state of being I enter when I’m engrossed in finding a way to express something intangible. Perhaps I’m trolling the depths of my mind for delicious phrases to describe a person I just thought of for the first time in thirty-seven years. Perhaps I’m searching for adjectives to describe the magnificent sunset I notice behind his head. More likely, I’m trying to think of a way to quantify some intangible concept. Whatever is going on, my Write Mind is a delicious, floaty, totally absorbed state of being, and I like going there.

Of course I spent considerable time in my Write Mind as I prepared to write this post. One thought that surfaced was the relative novelty of discovering my Write Mind. This room in my brain, or perhaps it’s more accurate to call it a cluster of neurons, is relatively recent, and it’s growing. I’m spending increasing amounts of time there. This recognition fits in perfectly with the findings of neuroscientists that our brains continue to develop new cells (neurons) and connections between them (synapses) as long as we keep them active and stimulated. The more we use an area, the more it grows. This is good. It keeps our brains young and healthy.

Then I realized that spending Write Mind time is an important part of the writing process. Some people do it with their fingers on a keyboard or a pen in their hand. Others of us do it while we do dishes, rake leaves or shower. But we all think things through to some extent.

Another thought related to the relationship between the way we think, the way we perceive, and what tends to occur in our lives. Psychologists are finding that stories are the way we make sense of our lives. Sometimes we spend time in our Write Mind writing mental stories that never see paper, but the writing is equally urgent.

If you haven’t discovered your own Write Mind, I heartily urge you to explore the opportunities lurking in some corner. The more often you visit, the richer the resources will become, and the more you’ll want to go there. Try it! You’ll like it!

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Countdown: Thirteen more days until Shelf Time. Get involved: Urge your bookstore to stock The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. Request it at your library, and tell your friends.

Increase Story Longevity

I recently watched from the sidelines as acquaintances sorted through boxes of old family artifacts awaiting final disposition. Among the collection of musty old photo albums, letters and other memorabilia were dozens of journals kept by Grandpa over decades.

“You are not taking all those smelly old things home!” the wife stated. The look in her eye brooked no room for negotiation.

“No, maybe a volume or two as an example,” the descendant concurred. He wasn’t interested in reading them, he explained. They were too dry, too factual. All they contained were weather reports, prices of various commodities, times and dates of meetings, and other banalities. “Now, I’d definitely read them if they were my mum’s journals,” he told me. “Her journals were full of stories. They told what happened. You learn a lot from them.”

He elected to take the pile of photo albums home, with the intention of scanning in two or three selected photos of each person. “I can put those pictures in my genealogy software and they’ll print out with the paragraph I write about each person. I tell just enough that future generations will know who the person is and where they fit in.” When he’s finished, he’ll return the albums, and a nephew can do as he wishes with the contents.

Since it wasn’t my family, and none of my business, I held my tongue as both husband and wife continued to insist that “Nobody wants to see more than a couple of pictures, and they’d be bored reading more than a paragraph or two about each.”

My heart yowled in disagreement! Yes, I’d rather see a paragraph or two than none, and any picture at all, but those paragraphs they refer to would only whet my appetite for “the rest of the story.” I pour over albums of pictures, following the evolution of a person from infancy to old age, even when the people are unrelated to me. I’m fascinated by the details of people’s lives. I want to know what they thought, how they lived, what their passions were.

A couple of days later I thought more calmly about the incident and drew a few conclusions:

• An extensive collection of “raw” and unorganized journals or stories will overwhelm many people, who are likely to toss the whole lot rather than deal with them. If you are a prolific journal or lifestory writer, do future generations a favor and write at least an overview of your life.

• The most effective plan is to write on two levels. Give an overview for the easily sated, and work in detail elsewhere for the inquiring minds like mine.

• You can significantly increase the odds of survival for your documents by livening up your facts and figures with stories to produce the sort of mind magnet that Grandma created in her journals.

I’m happy for my new friends that they were able to find material that satisfies their needs, and sad that so much will be left out. But in the end, perhaps they took as much as anyone will ever want to read, and in any event, it’s definitely better than nothing!

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Countdown: 15 more days until the official release of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. Advance orders can now be placed at Amazon.com for the earliest possible delivery.

Hold the Fort

Urgent business calls. The blog is on hold for a week or two, but I'll be back soon. Keep writing!

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Countdown: 24 more days until the official release of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. Advance orders can now be placed at Amazon.com for the earliest possible delivery.

Writing For the Health of It

All sorts of scientific evidence is emerging that writing is good for your health, especially the health of your brain and emotions. Sally Balfe reported on a study done by Dr. Robin Philipp showing that creative writing reduced anxiety and helped patients cope with bereavement and depression.

WebMD reports a number of health benefits from writing, including relieving post-traumatic stress disorder, stronger immune systems, reduced asthma and rheumatoid arthritis symptoms.

The Oregon Health & Science Center recommends journal writing as one of the ways to retain brain function as we age.

In an eloquent essay, Esther Sternberg, M.D., author of The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions, recommends writing as a way of reconnecting with past emotions and finding your way to a place of healing peace.

University of Texas Professor James Pennebaker, a leading authority on the connection between writing and health, and author of Writing to Heal, offers tips for healthful writing on his website. In his book, he urges people to “write down your deepest feelings about an emotional upheaval in your life for 15 or 20 minutes a day for four consecutive days.” That simple act, with no further involvement, has strengthened immune systems and improved grades. Continuing the process over a longer period of time strengthens the results.

Debbie Mandel recommends helping Alzheimer’s patients write memoirs. As odd as that may sound, it seems that focusing on what they do remember helps them retain more, and has all the benefits of any memoir writing as far as the rest of the family is concerned. Some researchers are finding that activities, such as creative writing, help stave off the symptoms of dementia.

In Train Your Thoughts, Change Your Brain, Sharon Begley, science editor of Newsweek, surveys findings of neuroscientists that using our brains to learn new things and form new concepts stimulates the formation of new neurons and synapses throughout our lives. What better way to examine concepts and explore relationships between them than to write about them?

Given all this compelling evidence about the health benefits, aren’t you glad you write? Especially for the health of it!

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Countdown: 29 days until the release of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing on July 1. Pre-ordering now available on Amazon.com.