The Project That Just Won't Quit

I wouldn’t call it The Project From Hell, not by a long shot. No, this personal project I’m trying to finish as a test run of Lulu.com’s on-line Print-On-Demand (POD) publishing services is more aptly named “The Project That Just Won't Quit.”

The final result, The Albuquerque Years, will be the culmination of my very first lifestory writing adventure, the story of my preschool years, begun over ten years ago. As I explain in The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, I began writing this story as a whim, to be able to share my own experience as a very little girl with my then preschool-age grandchildren. I simply sat down at the computer and did a memory dump, in a haphazard fashion, without much order or thought.

Toward the end, I decided I wanted to include photos, lots of photos. At that point, WordPerfect stalled out on files with more than a few photos, so the story began breaking up into a vast array of pieces. In frustration, put it away to deal with later.

A few months ago, I became embarrassed about the fact that I, of all people, have not completed a single finished volume with a legacy of my own lifestories. I pulled out The Albuquerque Years project, determined to see it through to print. OpenOffice and Word are up to the challenge now, and Lulu presents a way of having it professionally printed and bound at an astonishingly affordable cost.

As I launched into what I thought would be a couple of days of final touches, I was chagrined to discover that I’d only told, at most, half the story. Over the course of a few weeks, I’ve doubled the length to 76 pages in Lulu’s Crown Quarto page size (7.44 x 9.68 in.), organized the stories to flow more smoothly, added several details, and inserted over forty photos. I converted the file to a PDF, after wading through Lulu’s occasionally conflicting instructions. (The live chat function works splendidly for clearing up any confusion.) I’ve almost finished a cover design.

At the last minute, I decided to add an Afterward to give background on the project and explain the process of setting it all up to work with Lulu. Perhaps future generations will appreciate this insight, and it will certainly be helpful to anyone today who wants to use Lulu for their own story albums. I’d hoped to announce a couple of days ago on the blog here that the upload had succeeded. Maybe tomorrow.
The morals of this story:

• There’s lots more to do to complete a published project after you finish the writing. Things always take twice as long as you anticipate.
• There is always something else to be done when you are getting a book finalized, whether it’s a commercial publication or something as private and personal as this project.

But it’s not the Project From Hell. It’s more like my flesh-and-blood offspring, who all took at least an extra week to grow to completion. But they all three arrived, strong and healthy, and so will this book! Persistence will ultimately prevail.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Do Not Go There

Once upon a time when I was very little, like four years old, we lived at Kirtland Field Air Force base for several months while my father was studying chemical engineering at the University of New Mexico on the GI Bill. Most of the barracks in our part of the base were deserted, but there were no locks on anything, being a military base. We kids were told, on pain of unimaginable consequences, “DO NOT GO THERE!” Did I go there? Of course! I went with Denny, the boy next door and the only other kid as old as me. The memory emerges:

It’s dark in here, dark, hot. Pat, pat, pat — my sandals won’t be quiet. Thump, thump — I hear my heart. Plop, plop, plop — I hear Denny’s shoes. I hear him breathing. Is anyone in here? I smell dust, see dust in sunbeams, it’s hard to breathe. What’s around that corner? More hall. Nobody. What if somebody comes here? What's in that room? Crreeeeek. Noisy door. More dust. Little room — little like me. Just two cot frames. Where are mattresses? Do I hear somebody? I want to go. I don’t like it here. Maybe we’ll get lost. Maybe somebody will find us here and I’ll get spanked. “Let’s go,” I whisper. We go back. We look out the window at the door. Nobody is there. Nobody is looking. Denny opens the door. We go out. The sun feels good. We walk down the boardwalk, down the ramp. “Denny. Where were you? Mommy wants you.” Donny is Denny’s little brother. Denny runs off with Donny. I go back to my house. “Where were you?" asks Mommy. “Playing with Denny.” I'm glad she doesn’t ask where we were, so I don’t have to tell her.

I never went back in those barracks, but those few minutes in that creepy place left a deep imprint in my life. I’d faced my fear — fear of the unknown, the creepy, and disobedience — to follow my heart and think for myself. I felt strong and brave. And I felt guilty. If it wasn't the first time it occurred to me to deliberately do something I’d been told not to do. it was certainly the first time I'd dared. Would my life have been changed if the grownups had found out? Who knows? They didn’t, and over the course of many years my life slowly filled with that heady mixture of power tinged with guilt.

I began this piece as writing practice, with a focus on capturing the sensory aspect of the experience, and only later recognized the guilt angle. This memory snip could serve as the launching pad for a whole series of guilt memories. I could tell the stories simply, or I could explore the consequences each had, as I began doing here. I could look at them separately, collectively, or both. I can go on to explore how the guilt began to recede and heal. The possibilities are endless.

I’m amazed at discovering the implications of this memory. It was never buried, but not until I wrote about it did I fully comprehend what that day meant in the overall context of my life.

Do you remember learning about guilt? Let your mind slide around the question, lazily, like honey oozing onto pancakes. Close your eyes and let your mind drift and see where it takes you. Then pick up your pen and paper and start writing, "I hoped nobody would ever find out that I ..." You may not know the rest of that sentence until your write it, and you may not know the rest of that sentence unless you do write it.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

We Hear What We Expect to Hear

While looking for an old file, I found the following exercise from a communication skills workshop I used to teach. The exercise is about how listening works, but as I read it over, I realized it also has a lot to do with reading — and by extension, writing.

Here is the exercise, from my instructor notes, complete with discussion points in green italics:

Read the following to the group:

Not long ago I was crossing Beacon Street at Murray Avenue. Traffic wasn’t very heavy, but I noticed some kind of disturbance off to the side. Well, I was crossing the street and didn’t want to jam up traffic or get hit, so I continued across, then stopped and looked back. Then I saw what was going on:

A big woman in a black dress was pushing and shoving and even hitting two or three young kids.

They were maybe ten or so years old...not yet teenagers. They didn’t seem to be fighting back.

A crowd gathered. I heard a siren screaming off in the distance, but I didn’t think much about it.

Then, a couple of minutes or so later, a police officer ZOOMED up in his car, and without stopping to talk to anyone or doing anything else, he rushed in, and quickly led the woman to his car and drove off.

Questions
1. When did this event take place? Not specified. "Not long ago..."

2. Was I walking, driving or bicycling? Not specified.

3. Why do you think this incident was important enough for the police to arrive with siren screaming? People will make assumptions and jump to conclusions. Nothing is said to support any conclusions.

4. What do you think the woman had done to break the law? It does say that she was pushing and shoving. But it doesn’t say why. Perhaps the kids had assaulted her???

Conclusion: We hear what we expect to hear ...

You’ll notice that the story lacks certain details, but take my word for it: the listener’s mind does fill in the blanks. The same thing happens with readers. You may notice that something is missing, but you’ll still go ahead and fill in the blanks with an image or outcome from some aspect of your own experience. You can probably think of several times in your life when this has happened to you, with outcomes ranging from amusing to disastrous.

Writing prompt: write a story about a listening fiasco. You may want to write it as a theme story with several examples. You may be the listener or the one who is not understood.

Sometimes this works to the writer’s advantage. If your purpose is to stimulate thought, you may make a conscious decision to omit certain details to force the reader’s mind to wander.

More generally, you’ll be writing about your own experience, with the intention of accurately conveying your point of view to your readers. Let this fragment of my past remind you to be discerning about the degree of detail in your stories. Use enough to create a full and accurate picture, and not so much the point of the story gets lost.

I’ll encourage you yet again to look for a lifestory writing group in your area for an objective assessment of your level of detail. If you can’t find a group, start one. Send me an e-mail (ritergal@gmail.com) and I'll be happy to send you information on how to go about this.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Earthworms and Ice Cream

For two days I’ve been struggling with a new post. It reminds me of the huge, fat earthworms that surface in our yard after a serious rainstorm. Those worms lie there ever so enticingly, but if I reach to pick one up (okay, I hear those twitters of revulsion: “Oh ugh! How utterly gross! I don’t even want to read this!” Hang in there — I’m almost done) it wriggles convulsively, throwing itself end-for-end across the rocks to get out of my reach. If, just for the heck of it and memories of childhood fishing days, I do manage to pick one up and plop it in the palm of my hand, it continues to thrash around with amazing strength, seeking to return to its loamy lair.

The essay I’m working on has the same slippery tenacity of those worms. I clearly see the concept, but as I reach for it, it skitters out of reach. I write a few words or paragraphs, but they slide out of grasp. It won’t hold still for the hook.

Fortunately, I have no true deadline for this piece. There is only one thing to do with such wriggly material: let it burrow back into the sanctuary of soil to continue developing. When the time is right, it will reemerge, ready to serve its ultimate purpose of attracting fish t0 feed a multitude.

Not surprisingly, the story I’m working on is about the emergence of light from darkness. It’s about finding gifts in the shadows of life and how to share them in helpful, meaningful ways, so the metaphor of the subterranean worm is apt.

I shall return to the topic, when it’s “ripe.” In the interim, I’ll continue to write, about other things, and other approaches to this elusive piece. Sometimes tough topics are like untying a knot. You nudge a little here, a little there, never forcing. It may take the patience of Job, but sooner or later, you touch just the right spot and it all falls open. Stories can be like that. Nudge, poke, let it rest, nudge again. And one day you find this amazing story staring back at you.

Meanwhile, I do have a little light for you today, of a less esoteric sort, and it should give you a good chuckle. Click over to the August 19 edition of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review to read my story of being Too Old for Ice Cream.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

The Birth of Ritergal

Someone recently asked about my alias of Ritergal. “Do you have a split personality or something?” he quipped.

“Well, actually, yes,” I replied, “or at least I used to.” I went on to explain that although I had not yet met her, my muse Sarabelle bestowed this name on me seven years ago in 2000. That’s the only way I can explain it. She gifted me with it for the purpose of keeping Ritergal’s Story Site anonymous. I wanted to share some stories, while safeguarding the privacy of others. Ritergal was a great cover, with no link to my “real” persona.

Sarabelle knew what she was doing. She knew I’d like that name, that I'd find it dashing and jaunty. She knew it would challenge me. Indeed it did! I felt a bit like a little kid playing dress-up. In the early years I found it easier to write certain things if I put on my Ritergal cape. Ritergal was more daring than Sharon could imagine being. Ritergal could be sassy and true, or gently tender, as the need arose. Ritergal wrote outside Sharon’s boundaries, though she seldom took the results public. Sharon was better at details and documenting. She was a great editor and organizer. She did the geeky layout stuff.

Ritergal played a crucial role in my development as a writer, but as I drifted away from posting on that website, Ritergal took a nap. She woke up again in February 2006, when I began this blog.

“Hey there! Remember me? I want a piece of this action, and you know we make a great team... how about it?”

“You bet! Where have you been?”

“Giving you a break. Now it’s time to get to work.”

I’m so happy she’s back and part of my life; part of me. She’s especially obliging about providing cover in public places like writer’s forums. In fact, she may be more widely recognized than Sharon, but just as the world can easily discover that SARK carries Susan Ariel Kennedy’s passport, Ritergal no longer hides her DMV identity.
When I say she’s part of me, I mean that with my whole heart and my whole brain. Until recently, I considered Ritergal to be a bit of a charade. She was the real writer Sharon aspired to become, as in when I grow up, I want to be a writer.

Sometime over the last several months I realized that being a writer isn’t something that can be measured by numbers of stories, publishing credits, or anything tangible. Being a writer is a way of thinking, a way of analyzing feelings and experiences to articulate them in succulent ways. Being a writer involves experiencing the moment in full, living color, and consciously anchoring the details in a neural databank, with organized tags for convenient retrieval. It means living life as an observer and interpreter of the human experience.

Being a writer also means writing — writing more than grocery lists. Email counts, as long as it includes more than “See you then.” I'm often asked if I write every day. Yes. I write every day, I eat every day, and I breath every day. Some days I get dressed and leave the house.

I can’t point to a date for the transition, but a few months ago I realized that Ritergal’s cape had become comfortable. It fit. It was warm and cozy. I no longer had to hide behind the curtain while Ritergal was in the forefront. Ritergal and I have fused as surely as our son John became Lippy. Ritergal is no longer that mysterious essence I hope to live up to — Ritergal is uniquely me.

I strongly encourage any aspiring writer out there to consult your muse to find and claim your Writer Name. Claim it in gmail. Claim it in forums. Use it and grow into it.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Profile in Courage

Last month I wrote about Ronni Bennet’s blog, The Elder Storytelling Place, alerting readers that you can submit stories there for publication. I’m a firm believer in taking my own advice, and yesterday’s edition featured my story, “Profile of Courage.”

This story does tell of a specific event in my life. However, it’s more than a mere narrative. I link two stories to tell a tale of a hero of sorts, a young man who dared to try eight times to get a date for prom, and how that story involved and inspired me, at the time and decades later.

It’s not a simple story. It also chronicles the initial flutterings of feminist, activist seeds germinating in my tender heart, long before the faintest green shoots appeared. That’s a lot of story to cover in a mere 720 words.

I originally wrote this story in August, 2001, so it’s well-aged. I didn’t set out to write with any specific purpose other than to chronicle the memory and immortalize Walter’s courage. It has been sitting in my file, both on the computer and in print, for the duration. Now, as I thumbed through the pile looking for something suitable for Ronni’s blog, it rose to the top. It didn’t need much work. Pure writing, straight from the heart, usually tells its own story more eloquently than we’d be able to do from our own wits and efforts. After all this time the story still rang true, to both purpose and my voice.

I offer this story to the world at large as a testament to courage, and an example of how some stories need to ripen and come of age before it’s time to press them into service. It never hurts to have a story on hand when opportunity presents itself. What have you got lurking in your archives? I’ll bet at least one story would fly high on The Elder Storytelling Place. Write your own profile in courage and give it a shot.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Writing on the Wild side

One of the touted features of Writing Practice or Morning Pages is allowing your fingers to run free of your Inner Censor to open new thought-branches and discover new ideas and connections. That happened to me this morning. I sat down to write about things I am especially grateful for today. Before I wrote a single word about gratitude, I found my pen moving off into the storm we had two days ago. In only a few lines, I reached a branch. I could write about this angle or that. I chose “that.”

As I started writing about “that,” I found another branch and thought of the crooked path my words were following. My wild mind raced ahead of my pen and I had a clear image of the trails in the woods about a quarter-mile down the road from our house on the “wild side” of the road. Dozens of acres of woodlands spread along the hillside. It’s too steep for development, so it remains Mother Nature’s domain, a buffer zone. I love to hike in that suburban wilderness where magical things are found.

Seeing Beyond the Obvious — photo art by SL

Trails spread along the wild sides of the slope, well-worn and smooth, a generous foot wide. The trails form a network along the hillside, with frequent branches and interconnecting paths. It doesn’t take long to become familiar with the landmarks, know which trail leads where, and how to loop back to the one you began on. Knowing the layout is great, but for me these are trails of discovery, not travel. I go there to find things out of the ordinary: an especially lovely clump of wildflowers, or a bush of blackberries, ripe to perfection. It’s about the fragrance of the forest, and the chattering of jays and squirrels, and shafts of sunlight turning clusters of leaves to gold that would be the envy of any alchemist. It’s about the joy of steps gently challenged by uneven terrain. It's about letting my mind run bare and wild, open to the unobvious.

As I write now, I face a similar branch. I can go on to tell about hoof prints in the mud and communing with deer as I walk on the wild side. I can write about the gratitude they inspire. Or I can loop back to Writing Practice — writing on the wild side of my mind. Right now I’ll choose Writing Practice.

You can see, from the paragraph above, how our wild minds wander through our mental terrain as capriciously as deer amble through the forest, grazing on a bush here, a clump of grass there, and delicious lilies further along. When I write in a hurry, I have a destination in mind, and I write straight to the purpose, sticking to the paved streets of my well-explored territory. With Writing Practice, also known as Free Writing, I set aside a specific destination, and allow my mind to ramble along nature’s path, making choices intuitively rather than purposefully.

Paved roads and purpose are great. They keep life moving smoothly. But if you look aside at all, you are more likely to see concrete walls, vagrant burger bags, and speeding vehicles than wee violet-filled meadows, dragonflies perched on milkweed, or fawns sipping from a pond.

I’m not able to enjoy the trails in the woods just every day. Some days, like the past few, it’s too muddy. I don’t enjoy the bare, bleak woods in winter. I don’t enjoy them when it’s seriously hot and humid. Most days, I don’t want to take the time. That makes the woods especially delicious when I do go for a ramble. Writing practice is different. The weather isn’t a factor, the surroundings are never out of season, and I can spend as little as ten minutes. It took less than five to find the seed idea for this post, and you can see that several seeds also began to sprout.

Writing Practice is no substitute for getting out in nature now and then, but it is a great way to enhance the value of wilderness walks and spread their fragrance into the arterials of your days.

Do yourself a favor. Take a Nature Break today, and a Writing Practice break every day!

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

A picture is Worth a Thousand Words

You've heard the old saw, "A picture is worth a thousand words." That can work both ways. It may take a thousand words to explain what's happening in a picture. A combination of pictures and story is ideal. Most people think of adding photographs to life stories, but there are several other kinds of pictures that add interest and value to the story. In The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, I suggest including maps and floor plans with your stories.

For example, I'm working on a compilation of stories about the first six years of my life. For most of that time we lived in the same house. I will include this floor plan for that house, the best I can remember.


I drew this on the computer, but graph paper and a pencil would have been lots easier! It isn't exactly right, even yet, but you can see that it was quite a small and simple house. When I pair this with photos like the one below that shows the front of the house, the fireplace, or other spots in the house, the whole story takes on more depth.

Me with my doll, Vickie

I may also include map scans of the neighborhood and Albuquerque. I could include shots of flowers we had in the yard. I could include all sorts of things, both written and visual. Last September I did a post that included a crayon drawing of the back yard as I remembered it.

How do you make decisions about what to include? The same way you decide what written details to include. Decide what the purpose of your story is, and what focus you want it to have. If I want to focus on the logistics of learning to roller skate, I may want to find a picture of the sort of adjustable, clamp-on skates I had. If I'm more focused on the sensations of wild wobbling, the heaviness of the pillow my mother strapped around my boney tush to ease my tumbles, the cutting pain of the tight ankle strap, and my stubborn determination to stick it out in spite of the skinned knees, I will skip the picture.

I hope I've given you some new ideas for illustrating your stories, and a little guidance in deciding which are the most appropriate for your purposes.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Braided Threads of Life

Back in 1978 my mother was visiting for a few days. One morning as she sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast, she began to muse. “I don't know what I want to be when I grow up,” she said. “I've been a mother, a secretary, a teacher, a shoemaker, a milliner, a seamstress ...” she paused for breath. “I don't know what to be next.”

As things turned out, she became a multi-media artist in the pre-computer-age definition of multi-media, meaning water color, oil and acrylic paints; stained, etched, sandblasted and shaped glass; photography, batik and various other fiber arts; and I  probably missed a few. She once had a one-woman show of pieces all based on a photograph of a wasp on a flower that my father had taken. She rendered that wasp in stained glass, batik, various cloth treatments, paints ... you name it, she did it.

Thinking over my mother's life a dozen years later, I remembered that breakfast table conversation and realized how rich and varied her life was. It occurred to me that there were many strands or threads running through it that peeked out at various times, without being obvious every day.

I was sorting through my yarn basket as I thought about this. Yarn of every color in the rainbow caught my eye and inspiration hit. Using pieces of primary colors, I wove a long, seven-strand braid. Still doodling, I doubled the ends back on the middle and wove the braid into a braid-of-braids.

Her birthday was near at hand, so I mounted the finished braid on a sheet of paper, with mat board behind and this poem alongside:

This is your life.
It is woven of many
strands, each representing a
different aspect of
your experience.
They are closely
interconnected.
Sometimes they
double back on
themselves. The
total effect is
color-full and
intriguing in its
complexity.

That card sat on her desk for years. Today it hangs on my wall, not just because it reminds me of her, but as a reminder that all our lives are composed of many braided threads. We all have work, family, friends, things we do for fun, spiritual beliefs of one sort or another, memories we'd rather forget, things we've learned, and so on. A complete life story will include at least a glimpse of each of those threads.

I've begun looking at my life, thinking in terms of threads, and making notes about how each manifests. When was it most dominant? What memories connect to this thread? Many of the stories I've already written relate to several threads. Others may point to a new thread I hadn't thought of.

Life is never as simple and neatly organized as this braid, but the braid does provide and example of one way to look at it.

Conversation with a candle

Most of us have memories we’d rather forget, but forgetting isn’t an option. Writing about the situation often pulls the plug on the power these memories have on your mind, but it takes a lot of time to write, and you may not want to run the risk of having your words discovered.

Take heart. Take hope. And talk, if only to a candle.

A candle as therapist? No, I have not lost my mind. Quite the contrary, I think I found it. I recently wrote a post about reading Paulo Coelho’s book The Zahir, and the importance he places on telling stories as a preliminary to becoming more loving. Although this injunction intuitively rings true, he doesn’t give directions on how to go about it.

Coelho’s first book of note was The Alchemist, published in English in 1994, and I must be the last person on the planet to read this book. Aside from selling millions of copies, it is always checked out in libraries. Where have I been? I finally reached the top of the reserve list at the library the other day and set about reading my third Coelho title.

Halfway through the book, I was overcome by the urge to stop and “tell my story.” I was home alone, and . . . you can find the details of that occasion in a story I posted on my site on Gather.com. For those who don’t have time just now to click over and read it, I’ll summarize by saying it was a transformative experience, and one I highly recommend.

From this event I discovered that sometimes sitting back and talking, even to a candle, can lead to greater self-awareness and insight than writing for months. Furthermore, that insight can have a powerful impact on your writing.

I’ve reached the point in my writing that the urge to continue piling up “scrapbook” stories is waning. I’m becoming more interested in compiling my collection into more complex memoir form. Without a vision of that unifying thread, there isn’t much hope for a meaningful melange, and I hadn’t found that thread.

One of the outcomes of my mysterious life review sort of process was finding that thread. By sitting and telling my story, without interruption or the need to clarify, explain or defend, a sense of orderly progression developed. Lots of other good things happened, but I’ll let you read about those in the story. This post is about writing.

Should you wish to experiment with my discovery, I suggest these ingredients:

• A comfortable chair or other place where you can sit upright, without needing to squirm for an hour or two.
• A block of unstructured time, at least two hours.
• Privacy — if you can’t find time alone at home, try a park or other secluded spot. Turn off your cell phone!

These are the basics. I found darkness helpful, along with a candle for a focal point, but a leafy glen would work as well. The important thing is to find a place that “feels right.” This is an intuitive process. There are no rules. Read my story, and see where it leads you. You can make notes if you like, but I, the compulsive writer, found it liberating to just talk. You can share your thoughts later if you wish, but this is about going deep inside yourself. Share later. Dialog is distracting.

This process should help you get at the heart of your story, as well or better than anything I know of. It could help you get past fears and block you weren’t even aware you had. Communing with self is the core of the writing process, and this is the most effective way I’ve found to do that.

Peace be with you.

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal