Ghosts of Halloween Past

It seems like only yesterday I was trekking around the neighborhood with a paper bag. All the kids on our street in Albuquerque went around together. I can barely recognize myself in the photo above. I think I see my little sister there, but I have to guess at the others. I think three of these kids moved away soon after this.

How simple things were back then. A mask and maybe some odd pieces of clothing was costume enough, which is good, because that’s all my family could afford at the time while my father was going to the University of New Mexico on the GI Bill. But it wasn’t just a matter of economy. Costumes fifty some years ago were generally simpler and more imaginative.

So were the goodies. I remember orange and white candy corn, and orange “circus peanuts.” Maybe a few jaw breakers or sticks of chewing gum. In later years there were a few mini-Hershey bars, and some people gave out iced sugar cookies or cupcakes. Some spoil sport always handed out the “untreat” — an apple.

Until the year I was in sixth grade, I generally went out trick-or-treating with the other kids from the neighborhood. That year I decided I was too old to go. But ... as the doorbell rang nonstop, nostalgia grew strong. It was not enough to simply hand out goodies to others. I wanted to be out in that crisp night air, bag in hand, one more time! So, I created the perfect excuse. I quickly cut out and crayoned a mask for myself from a brown paper bag, and stuffed my 18-month-old brother into his red snow suit, turning him into Santa Claus with the addition of a taped-on wad of cotton for a beard. He was clueless, but hung onto the paper bag I gave him. I took him around to ten or fifteen houses, and introduced him to the fine art of snagging candy.

At Halloween I always remember a story my mother used to tell, with a large smile on her face, about how she and her friends went around tipping over outhouses. Today I realize how suspect that story was. I’ll bet she was in a group that did one outhouse, one time. It is true that she lived in tents near the road construction sites her father oversaw for months a time, but that was when she was very young, and during the summer. There were precious few outhouses to be found in town by the 1930s when she was the right age for such shenanigans. Still, the story is lots of fun to envision. I never did anything more horrible than smearing Ivory soap on a few windows.

Halloween has changed so much from then to now. Power Rangers and princesses have displaced simple masks and hobo getups. Infants are stuffed into strawberry suits. Yard and home decorations are nearly as elaborate as Christmas. Or so it is other places. Not at my house! I've become the Halloween Grinch, but that's okay, because for years no children have bothered to invest the time and effort to hike half a block up the street and climb our steep, hundred-foot- long driveway for a small candy bar.

Write now: about some of your favorite Halloween memories. Did you have elaborate costumes, or make-shift ones? Did you have parties at school? At home? What were your favorite treats? Do you have more recent stories about trick-or-treating with your children, or any unusual door-answering tales?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Reading for Better Writing

My hubby is great at uncovering writing lessons for me. It never ceases to amaze me that a nuclear physicist who took the minimum requirement of lit courses is able to rattle off such stunningly insightful critiques of structure, conflicting detail, character development and other matters of interest to a writer. He freezes up at the thought of writing anything nontechnical himself, but he's a masterful reader, and I'm especially blessed to have the benefit of his skill.

Last spring I nearly wrecked my voice reading Haven Kimmel's memoir, A Girl Called Zippy, aloud in the car on a long road trip. This memoir, published in 1991, came at the early edge of the current spate women's memoirs, and due to some weaknesses, it may not make the publisher's cut today. Despite the flaws, it's a charming and delightful story, and we spent lots of time laughing at the humor found throughout.

I hadn't been sure Hubby would relate to the book, but he did enjoy it. He also rattled off some flaws before I'd even finished reading. Four stand out:

1. She didn't date-stamp her accounts, and she jumped around in time like a grasshopper on a sugar high. We often wondered whether she was six or twelve during a particular episode. Age was relevant to putting the story in context.

Writing lesson: Be sure to anchor each story in the five W's: who, where, when, why, and what.

2. She repeated material many times, without any indication that she intended to do so. Repetition is okay, but tends to bore readers and sound sloppy.

Writing lesson: When you assemble random stories into a collection, check for duplication of material. After the first time you mention an event, refer back to that first mention rather than retelling it in full. If you do retell it, recast it to shed a different light on things. Best of all, tighten up your content to avoid the need for repetition.

3. Her dialog was overdone. Many conversations sounded more like something you'd read in the New Yorker than a memoir about childhood. Perhaps she really was that precocious, but it sounded as authentic as a toddler wobbling around on oversize stilettos, wearing lame, lipstick and lots of bling. It was splendid creative writing, and had it issued from the lips of a more mature character, it would have been gold-standard.

Writing lesson: Keep your vocabulary age-appropriate when you use dialog. As I've mentioned several times in previous blogs about The Albuquerque Years, “grown-up” words or interpretive sections jangled loudly. My sense of things told me I had to keep it consistent with my age at the time; to keep the words true to the music.

4. She honed in on certain details with laser-like precision. Who can say? Perhaps her memory is that sharp. But for most of us, the mists of time tend to blur the edges of physical surroundings, and specific wording of remembered conversations. Sharpening them too much is like over-sharpening a picture with photo-editing software. The picture no longer looks real, and the story begins to sound contrived.

Writing lesson: Detail is good, but reaching too far, filling in too many blanks with guesses, or relying on input from too many others, weakens your credibility. Write from your own memory. Let intuition fill in a few blanks, but don't grasp for straws. Leave it out, or honestly admit that you don't remember.

In spite of these criticisms, the book is a delight to read, and I consider reading it time well spent — especially since my resident literary critic was along to point out the lessons.

Perhaps there is a further lesson in all of this — the importance of finding support people who are skillful readers. I feel especially fortunate to have one under my own roof. You may have to look a bit further. I'd suggest attending a few sessions of a reading group at your local library. Pay close attention to those who seem to be the most articulate in analyzing the books. If you can get one or two of those people to give you honest feedback on your own writing, you'll be getting some of the best coaching available, and they will probably be flattered to have you ask them, and glad to help.

Write now: about an early childhood memory. Use some dialog in your story and describe the surroundings. Before you begin writing, sit back with your eyes closed and try to remember what things looked like when you were that age. What did they sound like? How did you think about things. Try to become that age again. Then, open your eyes, and start writing. Most likely, your muse will be whispering in your ear, and words will flow right out onto paper like magic, in just the right words and level of description. It's okay to edit, but resist the temptation to "pimp it up."

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

The Story That Herm Wrote

I’ve spent most of the past week listening to audio books as I lay in bed with pneumonia. I’ll spare you the details of the illness, other than to tell you that I couldn’t concentrate well enough even to read. I’m starting to feel human again, but not quite ready to write a full-length blog. Instead, I will share a story I received from a good friend in an e-mail recently.

I met Herchell “Herm” Newman through the Lifestory YahooGroup, (now the Life-Story-Writing Group) about five years ago. Finding one of Herm’s stories in my inbox has always brightened my day. Three years ago I was thrilled to hear that one of his stories had been chosen for inclusion in Chicken Soup for the African American Soul. Now, that’s quite a distinction!

Herm’s stories revolve around his family, his faith, and sometimes his career as a fire fighter — an occupation he retired from a few years ago. They are tender to the bone, with just the right balance of meat and sweetness, well-seasoned with humor. They warm both heart and soul.

I especially liked this story he recently posted to the YahooGroup, and asked his permission to share it in the blog:

Sunday’s choral experience was massive joy. From the time the curtain opened, the first musical chords were struck and the first words sung...the heart of the congregation moved toward us like a tide of smiling faces. Soon they were on their feet clapping their hands and singing along.

Director Adams had me seated in the middle of the front row. Before the curtain opened he said to me, “Herchel, after you sing two verses, pass the mic back to your father and he'll sing a couple.” I replied, “I'm gonna have a mic!?” Everybody laughed. He said, “Perhaps I should have just passed it to you at the appropriate time. Seems I’m putting too much pressure on you.”

Thomas (aka Tommy) Adams, has been a man of music for about thirty-five years in and around Columbus,Ohio. This day was to be his last because he is relocating to LA. I wanted to honor God by honoring his musical servant. This meant putting my lack of confidence aside and giving from my heart in unison with the congregation.

Tommy, has a great sense of humor. It endears him to people. When it was time to sing “All That I Own", Jesus gave it to me, He built up the introduction. “...and leading this song will be Brother Herchel Newman!” He handed me the mic without meeting my eye. Singing was as joyful and easy as singing in the kitchen waiting for the apple pie to come out of the oven.

I saw Tommy glance my way so I passed the mic back to Dad. His voice is as strong as ever and those who know him get excited when he stands before them to sing. First timers are always amazed. I looked to see the faces of first timers in the audience. When we finished the chorus I was nudged on the shoulder. Dad, had passed the mic back to me. I gave myself to the song and then some after the music stopped. At that point we were a choir and church on one a-chord . He later said, “You were really feeling the song. It was yours to sing.”

The song ended with an Amen. The musicians added the final notes. The curtain closed. Tommy Adams, is moving on. God, is always creating. The curtain will open again.

This isn’t a fancy story, but it is a powerful one. It comes straight from the center of his heart and truth. I share it for a reason beyond its simple elegance. Many people hesitate to write about their own triumphs; their Inner Censor screams loudly that humility is a virtue and these stories amount to bragging. Triumphs are important parts of our lives. They are our moments of intense joy, and no portrait of our inner self is complete without them. They empower future generations to face their own demons and excel in their own ways.

Herm’s story is a virtual template of how to do this, in a tasteful, humble way. He shares his angst, clues us in on the method he used to rise above it. Along the way, he pays tribute to others, and finally takes us with him as he soars. Although I did not verify this, his purpose seems more to pay tribute to Tommy, his father, and the power of love and faith than to glorify himself.

Write now: about a triumph of your own; a time you overcame your fears.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

The Project That's Finally Done

TA-DAH! The Albuquerque Years is finished!

This is the last in a series of posts about my experience with Lulu.com as I published The Albuquerque Years, a memoir of my life as a preschooler. The saga began with The Project That Just Won't Quit on August 30, and continued with Part 2 on September 2. In my Lulu Project Update on September 22, I reported on the result of my initial order.

Today, I posted the link to the book's own Lulu page. It will remain in the left column, just under the link to The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. I have chosen to list The Albuquerque Years with no price mark-up, so anyone who wishes to order a copy as an example of Lulu's product quality can do so at nothing more than the cost of printing and postage. Anyone curious to see an example of a project brought to completion by the process I outline in The Heart and Craft, can do likewise. I include a short afterward with an overview of the Lulu Experience.

Finishing this project has been a thrill on at least two levels. It's always rewarding to see something through to completion, but when it's the story of your own life, it's especially rewarding. I have a much stronger sense of the depth of my life's roots, and where the story began.

Beyond that, having found my way through the Lulu labyrinth, which you know from earlier posts wasn't all smooth, I'm in a much better position to give reliable advice to any who ask. And I hope you will. Here's a summary of what I learned:

• Use styles to keep your headers and other content consistent. (See Appendix 3 in The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing for detailed instructions on using styles in whatever word processing program you use.)


• Once you decide on a page size for your finished book, set the page size in your word processing program to those measurements, and adjust margins. (See Appendix 3 as above.)
  


• Use a photo editing program to resize any photos or other graphics you use to the exact size you need in your manuscript. Save them in jpg format (not tiff) at 300 dpi in RGB color mode, not grayscale. Use the grayscale mode even for black and white pictures. It's also advisable to convert your color pictures to grayscale and adjust accordingly before you switch them back to color mode. They will look like grayscale and be printed in grayscale on the Lulu presses, but experience showed me that the pictures set in color mode printed better than the grayscale one. Ditto with jpg/tiff.


• Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to resize a graphic inside your word processing program. I guarantee you will not be happy with the results.


• Unless you are a real whiz with PDF programs, upload your finished manuscript to Lulu for conversion to PDF. This will assure that the process goes smoothly. Download the finished PDF and preview it carefully to make sure there were no formatting glitches in the process.
  


• Unless you are a real whiz with a graphics program and PDF conversion, use Lulu's cover templates.
  

If anyone gets snarled up in this process, please contact me with questions. I learn from your challenges right along with you! Likewise, I'd love to hear of your successes!

Finally, for a short time I'm making the ebook version available at no cost to those who request it. Just click that link above and send me an e-mail.

I hope legions of lifestory writers will soon join the ranks of proudly published authors. (No, this is not a paid testimonial for Lulu! Right now they are the only reliable operation I know of with no setup fee.)

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Photographic Memory Jolts

There’s nothing quite like a trip through a pile or album of old photos for bringing back memories. I recently ran across this shot of my own family, taken when I was about twelve. Oh, my, do the stories flood back! Here’s a list, in totally random order, of some (excluding the obvious stories describing individuals:

• The record player — a gift to my sister and me from Santa Claus when I was in first grade. That memory leads to Victor Borge’s recording, It’s In the Book, and the day my little sister repeated some words she had misunderstood from that story. Rather than “Of all the stupid audacity ...” she said, “Of all the stupid odd assy ...” Needless to say, that didn’t sit well with Mother. Which leads to stories of other things that didn’t sit well with Mother. And then there were the children’s records with stories and songs that we nearly wore clear through with repeated playing. Some of those records were plastic coated cardboard, others were Little Golden Records. The record player Christmas was in Cushing, OK, which is quite a story in and of itself ...
  

• The gray sectional couch with the black limed oak corner table — which sparks stories of furniture and room décor through the years.
  

• Tray on the mantle — Mother painted that tray, which reminds me of stories about her extensive skill in various craft mediums, and those stories could fill volumes.

• Hardwood floor — typical of all government housing in Los Alamos, which included all the housing in Los Alamos, which is another story.

• Mother’s jump suit — quite the fashion right then, and one of the very few clothing items she had in those years that she didn’t sew herself. Those who have read my books and follow this blog are aware that Mother and sewing are a hot topic in my writing.

• Saddle oxfords — worn by my sister, and nearly every girl in America at that time. Which leads to stories of polishing shoes in general, and the special challenges of polishing saddle oxfords and the pair of Ivy League saddle oxfords I had that sported tiny buckles in the back. And that reminds me of the orange shoes I had in sixth grade that looked like pumpkins and didn't quite match each other and ...
  

• My hair — I had just read an article in American Girl Magazine on how Natalie Wood used a hairnet to set her hair around cotton wads and Scotch Taped her bangs in shape as they dried. Which brings stories to mind about wanting to look like a movie star, and my adventures reading that magazine, and the modeling classes Mother arranged for my sister and me to take, and winning the scrapbook contest, and ...

• Glasses — I hated wearing glasses! And there are so many stories about them ...

• My bare feet — my preferred footwear in the house and outside in the summer. I often went barefoot in the snow to keep my good shoes dry, like the time ...

• Family dynamics — The way this picture (taken by my paternal grandfather who was a professional photographer) is posed, facial expressions, eye direction — all these cues and more tell volumes about the way our family related to each other.

• Fireplace — reminds me of trips to the mountains to cut wood and picnics, how pitchy pine burned, the fragrance of piñon pine smoke, learning to build a fire, Girl Scouts, and more ...

I could write for a whole week without running out of ideas, just from this one picture. As you can see, each item leads to other memory clusters, so I might keep going for a month or more. I strongly encourage anyone who suffers writer’s block to haul out some photos. You should experience relief within minutes!

Write now: about a picture from your past. Include the picture with your story, and explain details in it. Tell when it was taken, explain the occasion, and elaborate on details in the picture.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

More Than Just a Table

It already had a lot of history before it came into our family. I found the old table in the stairwell near the garbage chute in our first apartment in Boston. People put large things there for the janitor to dispose of, and anything you found was fair game. I thought carefully before adopting the table. I knew it would be a life-long relationship.

Forty-some years later, this appears to be the case. It still sits in my kitchen. It’s evolved considerably in the interim. For the first couple of years, a blotchy, peeling coat of colored varnish deepened the shade of the cherry wood. In the late sixties I painted it a lovely turquoise, accented with then fashionable antiquing, perfect for the spindled, early American legs. In the seventies, it acquired a coat of lime green paint to coordinate with the next house.

Eventually it was too small for our growing family and moved to the basement, where it served a variety of passive purposes. When we moved to Pittsburgh, it obligingly returned to active duty in the kitchen, while its successor occupied the dining room.

The lime green paint was jolting in the new location, so I stripped the table bare. It remained naked for more than a dozen years before I gave it a chic, sheer paprika-red glaze and a couple of coats of varathane, leaving the legs natural.

The story of the table’s surface doesn’t begin to tell what it’s meant to our family. It has been with us through infants, toddlers, teens and grandchildren. It has participated in celebrations, turmoil, tedium, and joy. It has hosted friends, held homework, collected piles of dirty dishes, served as a bread kneading surface ... .

As I consider this table, I think of all the stories it has witnessed, the stories it could tell. It's more than just a table — we have no secrets from it. An idea strikes me: I could write a collection of stories about our family with this table as the organizing thread. Will I write this series? I can’t tell you today, but it is a doable and exciting idea. The concept resembles memoirs people like Ruth Reichl write that use adventures with food as the organizing principle.

This idea is worth remembering. I just wrote it on a card and stuck it in my file box. I recently expanded my card filing system to include a section for theme ideas. Others include cars I have known and loved, special people in my life, vacation stories and many others.

Write now: about a treasured piece of furniture in your life. Be very specific in your description of the item, using all your senses. How did it smell? What was the texture as you ran your fingers over the surface? What sounds did you hear as you used it? Was this item comforting? Does it remind you of anything special? What memories are connected with it?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Real Writing Versus Virtual

Don’t panic. The writing world as you’ve known it is not ending. Pencils, paper and keyboards will be around for ages to come, but today I want to pull aside the curtain on a writing tool you’ve probably used forever, but never thought about: virtual writing.

I can’t remember the first time I heard of the study where a coach divided basketball players into three groups, but I think it was at least twenty-five years ago. He had one group practice shooting 100 baskets a day for a period of time. Another group didn't touch a ball, but visualized sinking 100 perfect baskets, and a third group did neither. It was no surprise that the performance of the last group suffered, but it was a surprise that the players who simply visualized did better than those who threw balls.

In Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, author Sharon Begley details numerous similar studies neuroscientists have conducted to further explore this phenomenon. The evidence is conclusive: merely visualizing actions strengthens motor skills. (Don’t get the idea you can train for a marathon while you lie on a couch visualizing. These results addressed dexterity, not strength or endurance.)

As I stood in the shower recently, I was cogitating evocative ways of describing a certain memory. I wanted to go beyond the standard, “It smelled delicious.” I wanted to convey the sense of intense delight and wonder the remembered fragrance induced. In one sense the shower was limiting, because I didn’t have thesaurus.com available to pave the way, but in another it was liberating. I was freed from the need for speed I generally feel as I sit at my keyboard. There was no need to “write it and be done.”

My monkey mind soon leapt into the fray, reminding me of a joke that includes the line “everything makes me think about women.” I realized that I could substitute writing for women. Everything makes me think about writing and how to best convey an experience or impression in words.

Then my monkey swung off to the next branch: honing wording in the shower is the writer’s equivalent of visualizing a perfect basket. Score one for the monkey!

Finally, my monkey handed me a banana that I share here with you: many aspiring (lifestory) writers, for one reason or another, feel guilty or stressed about not writing more often or every day. If you are one of these people, give yourself a break. Instead of beating yourself up about being too busy to write, or whatever the case may be, do a little virtual writing. Visualize a specific aspect of a memory and think about how to word it. Let your own monkey out to play and see what new story ideas come to mind. Explore an area where your writing is blocked and visualize the tip of a pen sliding the knot open.

When you come up with a specific phrase, story idea or other resolution, jot a reminder down at the earliest opportunity so you won’t forget it later. (I hope you have an index card handy!) Remember, you are not abandoning actual writing, you are adding virtual practice to enhance your physical performance.

I have a strong hunch that once you play around with some virtual writing practice, your fingers will soon be itching to pick up a pencil or touch the keyboard to produce some actual words.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Delayed Disclosure

If you search the blog archives or click on the Purpose label, you’ll find a pile of posts about reasons for writing your lifestory. One of the most cogent reasons is eloquently expressed by Rich Turner on the Memorablia page of his website, The Grammar Curmudgeon.

He writes:

“... Our daughter, who has become interested in genealogy, was urging me to write my memories. She was prompted to this view by our discovery, after my mother's death, of a journal that my mother had kept. Our daughter transcribed the journal, scanned in pictures from old family albums, and put it together in a book that she distributed to most known survivors – my nieces and nephews (her cousins), my brother's widow, and so on. She asked me to edit it, and, when I did, I became aware of experiences my mother had that I never knew about and of a side of her personality of which I was completely unaware. I also realized that there is something to be said for passing on, in some permanent form, what we recall of our inner and outer lives to our children and grandchildren.”

I was struck by the part about becoming aware of experiences his mother had and facets of her personality he’d never seen. My mother and I were relatively close, and had a relationship of mutual respect and support. However, as a mother of grown children myself, I’m fully aware that there were limits around what my mother expressed directly, and I know she had a plethora of thoughts and ideas I can only guess at. How I wish she'd lived long enough to finish the lifestory she began writing!

It’s not that I didn’t care, and it’s not that she wouldn’t tell, but there were boundaries to our communication, and these boundaries hold for nearly any pair of people. The first is time. There is simply never enough time on either end of the phone/email/IM/whatever to cover everything. The time we spend living our lives and thinking our thoughts far exceeds the time available to share them or listen to others. Thus whatever we convey is going to pass through the filters of condensation.

Another boundary is priorities. Most of us want to be supportive of our offspring and keep up with new things. Those of us with grandchildren are always eager to hear of their exploits, and there’s the tendency to want to hear about our children’s job tragedies and triumphs or latest romantic adventures. So we often spend the vast balance of time in listening mode than telling our own stories.

Personality quirks may also play a part. In general, some of us are more inclined to share personal news and insights than others, and listeners have different styles of responding. If you happen to have a parent who is a low discloser, and a child who is inclined to blurt out spontaneous reactions like, “That herbal healing nonsense is total &*%!!” that child is not going to hear much about the parent’s evolving interest in holistic healthcare.

I can only speak for myself here, but I tend to be of the low disclosing type, especially around those who may not agree with my thoughts. I’m certainly not likely to think out loud and explore new ideas with someone who is sure to pounce and put me through the third degree.

So, for better or worse — and perhaps after my departure — my children and later generations may (like Rich Turner or Francesca’s children in The Bridges of Madison County) read stories they don’t have time for right (or may not be ready to understand) now. If they care enough to read, they may learn of adventures they never knew I had and aspects of my thinking and personality they never guessed at. That remains to be seen. For now, I write because I love to write, I learn more about myself from my own writing, and what other reasons does one need?

Write now: about boundaries around your own writing; about boundaries in communication with your parents and your offspring. Do you choose these boundaries and accept them, or do they irritate you? What part does your Inner Critic play, and what part does the reaction of the others play? Have your boundaries changed over the years?