Personal Essay: Pathway to Clarity, Persuasion and Power

What’s the best way to air your personal views? First get clear on what they are, then write a personal essay!

Write an essay? you ask. Me, write an essay? Surely you joke!

I get that. I’ve spent most of my life thinking the same thing. Like most people, I always thought of essays as noxious English class assignments that fed dry toast to brains. 

That was before personal essay and creative nonfiction came of age. Now I recognize essays as both a tool for getting my thoughts clear and orderly, and also a dimension of story — stories explaining what we think and believe and why. Stories exploring Truth. They interlace nicely with stories about experiences. Most stories are hybrids, with elements of both.

Well-written personal essays sizzle with energy and sometimes humor. They make you think. I know this, because I’ve read a pile of them lately. The ones that spurred this post are blog posts by Kristen Lamb.

Two in particular are so powerful I hope they go viral. Both are calls to action, inciting the nation to get a grip and reclaim our sense of balance and humor. While well-meaning and serving an initial purpose, the Political and Emotional Correctness Police have become Nazis, and who isn’t tired of walking on eggshells all the time? I urge you to read them for yourselves:

Lighten the HELL UP! Combatting the Plague of Self-Importance

Emotional Toughness—How Haters & Hurt Feelings Can Be GOOD for Us

In her essays Kristen mixes observations on the current state of cultural values with personal reflections on how these values affect them and society at large. She begins her first post by citing an article, “Is America Starting To Target Thought Crime?” That article reports on how Michele Obama anointed graduating high schoolers as thought police for their families. Yikes!  Kristen went on to build on the ramifications of that.

Her second post continues the theme. I don't see how anyone who reads Kristen's posts can avoid personal reflection and become more clear on personal thoughts.

I haven’t queried Kristen about the process she used to compile these essay/posts, but I’d bet a dime to a dollar that she learned something along the way. That she was more clear after writing than before.

How does that work? How can you do that? 

A few years ago I invited Sheila Bender, noted personal essay writer and teacher, and author of highly acclaimed Writing and Publishing Personal Essays,  to write a series of three guest posts, “Finding Starts in Personal Essay Writing.” That wheel still rolls smoothly down the road, so I invite you to take a few minutes to read through them.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Whether you plan to influence the world or not, do give personal essay writing a try. Take something you often ponder and write about your thoughts and feelings about it. That might be as seemingly simple as the challenges of being short, or something like the current Orlando tragedy. See where it goes. Who knows? You may write something as compelling as Kristen. Or you may just be more clear on your views and able to discuss them more effectively with friends and neighbors.

Points to Ponder: What do you want to be more clear about? What keeps you from sitting down to write? Would it help to write about the fears or reasons for reluctance? They may be the key to unlocking your power. 

My Brain on Story

An ongoing, passionate, urge to write is upon me. Primarily I’m engrossed in creating a second edition of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. I began writing that book ten years ago. All print runs have sold out, and I told the publisher I did not want it to continue as a Print On Demand volume. I feel compelled to freshen it up with new insights rather than perpetuating what seems like a stale version. 

As I finally found the energy to rip into the guts, I found the courage to question everything I said, and I’m ripping it apart with abandon. I’d forgotten how energizing it can be to smash into things with a sledge hammer. Many years ago I literally hammered out tile and sawed out fiberglass in two bathroom renovations. What fun! This book may also be stripped to studs, and it may take way longer than the four to six weeks I’d intended. 

Or maybe not. Story has me by the brain. I’m dreaming about how to express things. Is that sleeping or writing? Mostly the latter. If I don’t get up and get it on the page, I’ll lie awake, afraid I’ll forget. Nothing will do but to hit the keyboard while it’s clear in mind. Keep a notepad by my bed? Great idea, but I don’t sleep alone, so I’d get up anyway to write the note. Then I’m awake. 

In the wee hours this morning my essay, Mayhem at Camp RYLA (download from the Free Stuff tab) came to mind. A couple of weeks ago my son-in-law and daughter and I got into a hammer and tongs discussion about the nature of Truth. I used the example from my essay of the water pistol being misinterpreted as a real gun. Sally Johnson had an extreme response to what she perceived as gun fire. The gun produced as evidence was a water pistol. Nobody knew until later that Sally worked as a bank teller and had been involved less than three months earlier in an armed robbery where a bystander was hit by a stray bullet. The mere glint of sunshine on a gun was enough to trigger a traumatic flashback. That young woman was suffering from PTSD. Nobody knew. Not even her. 

My point at dinner was that to Sally, that object in Mary’s hand was indisputably a pistol full of bullets. That was absolute truth to her, and from her point or view, absolute truth to me. 

“No. There is no way that is true. She may have thought it was true, but the fact is that gun was a water pistol and she was wrong!” Passions were running high, but I stood my ground, realizing that the best I could hope for was for us to agree to disagree. I was tired after three days attending a conference and not on my toes. I may pursue the matter again, because I feel strongly that it’s important for people, especially opinion leaders such as they are, to recognize that Truth comes in fifty shades of white, and I’m not sure that they do. The empirically documentable fact remains that Mary was carrying a water pistol.

But that doesn’t make Sally’s instant perception wrong or untrue. To her, that was a pistol loaded with bullets. Reconciling her instant perception with the reality of the water pistol was almost as traumatic for her as the original assault had been. I wish now I’d stayed in touch with her. Traumatic or not, it seems like a good thing that she recognized the effect of the trauma as soon as she did. 

But what if the junior staff had roared back out of camp and disposed of the evidence like they would have on television? Life is seldom so simple. In that case, we would not have had empirical truth. Sally’s perception would stand. Would that make it more true? I submit that it would. 

Furthermore, each camper saw and experienced the event in a unique way and left with different interpretations. It probably had the most dramatic and lasting impact on Sally and me. As noted in the essay, I was conducting workshops on communication skills at the time, with an emphasis on active listening and the filters involved. I’ve used this event as am example in classes and workshops countless times over the years. 

This morning I woke to see that event as worthy of much deeper exploration, and it may play a large role in the introductory material in the Second Edition. Now I can go back to sleep. Maybe. Stay tuned!

Points to Ponder: How often have you been in a situation where you were sure of something that turned out otherwise? How did this discovery affect you? How did it affect your “story” about what happened? Did you try looking at the situation from other eyes? How could shifting perspectives change a story you’re writing or thinking about writing? Considering alternate points of view can dramatically change a story, even your view of life. 

Unlikely Paths and Capsule Stories

Acclaimed memoirist Carol Bodensteiner discusses surprise paths that lead to unforeseen opportunity in her current blog post, You Just Never Know. Unable to find a full-time job as teacher after earning her teaching degree, she began working as a secretary, a move that surprised many then and now. She explains why she never regretted taking that path and issues a challenge to readers to share similar stories.

My life has been full of portentous by-roads, and I did choose to share one. Like the flash memoir embedded in Carol's post, the comment I wrote serves as a capsule story that could expand into an entire chapter in a memoir of connecting the dots of life. I share it with you here as an example of how to capture such memories in five minutes or less and store them for later use:

My surprise career road was a relatively short loop: I signed on as a Mary Kay Beauty Consultant. Why? I never wore much makeup, and olive oil was my go-to skin care. How could I ask people to spend money on products I didn’t value? My academic training was in counseling psychology, with a master’s degree earned after a ten year gap. But with school-age children, I could not easily commit to the minimal pay and floating schedules necessary to “pay my dues” and become a bona fide counselor. I turned to teaching instead, part-time, for low pay and unpredictable schedules, at the local community college.

Then fate introduced me to a Paid Professional Speaker, who became a mentor of sorts. He told me I had to learn sales to be able to do anything at all, and I had to commit to at least five years of active membership in Toastmasters. Toastmasters was a pond for this duck. Learning sales more like a desert. I signed on with Mary Kay, assuming this was something I could limit to school day hours.

Let’s just say I could only endure this sales training by focusing on my goal: earn several awards and boogie. This was the toughest class I ever took! But when I realized that the Mary Kay script worked better than anything I could invent myself and started going by the book, the awards, i.e. crystal wine glasses for meeting production goals, began to stack up on my shelf. I became shameless in telling people what I did and asking, “Have you (your wife) had a Mary Kay facial yet?”

I accosted a woman I knew only vaguely with this line when our paths crossed at an Art in the Park event. When she heard what I was doing, she asked, “Isn’t that something you can do with a high school degree?”

“Yes. Would you like to know more about becoming a Beauty Consultant?”

“But you have a master’s degree! Aren’t you wasting it?”

“Not at all. My master’s degree helped me become the person I am, and I like the person I am. How could it be wasted? When would you like to have a facial?”

I pulled that response out of thin air, but as I spoke, I realized its truth. I did like the person I’d become, although I did not like selling make-up. The woman did book a facial but bought nothing. Surprise? Not really. She was coerced. Manipulated. And my heart was not in this — I was near burnout. I soon realized I had met my goals, and got out. Class over.

I’ve never regretted the time I spent selling make-up. Together with Toastmasters, it opened doors to selling things more in tune with my passion, which I eventually discovered was writing and “selling” ideas.

Please note that my capsule story is somewhere between a Story Idea List entry and a more complete story with plenty of detail. Capsule stories are little more than a string of titles and not at all deep. More thought on how to expand capsule stories to follow.

Points to Ponder:

• What decisions have you made that put you on unexpected paths?
• What were the eventual benefits or costs? 
• Do you regret the choice? 
• It’s your turn to write and share such a story in a comment below!

What Is TRUTH?

Nine years ago as I pulled together the material that became The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, I thought I knew the answer to that question, what is truth: It's what really happened, or what you really think. It's basic honesty, plain and simple. Everybody knows that, right?

That's a good starting point, but as I've learned since then, that's both incomplete and misleading. Some of my increased understanding is old news, things I knew that had not integrated into my cluster of life writing neurons. Meanwhile, advances in the study of memory continue to deepen understanding. These discoveries have profound  relevance for life writers. Here's a list of a few evolving insights worth sharing:

Memory is fallible. Contrary to what you probably heard in psychology class, self-help seminars, and various other places, you do not remember every minute detail of every sensation that ever entered your brain. Recent evidence shows that incoming data is filtered, scrubbed and consolidated. Irrelevant material is unlikely to be retained. Furthermore, our brains often mistake vivid mental images for fact, embedding them as memory.

Memory morphs. Research shows that each time you recall an event or thought, current circumstances and thought become enmeshed in the memory, and the initial memory may become buried in debris over time. Compare this to your story files on disk. You may save your initial draft. Then you edit and save again. You may repeat that process twenty times, perhaps changing only a word or two each time you read. Five years later, if you had a copy of that original draft, you may not recognize it as the same story. But you didn't save the original, so there's now way to know.

Perception is personal and situational. In 1978 I grew sick of my long, hippie hair. I was enrolled in an off-campus graduate program at Central Washington U at the time, and made the hundred mile drive to the Ellensburg campus every couple of weeks. One day I left early and stopped at a hair salon before a lunch date with my mentor. Although I felt foxy as heck with my sleek new bob, I could barely see beyond a new fringe of bangs invading my view. My next stop was the library. When I stepped up to the checkout desk, I heard a man say, "Oh, my GOD!" A bomb exploded in my self-absorbed brain. Could my hair be that bad? I swung around and saw him gaping at a document.

Truth is relative. This perspective is based on the one above. In my essay, Mayhem at Camp RYLA, I cite the example of a young woman who worked as a bank teller and was held up at gunpoint a few months earlier. Shots were fired, though not at her. During a simulated crime at Camp RYLA, she saw an object held at arms' length, pointed in her direction. Not only did she tearfully swear under oath at the mock trial that a gun had been pointed at her, but that she'd heard a shot. That belief was so strong and true for her that she went into near meltdown at the revelation the "gun" had been a plastic water pistol.

Truth is situational and sometimes inconsistent. Victims of abuse often testify to this. "I loved him," they claim, years after they got brave enough to leave. "I really loved him. And I hated him when he beat me. Sometimes I wished he was dead." Those feelings, those truths, can exist side-by-side for decades.

So, you see, although I don't deny the existence of universal truths like the power of love, story truth is fuzzy, fleeting and personal.Write your story the way you see it, the way it's real and true to you. If you find truth changing as you write, consider yourself blessed.

Write now: Make a list of beliefs about what you hold true. Jot down a few examples of each. Then ask yourself Byron Katie's question, "Is this really, really true?" and "How do I know it's true?" You may be surprised by what you learn.

Dreams Do Come True

Dreams do come true – the day dream kind, the wish upon a star kind. I know this because many of mine have. I know they have because I wrote them down. Two examples stand out and show how writing dreams down can benefit life writers.

Moving to Pittsburgh
Around 1983 I began dreaming about moving away from what I considered to be the serious career limits of life in Washington’s Tri-Cities (Richland, Kennewick and Pasco). That was during the hey day of the goal setting movement, at least for me. So I drafted a list of everything I wanted when we moved, even though no move was in sight. That list had over twenty items. Among other things it included

• Major university.
• Major corporate headquarters
• A house with high ceilings
• A stream in our backyard. (That was pure whimsy, nothing I expected to get.)

I stuck that list somewhere and forgot about it. 

In 1985 my husband accepted a job transfer from the Westinghouse Hanford Nuclear Project to the Westinghouse Nuclear Center in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. I was thrilled to be in a suburb of a real city. Fast forward about three years. I found that list. I was stunned. Every item on it had been fulfilled. True, the high ceiling is only a half-cathedral and the stream only runs after a serious rainstorm, but it is a stream, and it is in the woods in our backyard.

Moving again
in 1993 I wrote a future vision as part of another goal-setting/dream-building exercise. Over the past several years I’ve remembered that exercise often, and looked all over for it, primarily to show my daughter that a dozen years before she met their father, I knew she’d eventually have two daughters. My memory was of writing it by hand in one of the pile of notebooks I began as journals of one sort or another and then abandoned. I’ve found it perplexing that I’ve never been able to find it.

Yesterday I found it. While sorting through various artifacts in my office, thinning things out before packing to move (date as yet undetermined), I found some gorgeous 20-year-old overhead slides I used in workshops and programs on holding effective meetings. Hoping I could find the original file on my computer, I began digging through back-up folders uploaded from old floppies (remember those?). I never did find the slides, but I found something even better:

I found my dream building file, the one I’ve been looking for. Memory was wrong It was never on paper. It’s beautifully done in workbook format. I remember now that I had visions of publishing that workbook, without my personal content.

Reading over the elements of that dream, I buzzed with excitement. I’m living most of that dream right now. Other elements, like the office and house I describe, exactly match what I recently wrote about the house I hope to find in Austin. The dream document said Seattle, but at this point Austin is a better choice. My daughter has built the free-lance writing business I foresaw, and she does have two young daughters. Nearly 25 years after writing that, we will live near each other.

 So what?
Quite aside from any mystical, metaphysical “laws of attraction” aspects of goal-setting, these documents are jewels for lifewriters.

• They document with laser precision just what we hoped and dreamed for at various points in time.
• They provide a mirror for reflecting on subsequent events. If we were on target as I have been, we can follow the trail of events that led from then to now. If not, we can explore the insurmountable obstacles, how they affect us, and how they shaped our lives.
• They provide a focus for stories and memoir.

Sowing and reaping
It’s never too late to start harnessing the power and fascination of dreams. I can’t guarantee they’ll all come true, but I do guarantee you’ll have a fascinating experience as you consider the possibilities. Although it does work to lose them and find them years later, I suggest you start a journal for this specific purpose and keep track of it. That  might be on paper, but a computer file serves well too. Just back it up and file it where you’ll be able to find it again.

Write now: write down a dream of life as you’d like it to be at some point in the future. Give your inner critic a sleeping pill and call in your muse to help you be creative. Be precise and specific about describing details that make it real. Include whimsical elements like that stream. Include emotions and feelings you expect to have. Don’t worry about editing or spelling. Just write it all down. It’s worked for me to file this stuff away and forget about it. Most gurus have you post it on your wall and keep it in sight to keep its power alive. Follow your instincts on this. Years from now, you’ll find it again and have something to remember, write about, and maybe share with your family and the world.

Image credit: Ruben Alexander

Monkeys, Jackasses and Wispy Mist

In her blog post, “Jackasses & Monkeys – Inner demons of writing,” Carol Bodensteiner reveals that her inner writing demons take the form of monkeys. She expresses relief on learning that others, such as Kimberly  Brock, have similar problems. In my opinion, Kimberly’s challenge is worse. She is beset by Jackasses.

Carol invited readers to share their experiences. I also have demons, as I believe we all do. Like Carol, I battle monkeys, described by Zen masters as Monkey Mind. My monkeys are different from Carol’s. Mine swing through the trees at random, taking my thoughts along with them, rendering me incapable of staying focused. They dangle distractions, and they're a hindrance all the time, not just while writing.

Look this up NOW! Right NOW! one shouts while I'm unloading the dishwasher or chopping celery for salad. When the monkey shouts, I enter a state of paralyzing need to obey. I crave the closure of filling that gap. Sometimes I return to chopping celery, but laundry may remain unfolded for days, a blog post unfinished for ... maybe ever.

Jackasses? I’ve known a few of those, but they don’t live in my head. For me the voices Kimberly attributes to jackasses are more subtle and indirect. Much harder to quantify. Mine are formless entities. They whisper from wisps of mist. "It's not good enough. It's shallow," they whisper. But wait. I reread my work and it is shallow. It isn’t ready for print. Those critical voices protect me. They drive me to more research on craft, to yet another round of edits. My whispering wisps protect me. I cherish them.

Tips for silencing monkeys, jackasses and wispy mist

1. Talk to them – ask them for their advice. If they tell you to work on your craft, they speak true. Heed them. If they tell you you’ll never succeed, you’ll never be good enough … tell them firmly to zip their lips and stuff them into their crates.
2. Talk to others – like Carol Bodensteiner, you may find it a huge relief to compare notes with fellow writers and learn that they battle the same demons. Compare notes on coping strategies.
3. Write stories about them – especially stories that poke fun at them. Write yourself as the shero of your own story (or hero, as the case may be). Have fun with these stories. Be silly, be bold, be outrageous. Smash and bash away.
4. Feed them cookies and make friends – because they can be helpful, as mine have turned out to be. Just don’t eat the cookies yourself. It is not true that writing success is directly proportional to body mass.
5. Call their bluffs – by succeeding in spite of them and yourself. Just write. And edit. And get lots of feedback. And then publish or share your work with legions of others. Those critters will get the message.

Write now: write a story about your inner demons. What form do they take? What do they sound like? How have you dealt with them? If you haven’t yet neutralized or harnessed their power, imagine that you have and write about that. Post your story in a comment or email me a copy. I’d love to read it.

How and Why to Write about JOY

This advice to talk about our joys struck home with me when I saw it the other day. Not surprisingly, I immediately thought how it applies to writing – specifically to life writing – and how happy stories spread joy.

In The Heart and Craft of Lifewriting, I discuss the way many people tend to shy away from discussing success and joy.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging,” some people say. “I don’t people to envy me,” or “I don’t want them to think I think I’m better than they are,” or “I don’t want to make people sad because they missed out.”

These are valid concerns. Compassion for the feelings of others is important. But let’s look at the flip side, at what is lost if you soft-peddle success and happiness:

You are only writing part of your truth. If you are writing for posterity, or for the world at large right now, your success is part of who you are. Surely it’s something you’re proud of. Let them know.

Happiness keeps your story authentic. People who know you’ve achieved something, financial or business success, a happy marriage, or some other positive state will know something’s missing if you downplay the sunshine in your story. It tends to come across as false humility and lack of trust. This is, of course, assuming you were happy. Not all stories are, though we do hope for a glimmer of happiness by the end. Add it where you can.

Reading about how you achieved success, happiness and joy inspires others. We hear and read about gloom, doom and suffering constantly in the media. We need to hear good news. It gives us hope!

People can learn from your example. Explaining in more detail or less how you managed to achieve your fortunate condition may provide a clue for others to follow your example.

Writing about happy things is good for YOU! A quick web search will verify that simple lists in gratitude journals help dispel or fend off depression (in at least some cases) and generally improve your state of mind. They help you stay positive and foster creativity. You don’t even have to share the contents or turn them into story to get these benefits.

Have I convinced you to write some joy? Hopefully into your story? Follow these guidelines:

Include shadows with the sunshine. Everything brilliant emerges from some sort of struggle or stretch. Tell of the tribulations and challenges you encountered along the way. Report feelings of fear, doubt, or dismay. Don’t leave out your concern about not wanting to brag.

Be honest about jubiliation. Who would believe you weren’t popping champagne corks, real or figurative, when you got that big promotion?

Give credit where credit is due. Nobody scales Mt. Everest without a team of Sherpas. Give your Sherpas credit.

Use humor. Poke fun at yourself. This doesn’t mean putting yourself down, but keep both heart and fingers light.

My latest book, Adventures of a  Chilehead, is the story of my life-long love affair with hot chile. It’s full of humor and joy, and I had a ball writing it. The capsaicin in chile releases endorphins. Writing about those happy memories released more. So remember some joy, write yourself happy, and share that good stuff with the world.

Write now: write about a happy experience you shared with at least one other person and write that story in an email or letter. Send it to that person. You’ll both feel happy you did.

What Makes YOU Happy?

This question, “What makes you happy?” is so simple, but who ever stops to consider it? I hope you will, as I have been doing the last couple of days. It could change your life.

I found this question in the draft of a book I’m beta-reading for a friend. The book will soon be published, and you’ll learn more about it before long. Meanwhile, although answers to this happiness  question could easily fill a book, my initial list has helped me find a focus to reboot this blog.

Let’s take a look at my list. In addition to obvious things like laughing with family and friends, blowing dandelion fluff, piles of freshly washed and folded clothing, having someone else fix my breakfast and that sort of thing, I listed

• meaningful connection with people who share my interests and values
• discovering something wonderful
• sharing wonderful discoveries with those who will appreciate them
• the satisfaction of polishing a piece of writing – or doing any job well
• reading masterful writing
• playfulness in writing and life
• writing true to myself and my voice

No real surprise here. Involvement in the global writing community makes ME happy! For over sixteen years I’ve been studying and practicing different aspects of life writing and sharing what I’ve learned with others in classes, writing groups and privately. I love that!

But as with other things, it’s easy to go along with the crowd, to be swept up in trends, to keep telling people what you think they want to hear. It’s easy to stick with the same old same old, the tried and true, to say and write what others are saying and writing.

That’s a recipe for burnout.

Recognizing that I was drifting into serious burnout with writing and teaching, I’ve taken an extended break. For a month I didn’t even write email. My husband and I flew to Rome for a few days before boarding the Celebrity Silhouette cruise ship to loop around the Mediterranean for two weeks. We visited Malta, the Greek island of Kephalos, Ashdod (nearest port to Jerusalem), Haifa, Ephesus in Turkey, Athens, Sicily and Naples before returning to Rome. We stayed on the ship for two more weeks, visiting Toulon in Provence, the Spanish island of Palma de Mallorca, Barcelona and Tenerife in the Canary Islands before heading across the Atlantic to Ft. Lauderdale.

We had a great time with without email and Internet for a month, opting for digital detox. I took this one step further and wrote nothing other than a few trip notes. I did read. Between constant Trivia games I read mysteries and memoir and most of a book about writing. But I didn’t write.

By the end of the month I felt alone in a crowd of 3500 people. I met dozens of interesting people, but no writers. Nobody I met gave a hoot about writing, and few even read. Only one was more than marginally digitally literate. I felt like I was on the wrong planet.

Compiling that list of things that make me happy has brought me home to my keyboard, refreshed and ready to write. In playful new ways. With new focus. I’ll fill you in more on that focus in future posts.

Write now: pull out a piece of paper – the back of an envelope or piece of junk mail will do. Make a list of things that make YOU happy. Aim for 100. Hang onto this list. We’ll work with it more later. When you finish, pick one simple thing from the list and do it. Then do a quick Happy Dance.

Author Interview: Kathleen Pooler

Today I’m privileged to have Kathleen Pooler stop by to answer some questions about her newly published memoir, Ever Faithful to His Lead. In any memoir, the author today tells the story of the author back then, and sorting through the jumble of memories and pain to find a meaningful story thread can be a daunting task. Kathy has done a terrific job of finding that thread and turning it into a story that should touch nearly everyone’s life. If you haven’t personally experienced the sort of trauma she did, odds are strong that you know others who have. Let’s hear some back story for this book that lets the wise Kathleen of today put her former confusion into perspective.

Leave a comment below to enter a drawing to receive a free eBook version of Ever Faithful to His Lead.

SL: Why did you write Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse?

KP: I started out writing a different story about a cancer diagnosis and watching a beloved son spiral downward into substance abuse. I didn’t find this story until I had written three years worth of vignettes while taking a memoir writing workshop. As I kept writing, the story that needed to be told revealed itself to me. When a developmental editor told me I had two memoirs, I realized I could not write the story of my simultaneous battle with a cancer diagnosis and a young son’s descent into substance abuse until I wrote about getting into and out of two abusive marriages. It took on a life of its own and I became connected to its purpose—to share hope with others. It is possible to climb out of the abyss of poor decisions and go on to live life on your own terms.

SL: How do you describe the theme of your memoir?

KP: I was driven by the question: “How does a young woman from a loving Catholic family make so many wise choices about career, yet so many poor choices about love that she ends up escaping in broad daylight with her two children from her second husband for fear of physical abuse?” It was time to answer the question that had been asked of me my entire life by those who loved me.

SL: In the book, you say “a loving family, a solid career and a strong faith cannot rescue her until she decides to rescue herself.” What lies behind that statement?

KP: One of the lessons I learned as I wrote this book is that I already had everything I needed within. I only needed to claim and honor my inner strength. . It sounds so simple, but it took a dozen years for me to realize I had to do this myself. If I can help one person connect with their own inner strength and leave an abusive relationship sooner rather than later — or better yet, not even get involved in one to begin with, then my mission in writing this book will be fulfilled.        

SL: What will readers will learn from Ever Faithful to His Lead?

KP: Three things come to mind:

1. One does not have to sustain broken bones or bruises to be abused. Emotional abuse is harmful and the impact on the children of mothers who are in abusive relationships is far-reaching and damaging.
2. Abuse impacts all socioeconomic groups. Despite having earned my master’s in nursing and growing up in a loving family, I was drawn to two emotionally abusive spouses.
3. Denial and magical thinking can keep one from recognizing abusive behavior and taking action. Emotional abuse can lead to physical abuse. According to the National Coalition for Awareness of Domestic Violence, “One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime; 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year. Most cases of domestic violence are never reported to police.” These are staggering statistics of epidemic proportion.
   
   

Domestic violence results in physical injury, psychological trauma and sometimes death. The consequences of domestic violence can cross generations and truly last a lifetime.

10% of the proceeds of the sale of Ever Faithful to His Lead will go toward the National Coalition for the Awareness of Domestic Violence.

SL: People reading books like yours often struggle with guilt and shame. What's your best advice on how they can deal with that?

KP: First, be awareness and acknowledgement that you are indeed in an abusive situation—denial can play a big role, as it did for me—and need to get out. Then, develop a support system and an escape plan. Have your bags packed. This can only happen when you admit you’ve made a mistake and need to act on your fears. You need to love yourself enough to want something better for yourself. Listen to, honor and embrace your inner voice.

SL: Where can we buy the book?

KP: Print and Kindle versions are on Amazon and print on Barnes & Noble. Digital versions are available on Smashwords for any eBook reader.

SL: Thank you Kathy for an enlightening discussion of your process.

Kathleen Pooler is an author and a retired Family Nurse Practitioner whose memoir, Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse, and her work-in-progress sequel, Hope Matters: A Memoir are about how the power of hope through her faith in God helped her to transform, heal and transcend a long string of obstacles and disappointments:  domestic abuse, divorce, single parenting, loving and letting go of an alcoholic son, cancer and heart failure. She emerged to live a life of joy and contentment. She believes that hope matters and that we are all strengthened and enlightened when we share our stories.

She lives with her husband Wayne in eastern New York, and  blogs weekly at her Memoir Writer’s Journey blog: http://krpooler.com

Visit Kathleen online: (click site name for link)
Twitter: @kathypooler
LinkedIn: Kathleen Pooler
Google+: Kathleen Pooler
Goodreads
Facebook
          Personal page: Kathy Pooler
          Author page: Kathleen Pooler/Memoir Writer’s Journey
Pintrest

One of her stories “The Stone on the Shore” is published in the anthology: The Woman I’ve Become: 37 Women Share Their Journeys From Toxic Relationships to Self-Empowerment by Pat LaPointe, 2012.

Another story: “Choices and Chances” is published in the My Gutsy Story Anthology by Sonia Marsh, September, 2013.

Write now: leave a comment to enter the drawing for a free eBook version of Ever Faithful to His Lead. The winner will be notified on August 14.

Make New Friends: Writing Layers of Meaning

Make new friends, but keep the old,
One is silver and the other gold.

This classic friendship song began endlessly looping on brain radio the other day. Inspired by Kathy Pooler’s blog post, A Tribute to My Girlfriends, I sat down to pen a post about friendship. What emerged is far from what I set out to write.

I began writing about the fact unlike Kathy, who has remained close with numerous friends for decades, my friends are more situational, coming and going as our respective interests change, and … that paragraph was never finished. Something about the thought didn’t quite ring true, and a recent memory displaced it. A memory of a brief encounter I recently had with four friends I’ve been out of contact with for over fifteen years. How do those friendships fit in the silver and gold category, I wondered.

They don’t! As I wrote, I realized those categories don’t work for me. I realized how limiting categories and labels are, how they inherently imply boundaries and barriers. Degrees of closeness? No barriers there. But what about gaps? Nobody can stay constantly connected with every friend.

The longer I wrote, the more confused I became. Finally I had a breakthrough. My thoughts compressed into something manageable that I could get my mind around:

Each of my friends, local, online or far away, is unique. Each brings a warm glow of general pleasure, and each fills a different niche in my heart. As time goes by, our mutual interests may wax and wane, perhaps remaining on hold for years or decades. But that bond remains like an unlit burner, waiting for a mere spark to rekindle its warmth.

Maybe Kathy and I aren’t so different after all. And maybe it’s time to rewrite that song: 

Make new friends, but keep the old,
One will warm you while the other’s cold.

Far or near, good friends will bring cheer,
All that’s needed is a phone to hear.

Skype or text, an email now and then,
Friends will be there, though we don’t know when.

Since writing that essay, I’m seeing friends in new ways. Some are soft and fuzzy, while others have organized edges, maybe with a sharp spots to make allowances for. The state of our relationship may vary from red hot to vacationing violet. Friends light up my life, though we may have spells of darkness between us now and then.

My hour of writing that essay was priceless. It exemplifies William Faulkner’s immortal quote: ''I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it.”

Write now: Pick a topic like friendship or love, or God, or something else big and grand. Start writing and see where the topic takes you. Polish the essay, or leave it raw. The purpose is self-discovery. Leave a comment or send me an email about your surprising discovery.

Photo credits: top: Arkansas Shutterbug. bottom: Francesco. Both altered and used under Creative Commons license.

Reading and Writing Across the Gender Divide

I just read Pittsburgh author Dave Newman’s story, “Asteroids Falling Up,” in The New Yinzer, a fine online literary magazine  published here in Pittsburgh. My eyeballs occasionally bulged as I read this risqué coming of age piece.

This story punched windows into walls of reticence as I read. Perhaps, I thought, I can write more boldly – on other topics. Whether fiction or memoir, Newman’s compelling story would not ring true or have such impact had he toned down or skirted his topic.

I mention this story, this experience, to illustrate the value of reading across the gender divide. As a writer I benefit from exposure to a wide variety of ideas, perspectives and writing styles. I could never get this credibly bold glimpse into a developing male psyche from anything written by a woman.

Which brings me to writing groups and classes. I’ve been teaching memoir and creative writing classes for over fifteen years, all but a couple with mixed groups. Like Marion Roach Smith, I use the laboratory method for teaching memoir: students write stories on topics of their choice and read them aloud in class for group discussion. Some might assume mixed groups would stifle the range of topics. Experience has proven otherwise.

Thousands of stories have reflected a cross-section of life, often sweet, maybe salty, sometimes humorous, occasionally spicy or painful. Women have written about abuse, grief, rape, abortion, menopause, sex and more. Men have written about abuse, grief, humiliation, disabilities, sex, and more. In every case, classmates of both genders have responded with support and acceptance. After deeply intimate disclosures I’ve checked with individuals. Each said s/he felt relieved and validated to have shared the story. Several said the mixed group was an unexpected comfort.

Not everyone shares this view. “Many women have been traumatized by men and they need the safety of a women’s group to heal,” I’m told. Maybe so, especially if the deeper purpose is therapy. Maybe that’s true for certain men too. Some organizations offer support exclusively to women, assuming some will need this safe haven – or just want to hang out and write with the gals. Men must find their own way through the storm.

Sharing nascent stories and receiving encouragement and acceptance powerfully energizes group members and builds deep bonds of camaraderie and compassion. My hope and dream is that over time we’ll all feel strong enough to share stories about anything with anyone, especially across the gender and other divides. How else will we understand, accept, and possibly forgive those who are different? How will we fully heal from abusive treatment of whatever sort or degree without at least symbolically confronting perpetrators? Writing buddies and classmates make splendid stand-ins.

My interest in the topic of exclusion and personal experience with being excluded is deepening and intersects with the writing community. As I continue to write and explore, I’m saddened and embarrassed by the divide posed by women’s writing organizations that exclude men seeking support such as they offer. How could I tell a mixed class that some of them might benefit from membership in a national organization, but “no boys are allowed”? No way! I dream of the time these organizations will find a way to meet individual needs while also building bridges across the divide as the National Association of Memoir Writers (NAMW) is already attempting to do.

For a simple, email-based mixed group experience, I invite you to join the free Life Writers Forum I co-host on YahooGroups with memoir expert Jerry Waxler. Members run the gamut from widely published to novice. The sidebar gadget on the right is the easiest way to join. Lurk awhile or jump in.

I also encourage you to read across the gender divide to limber your write brain and broaden your perspective. Let Dave Newman punch windows in your walls.

Write now: without naming organizations, write a comment as long as you wish about your writing group experience. Have they been a help or hindrance? What would an ideal group be like for you? Mixed or single sex? Further explore your thoughts in essay form, for yourself or to share.

Image credit: “Writing Group” by James Mitchell, Creative Commons license

Winter Wonderland–It’s All in How You Look At It

This photo is my favorite of all the snow pictures I’ve ever seen or taken. I was standing on our sun porch the morning of December 10, 2003 (I know the date because it’s embedded in the original digital photo file), rejoicing in the return of sunshine after the first serious snow of the winter. I had my camera in hand, already framing the shot, when a branch in the background suddenly relieved itself of its burden. Diamond mist filled the air just as I snapped the shutter.

I lowered the camera and watched this enchanted scene play out. I was bursting with gratitude that I’d been there to see it. This picture reminds me that even during the dreeriest, darkest, coldest times (like the past several weeks in the northeast), flashes of beauty and gratitude appear to lift our spirits.

It reminds me that beauty is all around us, if we learn to look. I was indeed fortunate to be there that day and see a scene nobody could ignore. But I can find beauty anywhere. I look around the room where I sit and admire the tapestry fabric on a chair. I see Chinese embroidery, fine as spider’s web, preserved on a tiny tray that serves as a coaster for my coffee mug. Even when it’s snowing (again!), the flakes and new fallen blanket are beautiful. Slush? I’m working on that.

These are physical objects I can see with my eyes. Finding the beauty may be harder in situations. How do you find beauty and gratitude in pain, anger, loss and grief?

My method is to write. I scribble on piles of paper, I vent in volumes of journals. I bang out stories, real and imagined. Once I have a draft on paper (sometimes in pixels), I start asking questions to crack open assumptions and beliefs:

• How else could I see this?
• How might (whoever) see this?
• Could (that person) have actually meant (this)?
• What would (advisor of my choice, real or imagined) tell me about this?
• What if … (fill in the blank)?

One question, from The Work of Byron Katie is so powerful it’s in a class of its own:

• Is this true?

Three other questions support that one. You can download more information on Byron Katie’s site: The Work.com. Whatever questions I use, I write the answers. I may write them several times.

I don’t always find answers and beauty right away. It may take years, but I know it’s there, and pictures like the one above help me remember that one day, in a blinding flash of the obvious, I’ll see what was always there, but hidden by the darkness of a storm. I’ll find my old story flipping upside down or turning inside out to form a new one. I’ll feel relieved and enormously grateful.

Write now: look around you and find some beauty that inspires gratitude. Write about this. Then think of a situation that’s harder to parse. Use tools like the ones above to write your way through to what may be a jolting conclusion and new way of looking at life.

Full size image link: http://t.co/JeokuYdSp6

The Value of Rethinking

Last week I learned the value of suspending judgment and listening with an open heart. “Hey,” you say. “You are within a few million breaths of completing seven decades of a passingly happy and successful life and you just figured this out?”

To that I can only say, “Yes and no.” Of course I’ve known this most of those nearly seventy years. But a few days ago my eight-year-old granddaughter inadvertently put new spin on the concept.

Let me back up. Compare this picture featured in a blog post on September 1, 2009

with this picture from last week.

Both pictures feature clothespin dolls. I made the dolls in the top picture four years ago for my daughter’s girls. Sarah, the oldest, was four at the time. When they came for a visit last week, Sarah, who is now eight, wanted to make clothespin dolls. My mind whirled at the thought of teaching her to sew the tiny seams along the sides of the dresses, but Sarah immediately took charge of the situation.

She selected a rust-colored pipe cleaner from a pile on my desk. “What can I cut this with?” “Why do you need to cut it?” “To make hair!” Huh, what? Hair made from pipe cleaner? Why not? I pulled out my stash of craft pliers, and Sarah snipped a couple of pieces and twisted them into hair that I hot-glued on. To my surprise, it looked great.

With barely a pause, she chose fabric for the dress, and before I realized what she was doing, she had snipped a ragged rectangle from one corner, wrapped it around the doll and taped it shut. “I want to use this ribbon for a belt.”

Heckuva deal, I thought. So much for me teaching Sarah how to make these things. “Do you want to learn to sew dresses like the ones I made?” I asked. “No! I know how to sew, but that’s not what I want them to look like.” Oh! KAY! New page, new doll story.

Sarah eagerly accepted a sparkly silver hair suggestion for her next doll (third from the left). A taped scrap of “silky” black lining fabric formed the perfect dress, adorned by a snip of lacy fabric and slinky silver spandex cape.

I quickly realized that my job was to provide resources and explain the advantages of hot (faster than white) glue over tape (doesn’t stick well to fabric). Based on her whims, I found strands of yarn for hair, and Sarah did the rest, cranking out dolls at warp speed, intuitively mixing snips of this with scraps of that. She never paused to cogitate, and in an hour or two she had exhausted my clothespin supply .

I admit I was stunned at the results. Her dolls have panache! They sizzle with character. When I made the initial batch, I was thinking inside the nostalgia box, making dolls recalled from the past. Dolls that look like real people. With no limiting beliefs, Sarah was drawing on unbridled imagination and fairy tales. My dolls are dressed to milk cows and bake gingerbread. Her dolls cast spells and eat poison apples. My dolls are for playing house. Hers are for populating fantasy stories.

My post four years ago was titled “Memories I Wish I’d Had.” If you read that post closely, you’ll notice that the memories I longed for would have been about making things, making dolls for playing house with classic roles. I wanted to capture the past.

Sarah took a version of this concept to a new level. Her focus was on making things, but she was future oriented. She wanted dolls, but not for playing house. Sarah was creating adventure stories. She selected, snipped and wrapped her emerging characters, creating her story bit by bit.

Did I remember to tell her these awesome glam scraps are left over from her great-grandmother’s doll-making days? Maybe not. But Sarah’s dolls capture the spirit of stuffed fairy and mermaid art dolls Mother made near the end of her life. Did Mother imagine stories as she stitched her dolls? I bet she did. Mother and I both made traditional dolls for playthings early in life. Mother got wild and crazy much later. She rethought what dolls were about.

Sarah is skipping the traditional phase. By suspending judgment and giving her free reign to follow her muse, I gave her space to follow her dreams, and in doing so, she unwittingly cracked open a limiting shell around my creativity that I had nor realized was there. That drawer of glimmer and glam has been patiently waiting in my physical work room for nearly twenty years. Sarah began pulling it into her stories. Now it’s time for me to follow her lead into that larger space, making new use of old materials, both manifest and remembered.

Write now: recall a time if you can when you showed someone how to do something (formally or otherwise) and learned something yourself in the process. If you can’t remember such a time, teach someone something soon and write about it. That something may be as simple as using a new seasoning in a favorite recipe or as complex as designing a web page. Teach, then write, including an account of how your thinking changed in the process.

Happy Holidays

My holiday gift to you is a break from reading blog posts. It’s time to chill and focus your energies on celebrating Christmas or whatever you observe. If you have time and want to write, just do it. You’ll find plenty of inspiration in old posts if you dig through the archives.

My hope for the coming year is that we can collectively use our writing to resolve some inner demons of our own and provide inspiration for others to do the same. As I’ve said many times, along with countless others, I believe Story can change lives, one at a time, and eventually those changed lives will fill the bucket of Earth with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and all that goes with it.

Look for new posts in January with some fun announcements and new ideas.

Write now: capture your thoughts on what peace would look like. Start with the personal level. What does personal peace mean to you? Move out to your neighborhood, your community, the larger area, your state, your country, and finally the entire world. Polish the piece if you wish, or not. Keep it at hand and look back at it now and then and consider what may have changed for you and how your life in later years resembles your thoughts right now. Leave a comment with some of the key thoughts.

Living to Write the Tale

A novel concept came across my radar lately in the form of a guest post request – the idea of planning to live a life worth writing about. Although I saluted the basic idea, my initial reaction was that such a post belongs in inspirational blogs, and does not fit the focus of this life writing blog. At first glance, it seems to contradict what I’ve said many times, that any life is worth writing about. I also failed to see the connection between establishing visions and goals and writing about life.

The second time I received a proposal about this, something clicked. The idea of taking charge of your life, however many days or years you have left is nothing new. I recognized that people like Elizabeth Gilbert did just that in her best-selling memoir, Eat Pray Love. She planned the sort of adventures she wanted to experience and write about and negotiated a book contract before she bought her plane ticket. A few purists felt that was contrived and perhaps a tad beyond the pale for memoir. But the vast majority applauded her spunk.

What was new this second time was realizing that life writing has powerful tools for making that planning effective, and they’ll work for any age.

These tools work because writing makes thinking visible. Once you see something on the page, whatever form it’s in, it’s easier to understand and manage. Use these tools to explore your hopes and dreams and develop ways to bring them about.

1) Journal: Use your journal to write about hopes and dreams.

• Make a bucket list of 100 things you want to do, visit, see, or experience before you die.
• Journal or freewrite about possible ways of doing these things.
• Explore reasons why you believe you can or cannot do any given one
• Dig into your beliefs and values.
• Record your dreams and explore desires hidden in them.

2) Write stories about things you’ve already done that felt especially fulfilling. Dig more deeply into these stories to explore what elements made them exciting or fulfilling and journal about ways to add more of this element to your life.

3) Write stories about things you dream of doing. Include yourself as the main character and give yourself all sorts of exciting challenges you’d live to have. Live your dreams on the page. Even if you never set foot out of your house, you’ll have much the same sense of fulfillment that you would gain from actually doing whatever it was.

Although it seems a bit eerie, visionaries have known for ages that vividly imagining something tricks the brain into believing it is real or really happened. If you write vividly about doing something, your brain will respond as if you have, and make it easier to “do it again.”

So whatever your age, finances or other perceived limitations, write yourself a life worth writing about, then live it to the fullest and go on to to write the tale.

Write now: pull out paper and pen and write yourself into an adventure you'd love to have in real time. Make it vivid, with full detail and emotion. Write a lot about how you feel as you “live in the story.”. Be exotic and daring. Write it in present or past tense, not future, and avoid any form or thought of “if.” Write this real. Polish the story and cherish it. Then put it away and see what happens.

Image credit: Coolcal2011

How Long Will Your Words Last?

Who would expect a diary to last hundreds of years? Someone told me a few years ago about conversion journals written by Quaker women as part of what might be called an initiation into the faith. If my source was correct, the women were required to keep these diaries, presumably to demonstrate the strength of their faith and their worthiness to be accepted as members of the Religious Society of Friends.

The Lippincott tribe is descended from Quaker ancestors Richard and Abigail Lippincott, who arrived in the colonies in the mid-1500s seeking relief from persecution by the Church of England. A few years ago my husband received a copy of the Quaker marriage certificate of his grandfather’s great-grandparents, signed by everyone who witnessed the ceremony. He decided to donate this historic document to the Special Collections kept by Haverford College. During a recent visit to deliver the document, I asked to see some of these women’s conversion diaries. Unfortunately the collection includes nothing specifically identified as a conversion diary is included in the collection, but they do have a sizeable collection of other journals. I scanned the list and found a promising volume written by Anna. I’m chagrinned to realize I neglected to note her last name or the dates of the diary, but it was referenced as a “spiritual diary” and I do know that it dates to pre-Revolutionary times, so it’s about 250 years old. 

With a bit of ceremony, after I completed the formal registration and request, the volume was brought forth from it’s protected location and placed on green velvet-covered foam blocks that positioned it for reading.

“Don’t worry about harming it,” the librarian told me. “It’s sturdier than it looks.” He chilled my blood by picking it up and flexing the spine to demonstrate. The volume consists of hand sewn signatures. I couldn’t tell for sure how they were held together, because the spine was covered, but many seemed quite loose. The pages felt a bit slick, due to an invisible layer of ultra-sheer silk applied to protect them and avert further aging damage.

The text was challenging to read, written in flowery old script. Anna was thrifty with her paper. She used small handwriting and close spacing between lines, further complicating the reading by our eyes, unaccustomed to her style. Occasional ink blots didn’t help.

How I would have loved to sit there for a week and deeply ponder her words, puzzling out obscure ones and ruminating on meanings to plunge into her world. Unfortunately, our time was limited, and I had to make do with skimming several pages while my husband poured over Minutes of Cropwell meeting where his ancestors played leading roles. What I found was a powerful testament of faith, reminding me of the first four lines of the magnificat or Song of Mary:

My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.—Luke 1:46-47

Such flowery, passionate language surprised me, coming from a devoted member of a sect traditionally known for stoicism.  Perhaps that element of surprise underlines the importance of this document. It challenges me to revisit assumptions. It informs me more accurately of how things really were. And isn’t that exactly what most of us hope our words will do? Set the record straight at some future time and inspire others to expand understanding?

That old diary and the Meeting Minutes are sturdy. Even without preservation they would probably remain legible and valuable for at least another century. Will our digital output endure as long? I can’t imagine it will. I’m reminded that a copy or few, printed in durable ink on acid-free paper, will increase their odds of long-term survival. Unless you plan to burn your journals, use archival quality volumes to  create a legacy for centuries to come.

Write now: make a plan for preserving print copies of at least your most important stories. Look for sources of acid-free archival quality journals. Then write something something that will set a record straight about your life or family.

From Journal to Memoir

“I have piles of old journals. Can I use those as my memoir?”

This question comes up in almost every class I teach. The short answer is “No. But you can use those journal entries as a resource.” Here’s why and how.

Take a look at the Tree of Life Writing image in the right sidebar. Notice that Journal Entries fall at the foot, below the ground, out of sight and light. Those journal entries feed into Story, that appears first as Essays and Stories. Those component stories and essays feed into the composite Memoir.

If you are using your journal to best advantage, you write with no boundaries. Your entries may ramble. They may not be coherent. You may omit detail or obsessively dwell on detail. You may write things that will send certain relationships up in flames if you don’t consign those pages to flames before anyone reads them. You may reveal things to those pages that would embarrass you or others, or betray their confidence.

But aside from all that, reading journal entries is usually boring or confusing  for anyone other than the author. In our journals we repeat things, perhaps to the point of obsession and stuckness. We report conclusions and assumptions. We nearly always confine journaling to “telling.”

So how do you convert that material?

Start with lists of key memories and arrange them on a timeline. Then pick one of those memories and find journal entries about that event or the general time period. Read those entries to refresh your memory about details. Use them to get back into the scene. You’ll probably need to sink back into the moment, because you probably didn’t record many sensory details, but recalling the emotions and actions you did record should help you recall the rest.

Write a story about that memory, adding details evoked by your journal entries. In the story you show the action. You describe the setting and other characters(remember, characters may include animals, inanimate objects, nature, place, or other aspects of yourself as well as other people). You use sensory details to get readers as fully involved with the situation as you were.

Your story includes action that ideally involves some uncertainty and tension or conflict. Dialogue is not an absolute requirement, but even if you are the only person around, you can include at least a bit. Have conversations with yourself.

Each sensory detail, each bit of dialogue and aspect of action activates an additional sensory area in readers’ brains and adds a layer of realism to your story, bringing it alive in readers’ minds.

One more layer of realism may come directly from your journal. That’s the element of reflection. Readers want to know more than what happened. They want to know what that meant to you, how it affected you. That’s where those journal entries come in.

On rare occasions you may want to directly quote journal entries. At times, quoting from your journal may add a touch more credibility to your reports of how you reacted at the time, and some snippets may be lyrical and compelling. Use these suggested guidelines to effectively incorporate journal material:

• Use them sparingly. Don’t let them be a crutch for “telling” rather than “showing.”
• Prune them to laser sharp  focus. Use ellipses (….) to show that you’ve omitted material before or after the quoted material, or even within.
• Create composite entries. Some people may have a problem with using journal entries that are not verbatim quotations. This is a matter of personal judgment. Many of us consider journal entries to be similar to dialogue. The intent of the message is more important than literal accuracy. So if you need to distill three or more entries into a single one to give the drift of your thoughts at that period of time, do so and avoid overwhelming readers with what may seem like tedious navel gazing.

So, yes, you can use your journals, but use them primarily as resource material rather than verbatim story elements.

Write now: scan through an old journal and find a juicy memory topic with several related entries. Immerse yourself in those entries to recall your sense of the times and your state of mind. Bring the setting into memory as clearly as you can and notice elements of the setting. What was going on? What were people thinking or doing. What did you notice about the situation? Then use this awareness to write a short story or scene based on that memory, incorporating the details you recall and personal insight you recorded.

Bride Price: Cannibals, Witch Doctor and Hope

Ian Mathie, author of Bride Price and three (soon to be four) other African Memoirs, is the only person I know who has personally witnessed cannibalism. He put this horrifying event in context as I interviewed him across five time zones and one ocean recently. You can watch the video on YouTube or in the frame below and read the book to find out whether he actually ate any of that man.  

Each of Mathie’s memoirs is unique in structure as well as content, but besides the fact they are all set in African countries, they all share one other feature. While Mathie is definitely telling the story in the context of his own experience, he is telling the stories of people he grew to know, respect and admire. He documents cultures and a way of life that’s all but disappeared in the ensuing thirty years, and his stories are a tribute and reminder that wisdom, love and compassion transcend time, place and culture.



I’m reminded of the works of Margaret Mead I read in cultural anthropology classes way back when. Like Mead, Mathie was a participant observer, by circumstance rather than intention. Though he was in the villages as a water engineer to help build safe water supplies, he kept copious notes and sketches in many languages about the people and his experiences. Like Meade’s, his books should be on the reading list in all schools. The world would be a better place if more diplomats made use of his insight.
 
I read a sweet short story last week that told of the author’s experience ordering breakfast at MacDonald’s. On the surface, what could be more ordinary and less-noteworthy than that? I found the story remarkable. I smelled frying bacon and heard it sizzle in the background. I heard children laughing. And I heard people grumble and complain when the the biscuit supply ran out. I also felt the warmth of a chance encounter and the joy of a day gone right.

Her deft depiction of human nature touched me deeply. Without a word to this effect, she challenged readers to adopt an attitude of gratitude. All this in about 700 words. That little story brightened my day. It’s a gem. In fifty years, it will shine even more brightly as a reminder of life back in 2013.

She and Mathie both focus on others, sharing life through their eyes as a way of expressing love for the people they know and see, and their own joy in life, while indirectly challenging us to choose the way we view life and respond to it.

Documentary stories such as the two I cite expand our vision and awareness. I appreciate both, and strongly encourage you to watch the video, then read Bride Price!
Learn more about Ian Mathie and his books on his website. All four books are available in both print and eBook format. Kindle format is on Amazon, and other formats on Smashwords.

Write Now: Write a story about an ordinary day, whether that’s today or once upon a time. Include your thoughts about the situation and people involved. Let future generations know what life was like from the inside and how it affected you.

Little Story, Lots of Lessons

Closing the covers on a tale of epic proportion is merely a transition on my path of savoring a book. I may spend weeks gnawing on the bones of that book, reliving favorite scenes and savoring the way the details come together. Shorter stories may provide welcome diversion and profound insights, but seldom stick with me as long.

Michel Sauret’s memoir, Child, Hold Me, is an exception. I found the book after following a link to”How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Book?” on Sauret’s meaty blog. A blurb for the book piqued my interest:

From International Book Awards winning author Michel Sauret, “Child, Hold Me,” is a short memoir about losing a child in the womb, told through a man's perspective.

What? A man has written a memoir about miscarriage? Wow! This was new territory for me. I read on and learned that Sauret and his girlfriend were still in college and … the frank confessions in that blurb stunned me. I clicked the link to Amazon.

For less than the  cost of a cappuccino, the story flowed onto my iPad, and I dug in right away. Captivated by phrases as rich as the insights they convey, I read straight to the end. Sauret writes with his heart wide open. I’m reminded of the phrase attributed to an army of authors,

Writing is easy. You just open a vein and bleed onto the page.

Sauret’s literary blood and gutsy writing flowed straight into my heart in little longer than the time required for a physical transfusion. This memoir is short – 88 pages according to Amazon (it’s not available in print) – but lacking in nothing, and it packs a powerful punch. I’ll be chewing on this bone for weeks to come. Some of the points I’ll ponder:

Reading memoir by diverse authors broadens my insight into the human condition. I’d never stopped to think how losing an unborn child might affect a man. Suaret’s frank disclosures jolted me to attention and broadened my point of view. I never intended to limit my perspective of difficulties conceiving and carrying a child to term as strictly a woman’s concern, but I realize now I pretty much did.

What other blinders do I unwittingly wear? I shall keep reading and learn, taking them off, one-by-one.

Self-disclosure builds bonds of trust between writer and reader. Daring to disclose personal truth on the page, especially raw confessions such as Sauret makes, opens portals between people. They crack shells of indifference and preoccupation. They remind us there are people out there. People who live and breathe and bleed when they’re hurt. They snap our little lives into perspective. They breed compassion.

Longer isn’t always better. Sauret writes his tale tersely, within a small space. Yes, I was left hungry for some additional details, but he covered the essential points. In retrospect I realize that the details I hungered for are primarily trivia that’s fun to read at the time, but seldom stored in long-term memory. He stuck to the bones with just enough muscle to make them move. I read the story in two hours, but will ponder it as long as if it took two weeks.

Story transcends boundaries of gender, race, time and place. Saueret’s story reminds me that men can move beyond macho to cry, feel compassion and unbounded love. Ian Mathie’s African Memoir series reminds me that purportedly primitive people are wise in ways we may fail to fathom.  Jerry Waxler’s Memoir Revolution thoroughly explores the world of ways memoir enriches lives.

The advent of digital publishing opens the opportunity to publish a collection of mini-memoirs, much like literary Lego blocks, allowing readers to pic and choose, linking them in a variety of ways. We are freed from the pressure to crank out 75,000 words to make our story worthwhile. Hooray for that!

Write now: think of a major turning point in your life. Outline the elements, including lessons learned, and consider ways of converting that experience into a mini-memoir, writing the bones, with enough muscle to make them move. Share your thoughts about writing in smaller scale. in a comment. Is this liberating? Disappointing?