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Monday, June 9, 2025

Walking uphill, both ways...

 “When I was a kid…”

That phrase embodies a longing to return to a time when life moved a little more slowly, people stood and talked without hurry, and children played outside without parents worrying. Knocks on the front door typically meant a neighbor just wanted company and had walked over with their evening coffee to sit on the front porch and gossip. As we age, we long for simpler times, but everything appears more complicated as the years pass. 

“When I was a kid…” is usually followed by descriptions of innocent and tender things, like walking barefoot on a dirt road that leads you home or climbing a tree during recess at school. Those things are now seen as impossible, archaic, or downright unbelievable. But to those of us who experienced them, they were as real as the moon and the stars. We describe those moments hoping that the magic we experienced growing up can somehow permeate the lives of those we love. Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who have never known the joy of chasing fireflies at midnight, might feel a hint of the joy and awe we felt as children when the silence seemed too loud, and dusk took too long to give way to the darkness.

“When I was a kid…” seeps into our language as quietly as memories sneak into our daily lives. But telling those moments does not bring them to life; only through writing can they be made immortal. Brutus was wrong at Ceasar’s funeral; the evil that men do AND the good are BOTH interred with their bones unless it’s written. We are all turned to dust and eventually forgotten unless our moments and lives are made immortal.

“When I was a kid…” will be lost to time and disbelief until you see your story as worthy. It is necessary for those who want to learn from you; there is always something to learn from every life and experience. You are where you are, WHO you are, because of decisions and choices that steered your career and family life trajectory. Think back and ponder how one misstep, one indecision, could have altered your entire path. That is the benefit of memoir: helping others navigate difficult decisions as they travel similar career paths. 

Next time you hear a colleague or friend say, “When I was a kid…” give them the attention that phrase deserves. They aren’t being wistful or melancholy. They are sharing a moment that made them who they are and put them on their path. Ask questions and be genuinely curious. Give them space to explore the memory and live in that moment, if only for a few minutes. They might give you the same courtesy the next time you stare out the window with a tender smile playing at the corner of your mouth, and say, “Ya know, when I was a kid…”

 

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Tracing Grace

 


            Most social media accounts depict perfection.
           Playful, smiling families with idyllic homes. Or chiseled bodies posed provocatively, sporting movie star looks. The majority seem successful, appearing to be part of the upper echelon. You can see photos as they pray, help the homeless, volunteer at the animal shelter, as a Big Brother or Big Sister, take care of a sick relative, and so on.

            It’s a sad fact that most people are uncomfortable admitting they've failed at anything in their lives. However, building an unblemished version of yourself is not the approach to take when writing a memoir. Showing humanness through vulnerability allows your readers to see themselves within your writing. Even if they’ve never experienced what you’re describing, even if they have nothing in common with you, they will see glimpses of themselves within the vulnerable moments shared. Being real with your frail moments and your fallibility is a gift you give to others because we’re all broken in one way or another; we’ve all fallen over and over.  

            It’s not the heroic moments in our lives that people will find commonalities with because heroic moments are rarely common. The things that we find most relatable are the daily struggles and ordinary moments that suddenly become overwhelming. Shared devastations bind strangers, and while revealing those occurrences, readers will see themselves in each moment. Being vulnerable allows your readers to trust you and form that bond. Besides, you were not made who you are by a singular experience. It took decades of learning and maybe fighting the learning process, too. The reader doesn’t relate to you because they have had similar experiences. They relate because they feel a similar connection to their own experiences. In all honesty, the reason we write memoirs and the reason we read them is they reassure us of a universal thread binding us all.

            Shed the need to be perfect. Look more closely and take a moment to marvel at your scars. See the lines around your mouth and creases next to your eyes as a life map. Like the Who’s in Whoville, the life lessons etched on your body have been waiting to be seen, shouting, “WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE!” with all their might. Start writing those moments with joy instead of contempt. They are memories of failing, yes…but you failed forward and continued pushing towards success. How can that be a negative experience? You learned and that’s always a positive. Share it with a sense of joyful exuberance at a life being lived with gusto and grace.

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Seeing the Tree through the Forest

            

Insecurity is the deadliest virus for any goal. Self-doubt strangles success.

            It is incredibly easy to label your unwillingness to try as an inability. But it isn’t an inability…it’s fear—fear of embarrassment, ridicule, and failure. But if you never try or fail, you can never succeed. So, trying and failing is absolutely necessary to solve the equation of success. That is why you see writers carrying notebooks and pencils with them everywhere. They write about everything at all times. The practice of words is ever-evolving, just as the person wielding the pen changes from moment to moment. Which brings us to the two most often-asked questions I receive:

            “How do I begin my memoir?” and “How do I end my memoir?”

            Well, the easy answer is birth and death. But that’s also an unrealistic approach to memoir. So, then, how should you approach memoir? A forest. That’s the answer. Think of trees in a forest.

I know you’re thinking, ‘This woman has eaten way too many red M&M’s,’ but what I’m saying is true! Allow me to explain…when you first walk into a forest, do you stop and look at every tree and leaf? No. But your eyes are drawn to certain trees for no particular reason. Maybe you’re staring at the little birch with its white bark peeling away like sun-burnt skin. Or the huge oak with branches that stretch overhead like a giant's arms. Like certain memories, those unique timbers stay with you long after you leave the woods. There’s no rhyme or reason for their persistence, but they continue tapping on the walls of your mind.    

            Those memories are where you begin. Just write them down exactly as they happened. There’s no editing, no need to create a story, no need to ensure a morally pleasant outcome—just write the retrospection exactly as it comes to you. Once you finish that thought, go on to the next one. Don’t try to connect anything; just allow them to occupy their own space. Yes, your writing will be rough. Yes, your words will stumble over each other. Yes, it will be hard not to erase, scratch out, delete, and so on, but you must keep the integrity of each recollection. Leave it as is and move on to the next. Only until you’ve written the majority of the moments you feel NEED to be in your memoir, can you go back and begin focusing on the bigger picture.

            Until it’s out of your head, you can’t move forward. It’s that simple. So, find a comfortable place, pick out instruments that help you relax, like a favorite pen or pencil, your favorite notebook, and music. Carve out 30 minutes from each day to just write. Allow that to be YOUR time to dedicate to memories. And that is how you begin to march through your memoir. One memory at a time.

 

Monday, March 31, 2025

Writer's Bloc on Writer's Block

I've been there several times.

With the notebook, heavy in your hands, blank page screaming up at you.
Cursor blinking impatiently on the screen, like a tiny tapping foot waiting for you to catch up. Waiting for you to hurry along with your map of words.
But you sit, willing that invisible spirit of inspiration to take control of your hands, begging the automatic-writing gods to perform just one more miracle, 
just one more time.

The interesting thing about being a writer is that, much like bakers, surgeons, construction workers, electricians, mechanics...in order to say you are your profession, you must perform the action of that profession. Bakers bake. Surgeons perform surgery. Construction workers construct buildings and so on. Well, to be a writer, you must write and for most writers, the act of writing is inspiration based. Their words spring from a place inside. Occasionally, that place becomes blocked by outside issues. Stress, anxiety, pain, grief, etc. Writers have been combating writer's block for as long as the profession of writing has been in existence. So, how do you get around, over, under or bust through that block? Here are some great ways to keep those words flowing.

Change of Scenery

 If you have a set writing routine, your writing environment never changes. It's always that desk, or that window bench, or that coffee shop. And you might have written thousands, tens of thousands of words at that very spot, but it is now a place of irritation. So, take your laptop somewhere else. Carry your notebook and pencil out to the front porch. Go to that lake you've been wanting to visit, go to the mall and people-watch. Should you expect a lightning bolt of inspiration the moment you arrive at your destination? No, of course not. But, sitting in a different space can bring about change. And one idea, one sentence is better than the nothingness you've been staring at for months.

 Change the Known

 Turn your writing space into a personal homage to all things beautiful. If you are a poet, hang favorite lines by Plath and Rumi. Dedicate one area to favorite images. Nature writer? Make sure you have a view of outside. Military writer? Surround yourself with history. All of this seems like common sense but it is easy to fall into the trap of self-sabotage. A static writing environment doesn't have to exist. The act of writing is as fluid as the emotions and words that fill each page. Keep yourself open to the option of changes, both big and small.

Stop trying and Live it

 Writers, for some reason, feel they must be solitary creatures. As if becoming a hermit is part of the overall mystique. That's great if you're actually writing. However, if the writing fairy hasn't visited you in months it's probably a relief to read that writing is quite lovely when explored as a communal activity. Of course, writing and critique groups have gotten a bad rap lately for the overabundance of novice writers as facilitators. But there are great benefits to engaging in fellowship over a shared love of words. Ideas coming from different people at varying stages of life can only improve a sense of self-awareness and change the way you see not only your writing but writing as a whole.

     "Gracefully take what you feel is relevant and leave the rest at the table with gratitude."

Forget you Know How

So, for the last 36 years you've only used silver-capped No. III Graf von Faber-Castell pencils. And only writing in linen bound notebooks. You are firmly rooted in the tradition of graphite and it works. Well, it worked. The words are stuck and have been stuck for months, either in you or that ridiculously expensive pencil. First things first...drop your habits, for now at least. Lose the pencil. Leave the linen at home. Start a new, albeit temporary, set of habits. Look for a typewriter. Or a wicked steam-punk keyboard to pull you out of that deep rut you've dug for yourself. The clicking of keys or snapping of a typewriter can call to the wandering Whitman-within. Begin with an old piece and see what happens. Does it re-write itself? Does the typewriter become a sort of portal to another world, allowing long-dead writers to come alive through your fingers? Whatever happens, it's good because it's something when you had nothing. 

This is all about breaking through a wall or finding a way to see through fog.
Think outside the box. Allow yourself a chance to regroup by doing things you normally wouldn't, writing in ways you never thought of, using tools you've never tried.  

Remember to be gentle with yourself and understand that everyone deals with the temporary disappearance of their muse. 

Walking uphill, both ways...

  “When I was a kid…” That phrase embodies a longing to return to a time when life moved a little more slowly, people stood and talked wit...