The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing Tips, guidelines and observations to help ordinary people write extraordinary stories about their own life and experiences. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 29 0 139 3628

Articles from The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing

The End of the Beginning 2008-02-06 21:26:00 Today I had the strongest sense of the end of a beginning. While I was in Austin for the Story Circle Network conference, I also got to spend some time with my youngest grandchild and her big sister. Anna is still a baby, cuddly sweet and always smiling. I swear, this baby smiles even when she's crying. She is so amazingly happy!As I held her extra tight this morning, for one last time, breathing deeply of her sweetness, I realized this is probably the last time I will see her while she is an infant. Next time she's likely to be toddling around, trying to keep up with everyone and everything, with little interest in snuggling against Grannie's shoulder.But this wasn't about the end of Anna's infancy. This is about the end of the Grandbaby era. One can never be sure, but I suspect our quota of grandchildren has been amply filled. In truth, each time I see any given one of them, I enjoy them a little more, and it's exciting to notice the way their minds and personalities are unfold ...

Inspiration in Numbers 2008-02-01 22:18:00 Writing groups and writing buddies are among the most powerful incentives to keep writing and to find inspiration for new stories. I've belonged to many writing groups over the last dozen years, some short-lived, and others have endured for years. I've never left a group meeting without inspiration for dozens of stories, and a warm satisfied feeling from listening to the stories other members read, and some of my dearest friends have come from writing circles.Right now I'm attending the Story Circle Network Conference in Austin, and finding a tremendous inspiration and guidance from the presenters in the sessions, and from talking to other members who are writing their own stories. Not surprisingly, each approaches writing in her own way. Some are just beginning, and experimenting with various forms and types of topics. Others have been writing for years. Some write daily, others when they have a Story Circle (writing group) meeting, and a few are feeling stalled out, hoping to find ...

The Ripeness of a Peach 2008-01-30 19:07:00 My heart is full of words and stories and pictures and aches to spill them forth. Yet, nothing emerges from my fingertips. The stories refuse to take form, insisting on remaining hidden for the time being, not ready to face the light of day. Here I sit, staring at the screen, realizing I can’t force these words forth before their time.I recall a day last summer when I ate a peach, resplendent with stunning reddish gold undertones and strong red highlights. However, as picture perfect as it looked, it was not a perfect peach. The fragrance was faint, and although it was no longer hard, it didn’t feel juicy to my questioning finger. The flesh inside was pale and dull. When I bit into it, it tasted like a peach with half the flavor bleached out. The texture was mushy and slightly grainy, not dripping with juice as a perfect peach should be.Appearances can be deceiving, I reminded myself. There is no way of knowing for sure at the grocery store just how a slightly under-ripe peach will ...

They Do Notice 2008-01-27 06:30:00 Your family will notice your mistakes. At least some of them will. And that's okay!Last week I had a brainstorm: I'd print out a copy of Tosh and the Water Guns to mail to one of my grandsons with another gift. I hoped he'd get a kick out of reading a story that features him as the central character.Two days later, the phone rang. It was Tosh. My story had made it from Pittsburgh to San Diego in jig time. He didn't call specifically about the story, and he hadn't finished reading it yet; however, he did let me know that he'd “kind of” read my story. “And I found a typo,” he reported. I thought I detected a bit of glee in his voice.“Really! You found a typo? What typo did you find?” I asked.“You said rally when you meant really,” he informed me.“Wow! That's great! You have really good eyes, and I'm glad you told me about it so I can fix it,” I assured him. “I'm proud of you.” I could feel him glow all the way across the country. I doubt he expected to be ...

Goosebumps and the Bigger Picture 2008-01-23 06:32:00 Last night I saw a vision expanding the context and value of lifestory writing that gives me goosebumps. Through a series of coincidences (if you believe in coincidences), I have become involved in FMHI, the Follow Me Home Initiative. This exciting project is being spearheaded by Kathy Brown, assistant professor of communications on the Greater Allegheny campus of Penn State.Her class will provide outreach for seniors in the local community through collaborations with Blueroof Technologies Research Associates. The goal of the collaboration is to teach seniors to use computers by writing their own lifestories. The students will mentor seniors through the FMHI while using lifestories as the catalyst for learning.This means that the students need to learn the basics of lifestory writing themselves in order to coach the Seniors as they go along. That's where I come in. I met with the class last night to go over the basics of how to get their troop of Seniors started on their writing proje ...

A Closer Look 2008-01-21 09:13:00 In her January 19th blog post, "Why I'll Never Write Your Lifestory," author Diane Chamberlain states, “Your life story, while it may be fascinating, may not make for good reading. A good, readable story requires a structure and focus, and most life stories don’t fall neatly into readable form.”The same day I read an item in the Denver Post about school children who are interviewing grandparents and writing about their family history. The article tells how Colorado writers Irv Green and Andrea Gross collected over thirty stories from young writers and published them in a book, Relatively Speaking. The article also notes that grandchildren are more apt to be interested in written legacies than the author’s children.These two items are in interesting juxtaposition. On the surface they may sound a bit contradictory, but a closer look shows otherwise. It may be true that an ordinary life may not fall into a neat and compelling structure, and may seem a bit unfocused. To the gener ...

Ritergal's Horrible, Awful, Terribly Bad Day 2008-01-19 19:46:00 Moan, groan, bitch and whine. I’m entitled to a pity party, and you are all invited. What?! You say you don’t want to come? That you have other more urgent plans, like watching the bread in your pantry grow mold? Can’t say as I blame you. Who wants to attend a pity party? Nobody, that’s who. Including me. I don’t even want to attend my own.So, why do I write about it? Because it’s real. It’s true. It’s me, and it’s now. Yes, Accuweather.com assures me that tomorrow the sun will shine, but right now I’m feeling bogged down. Word is giving me fits (have I ever mentioned how much I hate Microsoft Word? And like OpenOffice?) as I work on my presentation for Story Circle Network’s Stories From the Heart conference that begins on February 1. I’m in over my head in trying to configure the wireless card for the laptop I converted to Ubuntu. I broke the rules on an Absolute Write Water Cooler forum game thread. I’m tired even thinking about figuring out how to put down ...

A Tangee Treasure Trove of Memories 2008-01-16 15:02:00 I’m cleaning out a drawer in the hall bathroom. This bathroom has seldom been used since our youngest left home, longer ago than I care to recall. Searching in the back of the drawer, I find a pink plastic tube that holds a stick of something that looks like green wax. On a hunch, I remove the clear cap, swivel up the stick, and apply a bit to the heel of my hand. The green stuff turns vivid cherry pink.My thoughts fly back to the year I was twelve. I spent lots of time that year eyeing Tangee lipstick at the Woolworth’s makeup counter. The junior-sized fake gold tube with a slider bar on the side held a stick of translucent, pale orange waxey goo that was said to turn the perfect color for any woman, based on her body chemistry. A barrage of memories connect with this one: secretly putting Tangee on at school and spending the whole walk home chewing it off, wallets and purses big enough for lipstick, comb, mirror, and all your friends' school pics, the girl’s dressing room/rest ...

One Memory (Link) Leads to Another 2008-01-14 13:28:00 Not long ago I discovered Write Your Life, written by Seniorwriter, aka Marlys Marshall Styne. (I just added her site to my Links list.) The post I landed on, Teddy Turns Fifty, was about a teddy bear she bought as a gift for her newborn niece, Cynthia. Cynthia and Teddy just passed the half-century mark.The post is delightful, and so are the comments. One comment mentioned what appeared to be a pile of diapers behind a shoulder. Seniorwriter replied, “Yes, Karen, I imagine that is, indeed, a stack of cloth diapers. I don't suppose that any other kind existed back then.”My monkey mind hopped from that comment to a personal memory about disposable diapers. I had extensive experience with cloth diapers at an early age. I was eleven years old when my baby brother was born, so I was thoroughly familiar with every aspect of changing, rinsing the messes in the toilet, washing, hanging the wet rags on the clothesline to dry, then folding them. Changing diapers can’t be avoided, but the ...

The Quilter's Legacy 2008-01-10 21:39:00 Some of the most poignant truth about life comes from novels, and that truth can have deep relevance for life writing, about our own life and others. Although I am not a quilter myself, I am attracted to the art, and recently became hooked on The Elm Creek Quilts series of novels by Jennifer Chiaverini. I just finished reading The Quilter’s Legacy, and a short passage on the final pages rings so true as it sums up the heart of life writing:"Sylvia looked up from the guide, her gaze fixed on the New York Beauty quilt, but her thoughts far away. Whoever this Amelia Langley Davis was, she must have known Sylvia's mother. The details from her journal could not possibly have referred to any family but the Bergstroms. But if she was such a “dear friend,” why had Sylvia's mother never mentioned her—or had she, and had Sylvia carelessly allowed the stories to pass by unheard?Her mother had confided little about her life before coming to Elm Creek Manor—but Amelia Langley Davis had ...

Brain Dumping 2008-01-09 07:57:00 The story I started in the last post about story catching goes on. I learned that Stephanie and I needed to go beyond that interview. My understanding was that it would be a great help if I’d just write down a few memories from my childhood. That seemed simple enough. Or so it seemed, at first glance.In a post about six weeks ago I mentioned that having finished The Albuquerque Years, I was moving on to The Los Alamos Years. Many readers may relate to my report that I’ve been feeling a little stuck with that project. Aside from life getting in the way over Christmas time, I was getting bogged down in detail and doing battle with my Inner Censor.Yesterday brought an amazing breakthrough that benefited both needs: Stephanie’s project, and my own “stuckness.” I was ready for a quick break from the intense concentration I’ve maintained for a couple of days as I worked to prepare my presentation on “Picture Perfect Pages” for a session at the 2008 Stories From the Heart conf ...

My Story Has Been Caught 2008-01-05 20:18:00 Story catching seems to be catching on these days, especially across generations. Just before I wrote the last blog post, I received an e-mail from my granddaughter out in Oregon. Her sixth grade class is doing a legacy project to record family histories and she asked to interview me. Of course I was more than happy to oblige.What an interesting challenge this is turning out to be. She included the following list of interview questions in her e-mail so I could think about answers before we talked.What were your goals and dreams when growing up? Why did you choose those goals?What kept you motivated to follow your dreams?Who was your mentor or inspiration?What obstacles occurred when you were trying to reach your goals?How did you overcome these obstacles?Did your goals and dreams change along the way?Did you help change anyone else's life?What were some life lessons that helped you along the way?What events in your history stand above others?What has been precious to you your whole li ...

Story Catching 2008-01-03 09:46:00 Two years ago, they were strangers. Then a chance encounter led to a deep friendship and a 100-page biography. Now, Bob Sather may know Al Vaicius' story better than even the Plymouth resident does...So begins a wonderful tale written in the Minneapolis Star Tribune by Jenna Ross. The article does a fine job of telling the drift of the story, but after I read it, I was suffused with curiosity. I recognized that Bob Sather was applying the fine art of lifestory writing in the role of “story catcher” to immortalize the life of another person, and I wanted to know more.The fact that I found this article illustrates one wonder of the Cyber Age. The fact that I was able to track Bob down via an email to Jenna Ross was another. During a recent phone conversation I asked Bob how he handled the interviews with Al. His account was close to what I'd read in the article, and included these points:They met over coffee once a week or so, a good way to keep the atmosphere relaxed and the sto ...

I Had a Dream 2007-12-31 17:00:00 I awoke this morning from a most wonderous dream: I was with a group of friends, sitting around a table talking about our various projects and ideas, encouraging each other on. Suddenly something dawned on me:“Have you noticed he each one of us is responding to suggestions with ‘I could do that,’ or ‘maybe I could’? Nothing is going to happen as long as we say ‘maybe’ and ‘could.’ I’ve lived long enough to know no that nothing happens until I say, ‘I will do that.’ ” I was as surprised at my words as anyone in the group, but I recognized them as absolute Inner Truth, a genuine epiphany. The dream ended before they had a chance to respond. I have a lot of dreams, but I seldom remember details. Now and then one speaks to me, and this one spoke to me. I took it as a message that I’m ready to turn “could” into “will” often in the coming year. Attitude is everything.Beyond any personal meaning in this dream, it applies to readers who think about writing, ...

Tips For Better Writing and Ducking Computer Crashes 2007-12-28 08:50:00 This is the time of year for Top Ten lists. I found a swarm of these lists on the Tech Republic website. I visited there in search of help on a problem that has hosed the Vista operating system on my almost brand-new laptop. I think I shall make my own list of Top Ten Tips for Lifestory Writing, but until I get it written, I recommend that you take a look at Tech Republic’s list: Another 10+ tips to keep your writing sharp and professional.You may wonder why I’m sending lifestory writers to a site with tips for professional writing. Those tips will improve any writing, with the possible exception of poetry. If a tip doesn’t make sense to you, post a comment here, or ignore it.For right now, if I can give you one gold-plated tip, it is to back up your work! I had one file on that trashed laptop that I cared about and had not saved elsewhere. I’d worked about six hours on that file and would hate to lose it. I feel sick when I hear of people who lose a whole hard drive full of ...