Power in the Personal

I'd like to welcome to my blog today Karen Walker, friend and author of Following the Whispers, a memoir. Not only is she a talented writer, but she opens her soul in a way that the reader feels they have gained a friend. I asked her to come here today to speak about not only memoir, but the importance of sharing our lives through our writing. The power of the personal. Even if you don;t write memoir sharing yourself in your work is the mark of a book that has the power to impact.

~

Tabitha asked me to write a guest post that speaks to the importance of personal stories and how they benefit the world of literacy. I’m not sure that can be done in a relatively short blog post, but what I can do is talk about the power in memoir – the power which comes from writing one, and the power which comes from reading a well-written one.

It took 10 years for me to write my memoir, Following the Whispers, but that included a four-year stint back in college to complete a degree I’d started in 1969. I took virtually all the writing classes the university offered, but I especially loved the Creative Nonfiction ones. One of my professors said that when you set out to write a memoir or a personal essay, you pose a question. The essay or memoir is that exploration and you may or may not end up with a neat, tidy answer.

In 1977 I lost custody of my 3 ½ year old son. Out of the despair and devastation resulting from that, a question arose deep from my soul: what was wrong with me that such a thing could happen to a white, middle class young woman? Answering that question began a soul-searching journey of healing which continues to this day.

I didn’t decide to write a memoir. It decided me. In 1994, shortly after moving to New Mexico from Portland, Oregon, I wrote a short essay about that journey which was published in an anthology of women’s stories called “Chocolate for a Woman’s Blessings,” published by Simon and Shuster. I received letters and emails from women all over thanking me for writing my story—it helped them with similar struggles. I began to think that if a two-page snippet of my journey could help, how much more beneficial would a full-length book be?

Writing the memoir was both agonizing and cathartic. When I stepped up to the podium at my book launch and held up my book, I felt as if I’d stepped into the person I’d been striving to become for the past 30 years. That is the power of memoir for the writer. And for the reader, well…we all have our issues we deal with on a daily basis, whether it’s having grown up in a dysfunctional family, being a victim of sexual, emotional, or physical abuse, compulsive disorders, whatever. There are universal themes that each and every one of us can relate to. A well-written memoir taps into those themes. As we read someone else’s story, we can perhaps connect the dots to our own. Writing helped me make sense of my life. It still does. Even though I’m writing a fiction piece for the first time, it is still helping me make sense of my world. If you write from your heart, it can’t help but be powerful.

Perhaps memoir has a bad rap because of well-publicized issues like James Frey fictionalizing part of his story and calling it memoir. I don’t know. What I do know is that reading memoirs have moved me along my journey of healing and writing my own took me to places I never thought I could go in terms of feeling good about who I am.

Thank you, Tabitha, for asking me to do this. It is an honor to write for your blog, because you are one person who always writes from her heart in such a beautiful way.

Blessings,

Karen

Thank you Karen. Writing, whether it is fiction or non-fiction helps us to make sense of our lives. And when we do that well we also offer readers the chance to do the same. Many blessings for your continued writing and thank you for your support and for the honesty of your memoir. 

Find Karen here: 

http://www.karenfollowingthewhispers.blogspot.com 

Her book FOLLOWING THE WHISPERS is available on her website and at amazon.com.

  

What about you? How do you use writing to share your soul? 

Tattoo

Body art is like memoir. Wearable, life long memoir. Tattoos are visual story tellers. They speak in pictures of what lies beneath the skin. View someones tattoo and you have a window into their soul, even if that soul has morphed or evolved dramatically since the art was inked. At some point that tattoo was their life in a portrait. 

Not all tattoos are beautiful or even G rated. Perhaps that's why I love them. Many are like the scars of the heart, seen by the naked eye. Tattoos are evidence of living. Like intimate history texts, or photographic diaries.  They represent struggles, wars, hopes and dreams or even just drunken nights. It is why I can forgive a skull with a knife through its eye and why I understand the cartoon dancing pig or even the well endowed red hair woman wearing more smile than anything else. Tattoos are evidence. Life happened to these people. Not all of it was pretty. And that's why I think tattoos have value. I agree, they are not for every one, but tattoos are memoir. And here in lies my fascination.

As a writer of memoir people often tell me they don't read my genre. I beg to differ. They do. Everyone reads memoir, they just don't see themselves as readers of personal stories. Perhaps they aren't able to interpret those stories, but they are there to be read.  Anyone who has a relationship with another human is reading memoir. Body language is memoir, conversation is memoir, paintings, photographs, love letters, any letters, any time we show ourselves to another person in any capacity we reveal who we are. And that is memoir. In the broad sense of the word, it is personal narrative.

Memoir is everywhere in our world. Personal narratives are constantly on display. Tattoos if you will, of life and living, in all its brazen glory. If you are a writer like me, you are likely as fascinated by people as you are words. As taken by interpreting memoir as you are creating your own fictional landscapes. 

The power of well written memoir is that the reader is more acutely aware of the intimacy they are sharing. And the better the writing the more mind blowing that intimacy is, and the more profound what we, the reader, are able to take from it. The authors of great memoir give us something fiction cannot.  Real life. But more than that, it is the meaning and purpose of real life through another's eye. Memoir is a walk in another humans' shoes, or perhaps a walk in another humans' soul. 

Like tattoos, memoir is human narrative that will be with us for life. Memoir is the imprint of living which we leave for future generations. May your memoir count. Your tattoo be something you want to live with, and your memoir reading be as wide and varied as life itself.

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Life, In Spite of Me

Life, In Spite of Me by Kristen Jane Anderson with Tricia Goyer

Every now and then a book harnesses the power of words in a way that makes you believe language was invented for the sheer purpose of this story. Some words reach out past the confines of pages and print that hold other words back. Some words open the palms of their hands to release a fragile winged thing we know as hope. Some words reveal the scars on the way to healing and show that there is beauty in brokenness and value and purpose in life, especially when we least see it. This book is such a book. 

Kristen Anderson chose death. She lay across the train tracks waiting to leave pain behind. And she was given life.  

This is the story of how she found the gift in her living. 

I can't say it better than Kristen herself,

"To anyone who has ever questioned the point of life or wondered why you're alive, and to those who want to help the hurting. This book is for you." 

I read this book in three hours straight. You won't want to put it down either. If you've ever questioned the point of memoir or the power inherent in sharing our stories, exposing the dark to the light, then take a gamble on this book. When I was walking through the graveyard of my life, many people around me told me they did not know how to help. They did not know what to do. This book is what to do. Have it on your bookshelf. And offer it out freely to every bleeding soul you meet. Connect. Be the person who says,

"Here is the story of someone who found hope. Do you want to read it?"

You never know how your words may matter. 

And if you are reading this right now feeling nothing but a void around you, profoundly alone, then Kristen has this to say to you, "Suicide is never the answer. There is too much to live for. Keep fighting. Please don't give up. Reach out for help. you won't regret it... God has an amazing plan for your life, even if you don't have a plan for yourself. He has hope, even if you don't have hope for yourself. He loves you immensely, even when you don't love yourself. He see beauty in you, even when all you see is a mess."

There is help for hurting lives. I would not say it if it were not true. 

Visit www.reachingyou.org to find out more.

Kristen's book is available from amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Life-Spite-Me-Extraordinary-Choice/dp/1601422520www.amazon.com/)

And WaterBrookMultnomah.com

And because I believe in the book I am going to buy another copy and give it away to someone who reads this blog. If you want to win a copy please leave me a comment in comments section of this post, or email me at tab[at]zaeya[dot]com and tell me why you want to own this book.

Thanks.

Tab

X

Magic Seeing

"I am from an English cup of tea and quiet books

from the closeness of my mother's reading;

a place to look for me."~Tab

Magic Seeing. 

Can you feel it? Who taught you?

On evenings when my father pursued his business, courted the telephone and wooed his clients, my mother drank English breakfast tea and then introduced me to a universe full of magic.

Waking to morning rain on our tin roof.

Magic.

The cupcake tin full of rainbow bites of frosted colour.

Magic.

Butter melting into warm, puffy bread, my little sister's hand in mine, the sound of Saturday's lawns being mowed, sepia afternoons filled with the smell of popcorn...

All magic.

What intelligence does a child need to see such things? Yet at first, I saw none of them.

My teachers on the art of Magic Seeing were my mother and the words. Words in songs as she rocked me. And then words as she spoke from the pages of books. Living words. Words where the magic became the air I breathed.

In the crook of my mother's arm, I was introduced to the feeling of stillness, a rare commodity in our house, and the texture of the world's inside the pages of books. The closeness of my mother's reading helped my dim eyes grow bright and alert. In those moments her voice was gentle water lapping at my toes. Zigzag thinking inside me slowed. The backpack of constant shame and guilt slipped from my shoulders, and I rested.

In that quietness, I met the folk of the Far Away Tree. Silky. Saucepan man. Goblins. And lands that came and went as they pleased. Later I met Anne and George and her dog Timmy. I padded beside Lassie on her quest for home. My quest also. I ran my fingers through the mane of the great Aslan. In the shadows of the whispering trees of Narnia, I was allowed to be a child.

Magic Seeing had everything to do with learning from inside myself; looking within and then outwards. Words became images. And within the images were feelings that built to understanding, empathy and insights. Books were play and a door to childhood. And there were few such doors outside of the world of words.

To this day my mother thinks she failed me. But on those quiet nights, the lilt of her reading rocked me gently through a stony childhood. Characters lived through her voice. She was no longer hidden from me by the abuse of her marriage and I was freed to look for myself for just a little while. The seeds of my adult self, the magic I still see in words, the gift of life inside me, were all sown beside my mother. If she failed me, it was not in the reading. It was not in the gift of words. 

And it was not in the Magic Seeing.

What about you?Who first opened up the world of reading to you?

Attention Memoir and Narrative Non-Fiction Writers

CONTEST! Okay, I don't normally post on Sunday. And I don't normally shout out contests. But I am entering this one and part of the deal is that you post it to your blog. So, if you are not a writer of memoir or Non-fiction I understand if you click away at this point. I'll see you Monday? :)

For everyone else: Win a free critique of the first 25 pages of your memoir or work of Narrative non-fiction. 

VISIT: Guide to Literary Agents Blog spot. www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/

CONTEST CLOSES: Jan 31st 2010

HOW TO SUBMIT: (copied from Literary Agents Blog)

You can leave your entry in the Comments section of the post on 'guide to literary agents' blog, or just e-mail it. Send e-mailed entries to januaryagentcontest@gmail.com. (If using e-mail, paste everything. No attachments.)

WHAT TO SUBMIT:

The first 200 words of your unpublished, book-length work of memoir, femoir or narrative nonfiction (also called creative nonfiction). You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Though not mandatory, feel free to submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with your entry.

Please note: To be eligible to submit, you have to do one of two things: 1) Mention and link to this contest twice through any social media - blogs, Twitter, Facebook, forums, message boards, comments on other blog sites; or 2) just mention this contest once and also add Guide to Literary Agents Blog (www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog) to your blogroll. Please provide link(s). 


PRIZES!!!

First place: 1) A critique of 25 pages of your work, by your agent judge. 2) Two free books from Writer's Digest Books (I will give you several choices and you pick the books your want).

Runner-ups - second and third place: 1) A critique of 10 pages of your work, by your agent judge. 2) One free book from Writer's Digest Books (I will give you several choices and you pick the book your want).


WHAT ABOUT YOU? Know of any contests around that you want to shout out in the comments section? Please do :)