YOUR WORST CHRISTMAS

 

We’re going to take a mini-break from our Back to Basics for newcomers and instead, we’ll discuss CHRISTMAS! But with a twist. . . .

 

Maybe you recall a Christmas that was simply awful—a time you were heartbroken, or homeless, or broke, or far from home, or jilted, or frightened, or sick—and your future looked bleak.

 

You remember it as the worst Christmas ever.

 

But I invite you to think again.

 

Writing a memoir can be such a blessed project. Memoir requires taking long, deep looks at the past. Memoir involves pondering, rethinking, unearthing, and finding gems we might not have known were there.

 

Sometimes what seems to be our biggest disaster

can turn out to be a blessing—

one we couldn’t have received without the difficulty.

 

Sometimes we think a calamity will destroy us, but God works in the midst of our situations and, in the way only He can do it, He turns everything inside out and upside down and—instead of destroying us—it makes us stronger and better.

 

Failures. Tangled messes. Catastrophes. Tragedies. Conflicts. Blows. Adversity. Upheavals. Disasters. Setbacks. Unwelcome surprises.

 

God can use our deep disappointments to

• get our attention,
• shake us up a little,
• clear our heads,
• help us see we were putting our hope in something we shouldn’t,
• open new doors for us,
• give us new perspectives,
• tenderize our souls,
• give us fresh starts.

 

God can do all that.

 

That’s what Romans 8:28 is about:  “God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purposes for them” (NLT).

 

A long, long time ago, H.C. Trumbull told this story:

 

“The floods washed away home and mill, all the poor man had in the world. But as he stood on the scene of his loss, after the water had subsided, brokenhearted and discouraged, he saw something shining in the bank which the waters had washed bare. ‘It looks like gold,’ he said. It was gold. The flood which had beggared him made him rich. So it is ofttimes in life.” (Quoted by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, Streams in the Desert, January 20 selection.)

 

When turn-arounds and relief and solutions

eventually come our way, it’s so easy to snatch them,

run with them, and never look back.

 

We too easily fail to recognize God’s intervention

on our behalf, and we pay too little attention

to the good He has brought to us

out of our hardships.

 

Take time—make time—to dig through the dirt and ashes

of what you thought was your most disastrous Christmas,

and mine those bits of gold.

 

Search for evidence of God’s healing, new directions He offered you, new friends, and new hope.

 

Pinpoint the ways He strengthened your faith for the future.

 

Recognize these were all part of God’s unique plan for you and your life.

 

Gather those discoveries 

and write stories in your memoir 

that detail the ways God was with you 

n the midst of your worst Christmas ever.

 

Write stories about the way He took a disaster and turned it into something good—blessings you couldn’t have received without that difficulty. Instead of destroying you, it made you stronger and better.

 

If you’ll make time to do that, you can receive heaps of blessings.

 

But it doesn’t end there. Your readers can benefit, too.

 

Take in what Jeff Goins said,

 

“At times, you will hold the keys to another’s prison. . . . 

when you write from the heart, 

your pain will become someone else’s healing balm.”

 

Back to Basics: How do you begin writing your memoir?

 

If you’re new to writing, you might wonder just how to write your memoir—that is, how to find the precise words and how to put them in the right order.

 

The process can seem mysterious, even daunting. The specific how-to might feel out of reach.

 

You might be wailing, “How do I do this? How do I get started?”

 

Don’t let such worries incapacitate you. Ban discouragement. You can do this!

 

Take a deep breath.

 

Believe me when I say:

 

• Keep in mind you’re writing a rough draft. Don’t worry about making it perfect because you will revise it several times. (Revision is not punishment! All writers, even the most accomplished, revise and polish.)
• You can start writing anywhere in your storyline. You don’t have to begin at the beginning. Write short vignettes, knowing you can string them together in the correct order later.

 

Start by writing an easy part of your story.

 

Don’t do what a friend of mine did:

He started his rough draft by tackling

the most painful experience of his life!

 

That’s a recipe for disaster—

the pain can overwhelm you

and you’ll likely stop writing altogether.

 

Instead, begin writing the easy stuff, the fun stuff, fond memories, the light-hearted parts.

 

Describe key places in your story: your grandmother’s kitchen, or a rainforest, an Air Force base, a classroom, a nursery, or a factory.

 

Describe a key person: your favorite teacher, your best friend, your uncle.

 

In the process, get accustomed to the writing life. My heart longs for you to enjoy the process of writing.

 

Here’s encouragement for you:

 

“Do not despise these small beginnings,

for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.”

(Zechariah 4:10 NLT)

 

Go ahead and get started, even if you feel you’re accomplishing only “small beginnings.”

 

Take heart. We all start small—and that’s okay!

 

In fact, it’s good. Look at the rest of that verse. “The Lord rejoices to see the work begin.”

 

Now, doesn’t that make you smile? Give you hope? Inspiration? Encouragement? A desire to keep at it?

 

I hope so. 

 

You have no idea how many people your story will touch.

 

Don’t underestimate the value of your story.

 

Think back: When did a sentence or chapter or book turn your life around?

 

I still cling to a single sentence I read almost half a century ago. It altered my perspective and the way I’ve lived all these years. How I thank God for inspiring that woman to write her book!

 

And I can never thank God enough for leading a man to write his book—because one chapter rescued me and healed me and revolutionized my relationship with God.

 

Your book

could do that for readers, too.

Believe it!

 

Jeff Goins offers this perspective to those who haven’t begun writing:

 

“Starting is hard.

It requires courage and perseverance

and all kinds of gumption.

That’s why most people just talk about it,

but never do it. But starting is necessary.

It’s crucial to making your mark and leaving a legacy.”

("Start Today, Not Tomorrow")

 

No matter how long it takes, write your memoir!

 

“The legacy you leave hinges on your decision to start.”

(Jeff Goins, “Starting”)

 

Back to Basics: Connecting the dots of your life

 

If you’re a newcomer here at SM 101, you’ll soon recognize that I urge memoirists to connect their dots. Among other benefits, connecting your dots will help you with your story arc. (If you missed recent posts on your story arc, click on Your memoir’s all-important story arc as well as Your memoir’s middle and end. And don’t miss Is your story arc eluding you?)

 

Connecting your dots is also important for you personally.

 

Because, you see, your memoir is a gift not only to readers,

but especially to yourself: 

In writing, you can look back,

connect the dots,

follow the bread crumbs,

and realize

—maybe as never before—

that God has pointed you toward destinations

He planned especially for you—

good places,

even if they didn’t look good at the time.

 

Perhaps you’ll find yourself in Henri Nouwen’s words: “In every critical event, there is an opportunity for God to act creatively and reveal a deeper truth than what we see on the surface of things. God can also turn around critical incidents and seemingly hopeless situations in our lives and reveal light in darkness.” (Discernment)

 

By “connect your dots,” I mean this: Search for the ways God was involved in arranging the key events of your life, and then identify the ways He strings them together—how He “connects the dots.”

 

First, identify your dots:

 

• interruptions that popped into your life,
• disappointments, roadblocks,
• surprises (good and not-so-good),
• where you chose to get your education,
• jobs you took,
• people you met (including your future spouse),
• houses you bought,
• setbacks,
• failures,
• the birth of your children,
• the death of a significant person,
• a conversation with a stranger,
• an accident or illness that changed your life,
• major decisions you had to make,
• meeting the person who’d become your best friend,
• and everything having to do with your faith in God.

 

Look back—take as long as you need. Identify your dots, your turning points, those pivotal moments.

 

Once you’ve done that, string your dots together. What do they all mean in relation to each other?

 

What was God doing over the years to point you in the right direction? How did He use one “dot” to prepare you for the next “dot”? And then the next one? And what did He do to bring you to where you are today?

 

In her Bible study, Esther, Beth Moore writes, “If we could only see what is  happening around us in the unseen realm, our eyes would nearly pop out of socket. . . . So much that would thrill us lies beyond our sight. . . .” How exciting is that?!

 

That’s why memoirists must invest time in retrospection, make an effort to dig deeply into the past, connect the dots, string them together, and make sense of what happened in the past. Recognize how you became the person you are today.

 

Yes, that’s a lot of work—but, oh! The treasures you’ll discover!

 

String together all the ways God has been working out His good plans for your life.

 

“He’s weaving pieces together

that will tell of His faithfulness

when generations to come read the pages of your life.”

Kaitlyn Bouchillon

 

“Never believe that the so-called random events of life

are anything less than God’s appointed order.

Be ready to discover His divine designs

anywhere and everywhere.”

(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)

Back to Basics: Is your story arc eluding you?

 

If you’re struggling to pin down your memoir’s story arc, please don’t be discouraged. (If you missed our recent posts, click on Your memoir’s all-important story arc and Your memoir’s middle and end.)   

 

Most of us struggle to find our story arc, but believe this: You can figure it out!

 

Rebecca Ramsey’s experience will give you hope. She spent years searching for her story arc. (And writing and editing her memoir, The Holy Éclair, took ten years! And it’s on my list of books to read.)

 

She says to ask yourself this about your memoir’s rough draft:

 

“What is your journey, the big change you experienced

that you want to share with the world?

 

“What were the little struggles and big struggles

that got you from the beginning to the end?”

 

Rebecca says, “That wasn’t clear at first to me . . . [but] the writing itself revealed to me my own transformation.”

 

Read that again:  

“The writing itself 

revealed to me my own transformation.”

 

That can happen to you, too. Hooray!

 

It might take a long time but doing so is probably the most important part of discovering your real story.

 

Take a closer look than you ever did before. Recognize—maybe for the first time—the ways you changed. Then tell readers what you learned, how you transformed, and how you became a stronger, better person.

 

• Dig deep and deeper.
• Reflect.
• Inspect.
• Analyze your experience and yourself.
• Stand back and ask yourself what God was doing.
• Discover details you might have overlooked before.
• Pray for God’s help.
• Join a good critique group (in person or online) and ask for help.

 

Keep writing and revising.

 

Rebecca also said, “Once I figured out my story arc (which I should say took years, all in the back of my head) and started editing, I made myself do the hard job of throwing out the stories that didn't advance the arc. This sounds reasonable but it's tough when you love them. Do it! The voices will thank you later.”

 

You can do this!

 

Back to Basics: Your memoir’s middle and end

 

Last week we began looking at your memoir’s all-important story arc. (If you missed it, click on Back to Basics: Your memoir’s all-important story arc.)

 

The story arc is like a pathway.

It carries the memoirist and the reader

from the beginning of the story,

to the middle,

to the end.

 

Last week we concentrated on your memoir’s beginning, in which you tell readers about something you wanted or needed and the obstacle that was hindering you.

 

This week we’ll move on to your memoir’s middle.

 

Tell readers of progress toward your goal but also tell them that obstructions (some of them new) piled up, your struggles intensified, and issues got complicated—either internal or external—and they threatened to keep you from achieving your goals, meeting your needs, and/or making your dreams come true. Usually, the biggest challenge comes toward the end of your story's middle.

 

Now let’s look at your memoir’s end. This is where you detail how hurdles, hindrances, and complications came to a climax.

 

Dr. Linda Joy Myers writes that in this third phase, the end, “. . . the threads and layers of complexity reach a peak—the crisis and climax of the story. Here the character is tested, where [your] true depth of learning and transformation is revealed.”

 

Dr. Myers continues, “The crisis may be thought of as a spiritual challenge or a ‘dark night of the soul,’ where the deepest beliefs and core truths of the character are tested. The climax is the highest level of tension and conflict that the protagonist must resolve as the story comes to a close.

 

“There’s an aha at the end,” she says, “an epiphany when the main character has learned her lessons and can never return to the previous way of living.”

 

Adair Lara explains it this way: “You try a lot of things to solve your problem, with mixed results. You have setbacks, you make mistakes and you push on, until you either get what you wanted, or you don’t, or you stop wanting it. . . .”

 

A memoir’s ending is about transformation and resolution. It shows readers how you finally succeeded—how you got what you wanted. . . .

Or not! Read on. . . .

 

Sometimes in a memoir’s ending, we see that the main character didn’t get what she originally wanted, but what she got was even better. Diane Butts says:

 

“Now, this ‘want’ is different 

from what they are actually going to get. . . .

But what they get in the story is infinitely better for them,

they just don’t know it at the outset of the story.

When, through your story, the [memoirist] gets this better thing

instead of what they originally wanted,

they are a changed character.”

 

For example, take my experience in South America from my memoir, Please, God, Don't Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger's Memoir. Here's a blurb about the book:

“What’s a comfortable, and cowardly, suburbanite to do

when her husband wants to move their young family

to rural South America

to teach missionaries’ kids?

She prays, ‘Please, God, don’t make me go!’”

 

In my memoir, I wrote that eventually I became willing to go to South America—and I had a good attitude about it.

 

When I first arrived, I still had a good attitude . . . but . . .

 

But equatorial heat and culture shock brought me to my knees. My “want” was to turn around and go back home to Seattle. I was desperate. I refused to unpack and plotted to run away.

 

But after living there for three months (and 87 pages into the book), I had fallen in love with the place and my job.

 

I wrote in my memoir:

 

“God had sent me where I didn’t know I wanted to go.

And it occurred to me, with a jolt,

 that I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving

at the end of the school year,

only six months away.

I couldn’t leave—I wouldn’t!”

 

I experienced what Diane Butts wrote about: I got something better than what I wanted at the outset. I was a changed person.

 

In summary, then, tell readers what you now know, understand, or believe that you didn’t before. Tell them how you changed in the process. Maybe, like me, you had a change of heart because you recognized the unexpected Plan B was better than your Plan A.

 

Remember:

People read memoirs

to learn how to handle similar situations

that arise in their own lives.

In that way, you become a role model for them,

an inspiration,

even an answer to prayer.

 

Come back next week and I’ll offer more help with your memoir’s all-important story arc.

 

 

 

Back to Basics: Your memoir’s all-important story arc

 

“When I began work on my memoir . . . I didn’t know a thing about arcs,” writes author Adair Lara.

 

“I thought, I lived this story. I’ll just write it down the way it happened. . . .

 

“It was as if I decided to build a house and just started nailing together boards without giving a thought to blueprints. I put up some strange-looking houses that way, in the form of inert drafts filled with pointless scenes.

 

“I would have saved myself a lot of time if I had drawn an arc.”

 

Adair admits, “Back then, I hadn’t even heard of an arc.”

 

Maybe you haven’t heard of a story arc either, so let’s get started.

 

To give you a good grasp of a story’s arc,

first you’ll need to understand the basics of story.

 

Memoirs read like novels (but unlike novels, they are true accounts). Jon Franklin (Writing for Story) explains: “A story consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves.”

Franklin says, in other words, that a quality story “will consist of a real person who is confronted with a significant problem, who struggles diligently to solve that problem, and who ultimately succeeds—and in doing so becomes a different character.”

“The main character . . . —in a memoir it’s you!—is changed significantly by events, actions, decisions, and epiphanies. The growth and change of the main character is imperative in any story, and is the primary reason a memoir is written—to show the arc of character change from beginning to end” (Dr. Linda Joy Myers).

 

The story arc is like a thread, a path from beginning to end.

It carries the memoirist and the reader:

From the BEGINNING,

to the MIDDLE,

to the END of the story.

 

Today we’ll concentrate on only your memoir’s BEGINNING, in which you’ll tell readers about something you wanted or needed and the obstacle that was hindering you.

 

Take in Diane Butts’ words here:

 

“A story needs a main character who wants something. . . . This want gives forward motion to the story. There also needs to be something that prevents your main character from getting what they want. This creates conflict. . . .

 

“A story needs to have conflict,” Diane writes. “No conflict = no story. If there is no conflict, then it’s just a list of facts. . . .  Conflict [is] something that needs to be dealt with, a problem that needs to be overcome. . . .

 

“A story starts by showing the main character’s ordinary world—things as they are before any conflict happens. Then something happens that changes the ordinary world and sets the story in motion. That incident incites the story” (Diane Butts).

 

So, are you ready? Let’s go!

 

In your memoir’s beginning, introduce yourself to your readers and tell them, specifically, what you wanted or needed or planned or dreamed—but you also tell them about a problem or a challenge that surfaced and threatened to mess everything up.

 

Perhaps you were hit with a financial setback, a mental health issue, a spiritual need, or a relationship struggle.

 

Maybe something or someone threatened to undo your career or destroy your reputation.

 

Maybe, like me, you married a person who longed to live a nontraditional, adventuresome life, but all you wanted was a conventional life that didn’t require you to be courageous and daring.

 

Pinpoint your obstacle. That’s what must change. Make it clear to your readers what you wanted or needed or longed for, and how that was hindered or threatened.

 

Ask yourself:

What set my story in motion? What was the inciting incident?

What was it that I wanted?—wanted to accomplish? to be?

to solve? learn? overcome? discover? escape?

What kept me from getting what I wanted/needed?

What was the challenge, the obstacle?

To achieve my goal, what needed to change?

 

If you haven’t already started writing your memoir, begin today. Don’t be too hard on yourself. This will be your rough draft—for your eyes only. You will no doubt revise it several times. Just get started!

 

If you’ve already started your rough draft, make revisions according to today’s information. (Revising is not punishment! It’s how you polish your memoir and make it shine.)

 

Next week we’ll look at your memoir’s MIDDLE and its ENDING.

 

Back to Basics: Knowing the unique features of memoir will help you tell your story

 

Since we have new people joining us here at SM 101, we’re reviewing (1) what a memoir is, and (2) how best to write one. (Check out two recent blog posts: Back to Basics: What is a Memoir? and Back to Basics: Why should you write your memoir?)

 

A memoir is so much more than spinning yarns and telling tales.

 

That  means you need to understand what a memoir is

in order to

write it in the most effective way.

 

Below you’ll find some gems—some nitty-gritty basics—to help you get started, to help you keep writing, and to publish your memoir.

 

 

“Rather than simply telling a story from her life,

the memoirist both tells the story

and muses upon it,

trying to unravel what it means

in light of her current knowledge. . . .

Memoir includes retrospection as an essential part of the story.

Your reader . . . [is] interested in how you now, 

looking back on it, understand it.”

(Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir)

 

 

“Remember this when you write about your own life.

Your biggest stories will often have less to do with their subject

than with their significance:

not what you did in a certain situation,

but how that situation affected you.”

(William Zinsser, Writing About Your Life)

 

 

“Memoir is not about what you did.

Memoir is about what you did with it.”

(Marion Roach Smith)

 

 

“Memoir is about something you know

after something you’ve been through.”

(Marion Roach Smith)

 

 

Writing a memoir “offers . . . the opportunity to recall, assess,

reflect, and find meaning. . . . Most memoir writing experts agree

that the primary importance of memoir writing

is the resolution, clarity, healing and dignity gained by the author. . . .

Writing memoir is an adventure in attitudes,

with unexpected personal revelations, discoveries and resolution.”

(Sharon Lippincott, author of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing,

and two memoirs)

 

 

“The main character . . . —in a memoir it’s you!—is changed

significantly by events, actions, decisions, and epiphanies.

The growth and change of the main character

is imperative in any story,

and is the primary reason a memoir is written—

to show the arc of character change from beginning to end.”

(Dr. Linda Joy Myers)

 

 

Take in these significant quotes about memoirs. Ponder them in relation to the stories you want to include in your memoir.

 

The better you understand and apply the above, the better your writing experience—and your finished memoir—will be.

 

Come back next week for more inspiration on writing your memoir!

 

Back to the Basics: Why should you write your memoir?

 

A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog post after I attended the first meeting of our church’s fall book club, for which they’d chosen my new memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.  I was happy but also humbled that they chose it.

                                                                                                                                     

Among other questions, they asked me: Why did you write your memoir?

 

Good question.

 

I took time to answer because a memoir—every memoir—can and should be a gift for its readers. In fact:

 

I believe God Himself

dreamed up the idea of memoirs.

If you think that’s a stretch, read on!

 

That evening, I took the ladies back to the beginning of my passion for memoirs—though originally I didn’t even know the definition of “memoir.”

 

It started some thirty years ago. I’d been reading Streams in the Desert, a devotional from 1925 (!) by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman (though nowadays they call her L. B. Cowman).

 

Not only have publishers updated her powerful devotional by letting the dear lady use her own name instead of her husband’s, they’ve also updated the wording and Bible version.

 

But I’m still using the old-fashioned version, so keep that in mind when you read what L.B. wrote. It’s based on Luke 21:13 which says, “This will give you an opportunity to tell about Me” (ERV).

 

“Life is a steep climb,

and it does the heart good to have somebody ‘call back’

and cheerily beckon us on up the high hill.

We are all climbers together, and we must help one another.”

L.B.Cowman

 

“This mountain climbing is serious business, but glorious,” she wrote. “It takes strength and steady step to find the summits. The outlook widens with the altitude. If anyone among us has found anything worthwhile, we ought to ‘call back.’”

 

And then L.B. Cowman shares her poem:

 

If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back—

‘Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;

And if, perchance, Faith’s light is dim, because the [lamp] oil is low,

Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.

 

Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;

Call back, and say He kept you when the forest’s roots were torn;

That, when the heavens thundered and the earthquake shook the hill,

He bore you up and held you where the very air was still.

 

. . . But if you’ll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,

And if you’ll say He saw you through the night’s sin-darkened sky—

If you have gone a little way ahead, oh, friend, call back—

‘Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.

 

That poem—

that thought of cupping our hands around our mouths

and cheering on others

who are coming behind us, struggling up life’s steep trails—

that thought zinged me.

It zapped me.

“Yesssss!” I said.

 

I fought tears when I thought of the people

who had already battled up life’s steep mountain trails,

who then turned to me to show by their example

how to choose courage and faith,

those who shared with me their words,

who cheered me on and kept praying.

 

My heart lurches when I think how my life’s battles

might have turned out

if those dear souls had not told me their story—

they and their stories

kept me pounding one foot in front of the other,

hoping, believing, refusing to give up

because if God had helped them, He’d help me, too.

 

When I first read L.B. Cowman’s devotional that day, I told myself: “A Call Back book! That’s what we need—to share our stories and keep each other fighting the good fight.”

 

Reading that poem was a defining moment for me. For years I thought about a Call Back Book. But the idea was raw and rough. It needed to marinate for a few years.

 

Fast forward twenty years or so. I came upon the following words (words which you know well if you’ve been with our SM 101 tribe for a while): “Always remember—and never forget—what you’ve seen God do and be sure to tell your children and grandchildren” (Deuteronomy 4:9).

 

When I read those words, they gave me another zing and zap. That was another pivotal moment for me. “That’s it!” I told myself. “That’s what a Call Back Book would accomplish.” My undeveloped concept began to take a more solid form in my mind and heart and vision.

 

And the fact that God told us to tell our stories

to our kids and grandkids—

Wow again! He commanded us to tell our stories.

 

It’s a calling He’s given all of us.

A ministry, not a hobby.

 

I remember asking myself, “I wonder what a memoir is.” I looked up the definition and—Wow again. Memoir was a perfect format for telling our stories. (Click here for the definition of memoir.)

 

And, as they say, the rest is history:

• I started teaching memoir classes for churches and other interested groups,
• in 2010, I published my first memoir, Grandma’s Letters from Africa,
• I started blogging at Spiritual Memoirs 101 to reach others interested in writing their stories,
• in 2019, I published my second memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: AFoot-Dragger’s Memoir,
• and I’ve continued to teach online and in-person memoir classes. 

Fast forward to that evening at our church’s Book Club meeting when they were reading my memoir. I was in for a delightful surprise. The ladies started discussing the definition of memoir, and then they realized that each of them had a story.

 

They caught the vision of the importance of telling their stories.

 

In the words of Lloyd John Ogilvie, “ “. . . we can be God’s tap on a person’s shoulder. . . . It’s awesome to realize that God can use us as His messengers, healers, and helpers. He’s up to exciting things, and all He needs is a willing, receptive, and obedient spirit” (Silent Strength for My Life).

 

If you’re writing your memoir,

YOU are those Ogilvie writes about—

YOU are the ones with a willing,

receptive, and obedient spirit.

 

How awesome to realize that

God is using YOU as His messengers,

healers, and helpers.