Writing is easy—or not!

 

“Writing is easy,” wrote Mark Twain. “All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.”

 

Ha! If only it could be that easy!

 

What has been your experience with writing?

 

Some people find writing stress-free at first, but later it becomes a struggle. It can be discouraging. And even mysterious.

 

Some even wonder whether it’s worth finishing.

 

Don’t let that happen to you!

 

Mick Silva at Higher Purpose Writers offers this perspective:

 

“Every writer who’s finished

has taken the axe into the woods

and carved out their path

where there seemed to be none before.

They broke through their blocked way

swinging word after word after word.”

 

So persevere—word after word after word! Your first draft won’t be ready to publish but you’ll definitely be one step closer.

 

Most people who have finished writing their stories and placed them in others’ hands had to work to:

• learn the writing craft,
• apply what they learned,
• join good writing groups,
• revise their manuscripts,
• edit them,
• and refuse to give up, often year after year.

 

Such authors did not likely succeed because they were gifted writers. Getting that story in print was not a breeze.

 

They were always trying. Always growing, always working.

 

You can do this.

 

Envision where you want your memoir to be six months from now, 

and then twelve months from now.

 

Focus. Commit. Persevere. Be steadfast, unwavering.

 

Remember:

 

One story can change a life.

 

Who needs to read yours?

 

Back to Basics: Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em wait

Think back to a time when a story made you cry. What did those tears do to your heart? And your mind? Did you feel a closeness—or at least empathy—toward the author? Did it keep you reading to find out how the story ended?

 

Write your memoir in such a way that makes readers care—about both you and your story.

 

How do you do that? By including sincere emotions.

 

“The heart is always the first target

in telling purposeful stories.

Stories must give listeners [and readers]

an emotional experience. . . .”

(Peter Guber)

 

You bring emotion into your story by following Wilkie Collins’ advice: “Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait.”

 

Sometimes people wonder why we should make ‘em cry, why we should include emotional stuff surrounding our sorrows and struggles.

 

The reasons to include life’s hard things are many.

 

First, in the process of writing about them, we can find some healing for ourselves. We can look back and recognize:

 

• Often during the worst of times, we learned our most important lessons.
• Difficulties get our attention and give us a holy discontent with things that are not right in our lives.
• Afflictions can be the stuff of turning points and second chances.
• They can make us cling to God.
• They can lead to personal victories.

 

If we resist writing about our heartaches and wounds, it could be that we’re refusing to deal with them.

 

Mick Silva at Higher Purpose Writers addresses that by quoting Adam McHugh:

 

“We are unable to get to the good that God works

because we cannot face the bad that life brings.”

Mick goes on to write, “That's the exact trouble I see so often editing Christian writers—their books are full of characters and situations that attempt to jump over the struggle and pain of life to apply scripture or platitudes and resolve readers’ angst.

“Christians are trained in many churches,” Mick says, “to habitually deny the true emotion and sadness we feel, and many think we're supposed to ‘claim the promises’ and slap a shiny ‘VICTORY’ sticker on. . . .”

Mick advises us to admit how bad things were in our devastating situation because “just accepting that makes it far better than we tend to realize.”

Acknowledging a bad experience opens a door,

inviting us to move toward the deep healing God offers

so we can move forward in life.

Here's the second reason for writing about your painful stuff: Second Corinthians 1:3-4 tell us God the Father comforts us in all our heartaches and afflictions so that in turn we can share the same comfort with others who are also going through difficulties. 

And so, Henri Nouwen is correct:

 

“Our sufferings and pains

are not simply bothersome interruptions

of our lives.”

 

You see, sharing our hardships can benefit readers. When we make ourselves vulnerable and share our agonizing experiences, readers recognize they have something in common with us.

 

Eileen Vorbach Collins writes about the angst she endured in trying to process her child’s suicide and then writing a memoir about it. “How can I be happy to be publishing a book that I wish I could not have written? Writing . . . was sometimes excruciating. Why couldn’t I put it behind me? Why couldn’t I move on?

 

“To write about grief, especially the suicide of a child, feels risky. The stigma is real. Will readers judge me? After all, what . . . kind of mother could I be? My child took her life and I’m capitalizing on it . . . by writing a book. . . .”

 

But then Eileen turned a corner because she realized other people need to know her story:

 

“I can only tell you that when newly bereaved,

I wanted nothing more than to read authentic stories 

by real people

who had survived the most terrible loss imaginable.

Stories that would show me

it was possible to find a place of bearable sorrow.

I hope my stories will do that for someone else.”

 

Eileen’s talking about turning her sorrows into blessings for others. She didn’t want her devastation to be wasted.

 

God can use you to bless others

so your suffering won’t be wasted.

 

Think about what Peter Guber says here:

“. . . Stories can be a stand-in for life,

allowing [us readers] to expand beyond what we could reasonably

squeeze into a lifetime of direct experience. . . .

We can take in the stories of others

who escaped life-threatening situations

without taking on the risk . . .

[and we have] an opportunity to try out solutions.” 

(Peter Guber)

 

When, by sharing our stories, we comfort others with the comfort God has given us, we offer readers experience, healing, wisdom, and choices.

 

“You are a bringer of meaning,” writes Joe Bunting.

 

“Your story should incorporate some joy,” Bunting says. “But pain is the Great Teacher.

 

“By bringing meaning to the pain, you bring meaning to the pain of the world. This is why people need story. They want to know they’re not alone. Others suffer just like them.

 

“They want to know their suffering has a purpose, that there is hope, redemption. . . .

 

“You think you’re just telling a story. But the truth is, you’re bringing life.” (Joe Bunting, The Meaning of Pain)

 

Things that caused you to weep and despair gave you a story to tell for the benefit of others.

 

If you want readers to see

how God brought beauty from your ashes,

they have to see, smell, hear, taste, and feel the ashes with you.

You have to make ‘em cry with you.

 

If you write your memoir well,

you will bring the story to a hope-filled, satisfying resolution.

You will accomplish what Joe Bunting calls “bringing life.”

 

Find healing through the process of writing your memoir

 

If you’re just starting to write your memoir, I have important advice for you.

 

Don’t do what a friend of mine did. When he began his memoir, he started by writing about the most traumatic year of his life. Whoa!

 

I’ve seen other people begin by writing super-painful stuff, too, only to become overwhelmed all over again with the devastation—and soon they gave up writing altogether. Don’t let that happen to you!

 

Please hear this: Begin your memoir by writing your easy stories—the happy stories, the funny incidents, the fascinating experiences. That way you can ease your way into both writing and the reflecting that memoir is.

 

My heart wants you to fall in love with

remembering

and pondering

and discovering all the good stuff you didn’t recognize in the past,

and with making sense of what used to mystify you,

and with writing

            and choosing just the right words

                        to fashion your story as a gift for others to read.

 

Keep in mind that you don’t need to write your chapters/vignettes in the same order they will appear in your finished memoir. Write them in any order that’s easiest for you. Later you can organize them in the best way.

 

For now, give yourself permission to start with easy stories. Tackle your hard stories later.

 

Also, keep this in mind: Even if you’re not physically putting your painful story into words (with pen and ink or on a computer screen), you are working on the story. I can’t explain how that works but, behind the scenes, your heart and brain are working on how to write your troubling story. 

 

So, let your heartache marinate for a few more weeks or months. One day you’ll be vacuuming the car, or playing catch with your grandson, or folding laundry when out of the blue, your heart and brain will speak to you (or maybe it’ll be God who speaks to you—I’d like to think it’s Him), and that voice will offer insights into your hurtful experience. Listen, and jot down notes to yourself: You’ll be mining treasures. Later you can use those notes to compose your difficult story’s rough draft. 

Remember this, too: Your rough draft is for your eyes only.  Write it all—the seared, charred, blistered parts, the questions you never had the courage to ask aloud, the doubts you never admitted before, the anger you kept bottled up.

Work out the pain—

work through the pain—

by writing with God beside you.

Wrestle with God

and with yourself

as you write.

Go ahead and cry.

Why?

Because God can bring healing

through the process of writing.

 

And be gentle with yourself, extend grace to yourself: Reliving those emotions and writing those scenes and conversations can be overwhelming.

 

I know of no anguish-free way to get through that writing process, but I can encourage you with this:

 

Write your story as a prayer to God

and He can use the process of writing

to help you make sense of events that

knocked the air out of you,

left you broken,

confused,

weary,

hopeless—

maybe even paralyzed—

and He can help you work through your grief.

 

If you’ll give it the needed time and if you’ll peel back enough layers and dig deep enough, writing your stories can lead to new insights, to answers that too long evaded you, and to resolution—to getting un-stuck so you can move on to healing and forgiveness and peace and hope for the future. Writing your story changes you.  

If you stick with it, at some point you'll find the most profound, redeeming part of writing your story:

• You'll discover that God was beside you all the while, bringing you people and opportunities and Bible verses and Bible studies and sermons, and working out His good plans—many details you probably didn't recognize in the midst of the incident, or saw only dimly, and
• you'll also discern how far you've come, how much you've healed.
• That, in turn, makes you overflow with gratitude toward God,
• and that solidifies your relationship with Him.

Mick Silva says it this way: “I’ve discovered that . . . protecting and preserving our stories is about discovering God’s story.” I call that your “God-and-you story.”

 

In that way, writing a memoir can be a journey of personal healing—even if you originally set out to write it for others.

 

And this is important: At some point, you’ll revise your manuscript. Your first draft, that for-your-eyes-only draft, will remain what it is. But use that rough material to craft a rewrite of your memoir for others to read.

 

Let God transform you through writing that painful first draft, and afterward, your God-and-you story can help others heal.

 

P. S. Did you read Tuesday’s post about Kathy Pooler’s experience writing her memoir? If you missed it, click on “Unveiling painful truths and moving to the other side of pain.” Since most memoirists must write about something painful, you don’t want to miss Kathy’s wisdom and encouragement.

 

 

Your brokenness can be the stuff of turning points and second chances for others

 

Devastating situations can knock the air out of us. Bring us to our knees.

 

Sometimes we cause our own tragedies, other times we’re innocent victims of someone else’s choices and actions. And often heartbreaks are part of life for everyone—like the death of a loved one.

 

Sometimes we are so broken, so helpless, we can’t do anything but fling ourselves into God’s arms and hold on.

 

And later—often much later—

we discover that within that place of crisis,

we learn our most important lessons—

 

• Sorrows can wrench us out of places we should never have wandered.
• Anguish can break down our stubbornness and make us willing, finally, to embrace a holy discontent with things that are not right in our lives.
• A crisis can force us to get serious about God and His forgiveness and grace—and about our need to forgive and extend grace to others.
• Devastation can shake us by the shoulders and convince us that God is worthy of all we are and all we have—that He is Number One.

 

In that way, our brokenness

can lead to our wholeness:

Heartbreaks can be the stuff of turning points

and second chances.

Personal disasters can lead to personal victories.

 

Some of you have been there. You messed up. Or maybe someone else messed up and left you devastated. Shattered. But you survived. Your broken self healed—by God’s grace. You’re living in a new chapter of your life.

 

• God has given you a new song to sing. (Psalm 40:1-3).
• He has given you beauty in place of ashes, gladness in place of mourning (Isaiah 61:3).
• He has restored places long devastated (Isaiah 61:4).
• He has turned your weeping into songs of joy (Psalm 126:5-6).

 

Write your story!

Someone needs to hear

that you got through your disaster.

 

Someone needs to know

that you are living a new and better life.

 

Not just that you got a new life—

but how you got there.

How did you and God, together,

get you to this new place?

 

Someone, sometime, will read your memoir—someone searching for answers, someone reeling in the midst of his or her own anguish, longing to turn a corner, desperate to receive a second chance, eager to leave the former life behind and make a fresh start. God can use your story to help answer their prayers, give them hope, and someone (you, through your memoir) to walk alongside them toward the other side.

 

In that way, you—just an ordinary person—can be a “messenger of the Most High.”

 

Take in the following:

 

“And so we understand that ordinary people are messengers of the Most High,” writes Lawrence Kushner. “They go about their tasks in holy anonymity. Often, even unknown to themselves. Yet, if they had not been there, if they had not said what they said or did what they did, it would not be the way it is now. We would not be the way we are now. Never forget that you, too, may be a messenger. Perhaps even one whose errand extends over several lifetimes.” (Eyes Remade for Wonder, Lawrence Kushner)

 

Read those last two sentences again with your memoir in mind:

 

“Never forget that you, too,

may be a messenger.

Perhaps even one whose errand

extends over several lifetimes.”

 

How can your stories extend over several lifetimes? By putting them in writing, making copies, and making sure your family knows they have copies—on a shelf somewhere, or in a box in the basement. They might not read your memoir in your lifetime, but someday, someone will read it.

 

Trust God—

He has given you a high calling.

 

Your stories matter.

 

Not so much because of who you are,

but because of who God is.

 

Commit your stories to Him,

believing He will use them to bless your readers.

 

“Your struggle to share your struggle changes the world.”

Mick Silva, Higher Purpose Writers

 

How to compose your memoir’s Back Matter

 

Recently we studied your memoir’s Front Matter, and this week we’ll begin looking at its Back Matter (or End Matter)—those pages that appear after the Main Body of your book.

 

Often I read a book’s Back Matter before reading the story itself.

 

Do you?

 

I’m drawn to the Back Matter because after reading it (as well as the Front Matter), I feel a connection to the author and have a better grasp of the story I will soon enter.

 

Many if not all Back Matter components are considered optional. This week we’ll look at the first two:

 

Acknowledgments:

 

Most people want to publicly thank those who helped them write their books.

 

But not everyone advocates including Acknowledgments. That seems strange, I know.

 

Mick Silva writes this about Acknowledgments: “I know many people who are against acknowledgment pages. But to me, . . .  acknowledgments are the best part of a book. Teamwork, camaraderie, and sacrificial love get poured into an author and their work, and it’s often on wonderful display in the acknowledgment pages. It’s a testament to all that goes into a book. . . .” Mick Silva, Higher Purpose Writers.

 

I agree, Mick, I agree!

 

Judith Briles offers a long list of those you could include in your Acknowledgments:  Click on Who Are You Going to Acknowledge in Your Book?

 

Tucker Max also offers insightful tips and examples in his post, How to Write Your Book Acknowledgments.

 

Author Bio (“About the Author”):

 

In my opinion, an Author Bio (“About the Author”) is a must. Usually the Author Bio is in the Back Matter, but occasionally you’ll find one in a book’s Front Matter. I favor placing it in the Back Matter.

 

You’ll write your Author Bio in third person. For example: “Jane Doe has written _____ and ______ . . . . She lives in ___________. . . .”

 

If you’re a speaker, and/or if you’ve written other books, newspaper/magazine articles, chapters for anthologies, or guest blog posts, include that in your Author Bio.

 

Also tell readers what makes you uniquely qualified to write your memoir. For example, in my Author Bio in Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir, I wrote that I’d spent three years working in South America which, you’ll no doubt agree, qualifies me to write a memoir about living there. I also included info about my other memoir, Grandma’s Letters from Africa, stating that I worked as a missionary journalist and that the publisher gave the memoir three awards.

 

If you haven’t previously published anything, don’t worry—just skip that aspect of your Author Bio. Joel Pitney offers this advice for first-timers: “Some authors don’t feel like they have enough to say about themselves; but just the fact that you’ve written a book makes you important enough to have at least a 3-4 line bio! Think creatively about what elements of who you are might be of interest to readers; don’t be shy!”

 

Consider including your education, background, past experiences, and interests, especially if they pertain to your memoir and lend credibility.

 

In my most recent Author Bio, I also included links to Facebook Pages for my two memoirs, followed by “In addition to speaking, Linda teaches the craft of writing memoir to community and church groups and through her blog, Spiritual Memoirs 101 at https://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com.”

 

Include links for your newsletter, as well as other social media info if you’re comfortable doing so.

 

And be sure to include a professional-quality photo of yourself.

 

For additional tips on how to write your Author Bio, click on the following:

4 Elements to Craft Your Author Bio

How to Write a Killer Author Bio

 

For now, work on your Acknowledgments and Author Bio, and come back next week when we’ll cover additional components of your memoir’s Back Matter.

 

Your memoir’s ministry: “through us, with us, in spite of us”

 

“Writing can be a true spiritual discipline,” writes Henri Nouwen.

 

He highlights one of the core aspects of writing memoirs—the necessity of, and blessing of, introspection and reflection and analysis of what happened in the past.

 

He points out that as we write, “new ideas emerge, ideas that surprise us and lead us to inner places we hardly knew were there.” Nouwen calls those “deep wells of hidden treasures.”

 

“Writing can help us concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories.”

 

“Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write,” Nouwen says. “Quite often a difficult, painful, or frustrating [event] can be ‘redeemed’ by writing about it. . . . Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others, too.”

 

Nouwen continues, “Each human being is unique. . . and nobody has lived what we have lived. . . . What we have lived, we have lived not just for ourselves but for others as well. Writing can . . . make our lives available . . . to others. We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told.” (Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey)

 

Maybe you doubt what Nouwen claims—maybe you doubt your story can be lifesaving for others.

 

Many would-be memoirists struggle with that.

 

But look at what dear Mick Silva discovered:

 

“For such a long time, I felt my story wasn’t important. . . .

I didn’t know who my story had made me. . . .

But exhuming it, the healing has been profound,

pulling me from ashes of charred memories. . . .

And the things I’ve discovered have been treasures. . . .

Through writing I’ve discovered that . . .

protecting and preserving our stories

is about discovering God’s story.

What he did through us, with us, in spite of us,

continually pursuing that story

is a matter of faithfulness and obedience,

to become aware and invest in this life he’s given.

To speak its life-affirming power in proper words and context,

it can be the delight of our lives,

an endless source of inspiration.”

(Mick Silva, Higher Purpose Writers)

 

“We are storytellers,” writes Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros. “With the help of God, it is up to us to steward our calling and steward it well.”

 

Believe this: Your story is important. 

Write it!

Make your life and your story available for others.

 

Is this the year you’ll publish your memoir?

 

Whew! Are you like me? When Christmas and New Years are behind me, I catch my breath, mentally turn, and step into a different chunk of the year.

 

The holidays hold many distractions—fun distractions, usually—but when we take down our old calendars and replace them with new calendars, it’s time to refocus. We look ahead and make plans: We remind ourselves we’ll have a couple of months of fewer hours of daylight, we’ll have cold weather and maybe snowy roads, and we’ll focus on indoor activities.

 

And that brings me to this indoor activity: How are you doing on writing your memoir?

 

Is this the year you’ll finalize your manuscript?

 

Is this the year you’ll pin down your memoir’s title?

 

Is this the year your book will get its cover design?

 

Is this the year you’ll publish your memoir?

 

Is this the year people—even strangers—will buy and read your memoir?

 

Is this the year your story will change lives?

 

If you’re like many of us, over the holidays you took a break from writing to spend time with family and friends, and now you need motivation to continue authoring your story.

 

Are you struggling to find that motivation—that incentive, that enthusiasm? If so, you’re not alone.

 

At such times, it’s easy to get distracted—because, for many, it’s hard to get back into the writing process. It’s hard to focus.

 

So we fidget. We check Instagram. Send a couple of text messages. Grab a snack, go shopping—all in an attempt to get back into our groove.

 

You’ll probably identify with this Mignon McLaughlin quote:

 

“There’s only one person

who needs a glass of water oftener than

a small child tucked in for the night,

and that’s a writer sitting down to write.”

 

Mick Silva at Higher Purpose Writers posted on Facebook a couple of years ago: “. . . Everyone says [persistence] is the most important part of writing. I’ve said it to all my clients: Most people don’t finish. Even if they finish a draft, they don’t follow through with the rewriting, or the rereading and editing. They just stop. . . .”

 

Refuse to let that happen to you!

 

Mick also offers this encouragement: “Consistent baby steps are important for when passion wanes.”

 

So, persist! Remember: Even baby steps result in progress.

 

And here’s a Nora Roberts quote to inspire you to keep working:

 

“. . . You have to be driven. You have to have the three D’s: drive, discipline, and desire. If you’re missing any one of those three, you can have all the talent in the world, but it’s going to be really hard to get anything done,” Nora says.

 

Here’s my advice: Pat yourself on the back for how far you’ve already come.

 

Since the clock is ticking, be intentional: Keep penning your first draft. Don’t judge your writing at this point. Sure, you’ll have to fix it, but you’ll tackle that later. For now, just write!

 

Focus. Resolve to complete your book.

 Persevere.

 Pray.

 

Writing and publishing your memoir is not a hobby—it’s a ministry.

 

You can do this! You can!

 

Make ‘em cry along with you as you cry

 

For the past few weeks, we’ve considered Wilkie Collins’s advice to writers: “Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait.” (If you missed earlier posts about “make ‘em laugh,” see list and links below.)

 

If you can make ‘em cry, you’ll pull readers into your story.

 

And you do want them to read your story, all the way to the end.

 

Why?

 

Because whether readers realize it or not, they’re looking to you for answers and direction. They want to know how you coped with life—sorrows and joys, victories and defeats, despair and hope.

 

They’re looking for a takeaway—that part of your story they will always hold close because it changed their lives.

 

Be sure your memoir has takeaways: your insights that they can apply to their own lives, lessons you learned that will guide them in the future, a resource for living life well, a reason to hope, a reason to trust God, a better understanding of themselves.

 

So let’s get back to making ‘em cry. That’s one way to leave readers with the blessings of your takeaways but, to receive them all, readers have to keep reading, and you can keep them reading if you make ‘em cry along with you as you cry.

 

Oh, but it’s hard to write about our life’s most painful parts!

 

The ache. Heartbreak. Grief. Anguish.

 

So many of us avoid writing the painful stuff.

 

Am I describing you? Have you been unable to write about the stuff that opens up old wounds?

 

How many of your stories remain untold?

 

Mick Silva says writers must be willing to take a chance—to risk examining our hard bits and pieces—and then to risk writing about them.

 

“That necessity to risk is why writing takes courage above all else,” he says.

 

“Risking pain to seek the deeper truths about yourself and life, risking sharing what you know.

 

“Risking paying close attention when you experience pain or fear, knowing it means you’ve been chosen to understand, express and explain this particular view of it best. . . .” (Mick Silva)

 

Writing about our sorrows can bring us healing (more on that in coming weeks), but there’s more—there’s another layer to your storytelling: God can use our stories.

 

God even planned for us to share our stories:

 

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 tells us that the God of all comfort reaches out to comfort us in our troubles so that we can comfort others with the comfort we have received from Him.

 

That means writing about how God helped you through painful experiences is a sacred calling, a ministry.

 

Take, for example, Dana Goodman’s experience:

 

“During my intense grieving moments, other people’s stories gave me words to describe the ache that was indescribable. They gave me hope that a new day would dawn, and I would not be stuck in the black forever.” (Dana Goodman, author, In the Cleft: Joy Comes in the Mourning)

 

And so, we write.

 

“In a world that groans of brokenness

and screams of injustice,

it matters that we hold our creative candles

right up next to the pain.”

Settle Monroe

 

A word of caution:

 

Writing about heartaches and wounds can be excruciating—because to write them requires us to relive them. If we haven’t healed enough to write those stories, we must wait until we can relive them and write them.

 

Next week we’ll look at one technique to help us write—but only when we are ready.

 

In the meantime, pray and ask God to help you write the painful stuff. Doing so can help your healing and can help readers, too—maybe in ways you could never have imagined.

 

Related posts:

Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em wait

Humor in your memoir: “like a sneak attack”

Using humor the right way in memoir

Make ‘em laugh: an instant connection