Tag: Writing a Book

This is a writing accountability blog. I have committed to publishing a book by March, 2024. I invite you on the journey as I plough through the internal and external obstacles I face. As the great Bette David loosely said in the movie “All About Eve.” “Buckle your seatbelts. It’s (likely) going to be a bumpy (ride.)”

What Color Should My Mother Be?

Final night at the Murphy Writing School in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The twelve memoir students read in the dance studio what they worked on this week. Throughout the readings of these diverse pieces of writing by diverse writers, I was transported to eras, countries, and life situations to which I had no previous exposure or knowledge. If I did know about them at all, my knowledge was glib and superficial.

These memoirists shared raw, wretched, deep, delicious, hilarious, poignant, wry memories and observations. We spent time in a psychiatric hospital with one writer tonight. When the writer’s husband left her for a 17-year-old girl shortly after the birth of their first baby, she mused that there was only one difference between her and her patients: she had the keys.

A young first-generation Vietnamese told the wrenching story of the long COVID his mother was suffering. She shunned conventional treatment because she followed the orange-headed leader’s claim that bleach would kill the bug and cure the problem.

An older American fellow revealed what he went through to extract a psychiatric evaluation to keep him out of Vietnam when he was drafted. Agemates of his were not as fortunate. One Vietnam veteran casualty was buried close to his family’s plot in their hometown.

A woman of Filipino descent shared her father’s World War II stories. One, in particular, underscored his futile attempt to stop a Japanese pilot friend from committing kamikaze, or, “divine wind.” It appears young Muslim suicide bombers have stepped up to weather the mantle of martyrdom.

Another woman mused tenderly about the inevitability of death for us all and how she wishes to embrace it when the time comes. A woman living with a stroke wrote about constant vacillation between hope and despair with her and others in physical therapy. A woman raging against the physical vagaries of age spoke hilariously on behalf of hundreds of thousands of aging women. In her diatribe, she spoke convincingly about the necessity of undergoing the same sort of renovation for her body as her house had recently been through.

The poetry readings last night and the memoir excerpts tonight had similar impacts: both were powerful and highly humanizing. School director Peter Murphy says, “Yes. This happens every time.” People’s personalities and characters emerge and their issues take shape when they focus on their writing And even more powerfully when their work is witnessed. Murphy continued: “Whether it is a smaller group like ours with under 50 students, he said, or workshops with 200 or more. There is magic in the doing of the writing. It changes you and it changes those who hear or read it.”

That, at the very least, is my dearest hope and ambition. Has the title of the post confused you at all? Well, me too. if I’m honest. I meant to talk about where my mother will likely fit in my life story and how I am going to capture the wealth of events and anecdotes. For a physically slight person, she was fairly imposing and affecting. But why do I have to decide what “color” she will be is TBD – to be decided. A next step in the book writing process.

As I leave this nourishing workshop environment today and head back to “real life,” you’ll just have to hold on to your questions until I fully explain tomorrow. I believe that is called a cliffhanger in LitSpeak.

If Words Be The Food of Life, Write On

Borrowing ever so loosely from William Shakespeare, I was humbled last night by the sheer talent of my fellow colleagues at the Murphy School of Writing Retreat here in Florida. I had drifted away from a felt sense of why words and writing are so vitally important. A general cynicism had befallen me after years of writing professionally. I use the term “writing” in the “government communications” context ever so loosely. Producing and publishing words for politicians and greedy, soulless clients whose only interest was whether they could manipulate the reader into parting with hard-won cash or votes was soul-crushing. Tonight, I started the process of relearning that words – which, admittedly, have their own limitations (more on that in a future post) – are the most effective tools we humans have to share our human experience with other humans. Words make us laugh. Words cross gulfs of isolation. Words make us think. Words teach us stuff. Words can make us cringe, bring forth tears, and leave us breathless with awe and wonder at the breadth, depth, and vagaries of the human experience. A mother speaking tremulously and tenderly about the birth of and life with her dearly beloved child who has cerebral palsy. A woman “of a certain age” speaking about finally discovering joyous orgasms after finding a loving partner with a “slow hand” in a sly nod to the Pointer Sisters’ massive 80s hit song. A woman who disclosed and bears the deep and immutable childhood insult and primal wound of incest. She called it a “dent.” Another with similar primal wounds due to rape shared her outrage at those who would question how “it” happened. Rape victims hear that line of questioning all the time. Another recalled a carefree day in her youth exploring a big, dirty city with a dear lifelong friend. Her final poem was a study in controlled rage and exasperation over the America she loves and lives in which – she implored – “desperately needs to get its act together.” And from a farm-raised writer, sharing the sensual joy of spraying warm milk from a cow’s udder at cloying kittens with open mouths. I had forgotten or lost contact with words’ ability to transport us somewhere else in time, place, or experience. Glennon Doyle wrote and encouraged us to know and understand that “we can do hard things.” These writers certainly did and do. I had forgotten about the power of words to move and deeply shake us emotionally. I had completely forgotten about the power of words to change us by changing what we know, how we think, and even our sense of who we are. Most basically, words can make us feel less alone and isolated on this big crazy planet in this crazy time. For that learning alone, this retreat has been worth it. Tonight’s performance will be by the memoir group. I am still reeling, chortling, and choking back tears after tonight’s iridescent performances. After tonight, I could well be emotionally apoplectic.