Today’s post is inspired by Creativity Coach Suzanne Murray.
Photo by John Pierce.
Suzanne writes:
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Suzanne Murray is a writing coach, creativity coach, and EFT worker.
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Guest Blogger Nancy Julien Kopp writes about a topic I am passionate about: Healing through writing.WRITING ABOUT DIFFICULT TIMES IN YOUR LIFE
When life hands us situations that hurt, we sometimes want to push it away, hide it in a closet. It’s too hard to bring it forth and try to deal with the misfortune. There are so many events in our life that create deep wounds and leave scars—the death of a spouse, losing a child, being in a terrible accident, losing a home to fire or a tornado, a difficult romance and break-up. The list could go on and on.
I believe that writing about whatever happened has benefits. It is cathartic for the writer and can be a help to readers who have gone through a similar situation. You’re a double winner if you aid both yourself and those readers who have been through something difficult.
It’s definitely not easy to write about a tragedy in your life. It cannot always be done immediately after the event. For me, it took almost 30 years before I could write about the loss of two infants born three years apart. I wanted to but the time was not right for me to do that. When I finally was able to write about those two difficult times in my life, and my husband’s, it seemed that a dam opened and I wrote one story after another. Did it help me? I think it finally brought the peace I had sought and not found all those earlier years. It also made me feel good that I brought something to others who had gone through a similar tragedy. I would not advise waiting such a long time to write, however.
Ernest Hemingway has passed on many pieces of advice for writers. His quote that fits today’s topic is “Write hard and clear about what hurts.” When you’re writing about something that has hurt you deeply, it’s best to address it head first. Some writers will tip-toe around whatever happened and perhaps infer but not really explain. That’s not fair to you or your readers. If you decide to write about that deep hurt, do it the way the quote says—write hard and clear.
Give the facts of what occurred but also reach into your mind for your feelings, your attitude, the way you dealt with it. This kind of writing is filled with emotion and should be. For you, the writer, it can be a blessed release. Occasionally, what you write will surprise you. You’re not aware of some the buried thoughts you have.
There are writers who can’t or won’t write about a hard time they experienced because they feel it is too personal to share with others. That’s showing the difference in people and personalities. If you can’t write about a hard time to share with others, do it for yourself. Write the story and how it affected you and put it away in a drawer or a safe deposit box or a computer file—somewhere that is just for you to see and read. There’s nothing wrong in not sharing with others. The main thing is that writing about whatever hurt you will be helpful. If nothing else, you can realize exactly how the situation did affect you or how it may have changed you.
Whether you write about tragedies in your life for yourself only or for others, do write. It can’t hurt and it certainly might help.
Nancy Julien Kopp lives and writes in Manhattan, KS. She writes creative nonfiction, poetry, personal essays, children’s fiction, and articles on the craft of writing. She has stories in 21 Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies, ezines, other anthologies, newspapers and magazines.
She posts Monday through Friday on her blog about her writing world with tips and encouragement for writers.
Note from Marlene: I recently discovered Nancy and her blog, Writer Granny’s World by Nancy Julien Kopp, and am loving her writing and thought process. I like the way she thinks and encourages writers.
For suggestions about how to write about difficult things:
Does your heart hurt? Prompt #269
Make Sense of Your World Through Writing
How To Write Without Adding Trauma
Things Falling Apart Is A Kind of Testing-Pema Chodron
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Guest Blogger Ted Moreno asks: Are you enjoying life or racing to your grave?
Life has been very busy…
In fact, it has been at times overwhelming, like life has been turned up to a higher speed. Ever feel that way?
I don’t do very well when I feel like life is an out of control ride and I can’t get off. I don’t sleep as well, don’t eat as healthy as I like to. I start to feel out of control.
What’s that line from that Ozzy Osborne song? “I’m going off the rails on a crazy train.”
I know I can’t control how life shows up, but I do try to control my response to whatever life is giving (or throwing at) me. I want to stay calm, positive and un-freaky. It’s not easy.
There are two things I do that are necessary for me to stay sane. One is taking a brisk walk or jog every day, if possible, around the lake near my house.
The other, more important thing, is getting up on Sunday mornings, preferably before 6 am, walking down to the local Starbucks, getting coffee for myself and my wife, and spending a few hours alone in my home office before the world starts getting all noisy.
You know how when you are in a very high place, you see the world differently? Like in an airplane, or a tall building, you get a different perspective?
That Sunday morning time offers me a higher perspective of my life.
It starts when I leave my house and walk out into the cool morning air. I ask myself, “How’s my life? How am I? How are things? What’s happening?”
When I get back into my home office, maybe I’ll write in a journal, usually stuff that’s pissing me off, but also things that seem weird or interesting in my life. I’ll pull a book off the book shelf randomly and just open it to see if there is some wisdom I’m meant to have. I’ll listen to music.
This is how I create space on a weekly basis to step out of the stream of my life and check it out from a different perspective. It makes me feel as if I’m enjoying the ride rather than just racing to the grave. Oftentimes, I see things about my life I didn’t see before.
I create the space and time to view my life from a higher place, and it’s a place of non-judgement, a place of peace and observation, with the intent to be mindful of the experience of life.
I’m sure many of you already do something like this, like sitting on your deck, or meditating or going to church or temple. If you don’t, consider giving it a try.
Space and time, these are the things that can get very scarce in our modern lives. Give them to yourself as a gift.
Ted A. Moreno is a hypnotherapist, success performance coach, published author, educator and sought-after speaker who helps his clients become free from fear and anxiety, procrastination and bad habits such as smoking.
He is a Certified Hypnotherapist, Certified NLP Practitioner, and holds the Master Certification as a Therapeutic Imagery Facilitator. In addition, Ted is an Honors Graduate of the Hypnosis Motivation Institute and a recipient of the Director’s Award from HMI, awarded for exceptional professional achievement during clinical residency. Ted’s book, “The Ultimate Guide to Letting Go of Negativity and Fear and Loving Life” is available on Amazon.com.
Check out his latest podcasts, “Just Because Life is Hard Doesn’t Mean That You Suck,” and “Public Speaking: A Fear Worse Than Death.” Click here to listen to my podcast Ted in Your Head.
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Guest Blogger Suzanne Murray writes about using imagination with a quote from Thoreau.This world is but a canvas to our imagination. – Henry David Thoreau
We use our imagination all the time, whether we realize it or not. When we are worrying about a future event we are imagining the possibility of a negative outcome. When we are thinking about our next dream vacation we are imagining the place and what we may be doing there. When we are being creative we are imagining scenes as we write, the cake rising as we mix the ingredients for baking, or the blank canvas giving rise to color.
Yet most of us don’t think much about the ways we use our imagination and the mystery of how it works. Most of us hold tight to the confines of the mind, living from its repeating pattern rather than being open to the infinite possibilities that live in our imagination.
All creative acts arise in the imagination. If you can imagine it, you can create it. When Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them,” he was suggesting that we need to work less with our minds and more with our imagination.
So how do we do this when we are used to trying to figure everything out and understand how to change or create something? How do we play with this incredible capacity of imagination that we all have?
It’s like building a muscle. The more we use it, the stronger it becomes and the more we can trust it to support us. A willingness to play where we pretend something is real and true, the way we did as children is a good beginning.
Try this. Talk to a tree. Whether it outside your window or in your local park. You don’t have to do this out loud. Just ask the tree a question about a problem you are trying to solve or something you want a creative answer to.
Take a few deep breaths, relax, let your mind quiet a bit and see what comes to you.
Or you could do this as a writing exercise where you ask the question of a tree by writing it on the page and then allow the tree to answer you through stream of consciousness writing where you just let the words flow.
The key is to have fun with our imagination. Know that it is the doorway to the expanded capacities we need in our live and in the world today.
Suzanne Murray is a writing coach, creativity coach, and an EFT practitioner.
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) I’ve been working with EFT in new ways that allow us to laser in on the issue and shift it at the core. We often make significant shifts in a single session. Sessions are available by phone and Skype,
Would you like to live from an expanded place of grace, ease and flow? Would you like to tap the wisdom and power of your heart and soul? We work with soul based ways to let go of limitation and gaining clarity of the next steps to living a more joyful, authentic life.
CREATIVITY COACHING
I offer practical, emotional and soulful strategies to help you fully uncover your creative gifts and support yourself in expressing them.I offer online coaching to support you and coach you through any resistance or problems along the way. I hold the space of unconditional acceptance and support to nurturing your unique voice and work on the stories that are really important to you.
The Heart of Writing eBook
Jumpstart the Process, Find Your Voice, Calm the Inner Critic and Tap the Creative Flow. Available on Amazon Kindle.
Suzanne Murray Blog for ideas on writing, creativity and life coaching. Follow Suzanne on Twitter at @wildcreativity where she tweets inspirational quotes for creativity and life.
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Guest Blogger Roger Lubeck: The importance of details in memoir to enhance your story.
There are people and events in our life that shape who we are. What we value and the lives we lead. The events and people can be big and small. Stopping for cigarettes and the car accident that followed. Taking the last United flight out of New York on September 10, 2001. Growing up in Michigan, water was a part of my life. Swimming and boating, lake cottages, and fish frys; frog legs, whitefish (pike) and perch were staples in that culture and still are. The same was true in Minnesota, except the preferred fish was Walleye caught while ice fishing.
Sometimes in telling a personal story we get lost in the wrong details and back stories. In telling a personal story we forget about plot and pace. Often, I have found myself saying, “I guess you had to be there,” meaning the point of the story was lost on the audience. This is usually a sign that I talked too long, and the audience lost interest. Note the fish story above.
The story you write for a memoir has to be interesting, even entertaining. It has to be more than the facts. Whether a tragedy or comedy, it has to paint a rich picture of the people and times during which your life changing event happened. The story should have a beginning, middle, and end, characters and conflict. In the end, remember, in telling your story, we, an audience of strangers, have to become invested in the story, too.
Roger Lubeck, Ph.D. After a career in consulting and teaching, Roger is focused on writing, photography, book design, and publishing. He is President on the Board of Directors for Redwood Writers. Roger was the editor on four anthologies and a memoir. Roger has designed covers and interiors for eighteen books. Roger’s published work includes business articles, short stories, seven novels, and two business books. Roger has written a contest winning ten-minute play and two prize winning short stories. His newest novel, Ghosts in Horseshoe Canyon, is a modern crime novel set in southern Utah. In addition, Roger is developing a treatment and screen plays for a movie and a new TV comedy.
Roger’s books are available on Amazon.
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Guest Blogger Alison Luterman writes about going deep with your writing.Originally posted in her May 1 newsletter.
Many years ago, in Hawaii, I got a chance to go “scuba diving.” I’m putting the words in quotes because it was really pretend scuba diving for tourists. There was no training involved other than the most basic instructions on how to breathe through a tube connected to the oxygen tank that was strapped to each person’s back. I think we had to sign a waiver saying we would not sue the company if we drowned. Then a group of us waded out, submerged, and voila! We were “scuba diving.”
Well, not quite. My man-friend, S., had heavy bones and big muscles and he descended like a stone to the ocean floor. I could see him fifteen feet below me picking up beautiful shells while I floated directly above him. I couldn’t sink. They gave me a weight belt affixed with all kinds of metal doodads which allowed me to at least get below the surface, but my small bones, light muscles and, ahem, general fluffiness meant that my body just wouldn’t go down to the depths where S was exploring. Instead I watched him, and enjoyed what I could see from the mid-level.
I thought about this image last week in memoir class when the timer went off—we had been writing for thirty minutes—and I softly announced that it was break time. My students ignored me and kept writing. They were down there on the ocean floor with all the sea creatures and hidden caves and to come up too quickly would have given them the bends.
I let them go on for another five minutes, at which point I set a good example by standing up and stretching. No one even looked up. They were too busy confronting dragons and consorting with mer-people.
“They say sitting is the new smoking,” I remarked helpfully. Silence, except for the sounds of pens scratching and computer keys clicking.
When they finally consented to stop writing and shared their work aloud, I was reminded again of the image of one diver floating directly above the other. Because of the nature of the reading assignment and our discussion, many of them had felt prompted to write about trauma. Trauma writing is a place where you can often viscerally feel various layers of consciousness operating at the same time. Deepest down is the Child or the Actor, the person who experienced what happened. He or she is like my friend S., at the bottom of the ocean floor, experiencing all the details.
Hovering just above the Child is the Witness-Self, taking notes. The Witness is in touch with the Child, but can see more of what’s going on than the Child does. The Child cannot see the Witness just as S couldn’t see me during our whole dive, (he told me later he had spent the whole sojourn wondering where I was.)
The Witness floats like a guardian angel near the Child’s back, even if the Child is oblivious.
Floating above them both is the Writer-Self who is close enough to the surface to be aware that there’s a whole other sunlit world out there. The Writer-Self knows how things turn out in the long run and she can, if needed, give a larger context (political, social, spiritual) to the story.
It’s important to say here that the depths can be scary but they’re also nourishing and rich. They’re the ancient birthplace and deathplace, place of mystery and regeneration. It takes courage to return there to uncover the bones and retrieve the gems. And the support of a class or group can help.
This particular class of psychic scuba divers are very dear to me, for their courage and stubbornness and willingness to stay deep until they have completed their mission, until they are down to their last sips of oxygen.
Note from Marlene: There are many wonderful writing teachers who can help you go deep in your writing. Check your local resources. In Sonoma County, writing teachers are listed in the Sonoma County Literary Update.
The Write Spot Blog posts for suggestions on how to write about difficult situations without retraumatizing yourself:
How to Write Without Adding Trauma
Suzan Hagen’s Guest Blog Post on The Write Spot Blog : Healing Through Writing
Alison Luterman is a poet, essayist and playwright. Her books include the poetry collections Desire Zoo (Tia Chucha Press), The Largest Possible Life (Cleveland State University Press) and See How We Almost Fly (Pearl Editions) and a collection of essays, Feral City (SheBooks). Luterman’s plays include Saying Kaddish With My Sister, Hot Water, Glitter and Spew, Oasis, and The Recruiter and the musical, The Chain.
Her writings have been published in The Sun, The New York Times, The Boston Phoenix, Rattle, The Brooklyn Review, Oberon, Tattoo Highway, Ping Pong, Kalliope, Poetry East, Poet Lore, Poetry 180, Slipstream, and other journals and anthologies.
Go to Alison’s website for writing workshop dates as well as her coaching and editing work.
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Guest Blogger, Author Rachael Herron has this to say:Hi readers and writers,
You’re an artist in some way.
Yes, you. I see you there, hiding there in the back shaking your head. I just like to read books. I’m not creative.
What do you do that brings you joy? What do you make? Cookies? Scarves? Do you sing in the car? Do you have a great eye for color?
Yes, keep reading. You’re creative, and I’m so glad to talk to you.
I’m back from my month off (oh, joy), and I’m so relieved to be back at work (I don’t relax well). I’m currently revising a thriller. It’s a departure for me, and it’s what I’ve wanted to write for years. The 911 dispatcher picks up the phone to find her daughter on the other end of the line, and it’s bad, y’all.
I was a dispatcher for many years, and I always knew that when I didn’t work for the department anymore, I’d write about the long, tedious hours, and the pure adrenaline that pounds through your system when lives truly hang in the balance. I’d make it exciting and realistic.
I wrote the thriller. It’s got a mother/daughter team that I just love. I adore the book.
And man, is it kicking my ass.
My incredible, intelligent, and very market-savvy agent is having me revise it again, to get it into the best shape possible before she tries to sell it. She’s right about everything that I need to fix, even though the last time I sent it to her, I was pretty sure it was just about perfect.
It wasn’t.
And every single day, I don’t want to work on it. It feels like doing the same thing over and over. What’s the point?
Sometimes?
It’s just hard to keep going, no matter what we’re in the middle of doing. The political climate is beating us down. Loss happens. Grief arises.
Just getting through the day can be rough.
- If you’re a mother, tomorrow will dawn, and you’ll have to get up to do it all over again, no matter how little sleep you get tonight.
- If you’re a musician, you wonder if your best composition is behind you.
- If you’re a writer, you struggle to string three words together, even though it’s all you want to do.
- If you’re a mother and a musician and a writer, then I simply bow your magnificent direction. 🙏
So that begs the question:
How do we keep going?
I had a chat with my friend Marrije this morning. I asked how her writing is going, and she held up a small blank book. She told me that every day, no matter what, she writes one page in it from the point of view of one of her characters. Often that work makes it into the novel she’s working on, and sometimes it’s background work to better understand her characters.
But it’s her baseline.
It’s the least she allows herself to do.
It keeps her creative writing spark alive.
I picture Marrije leaning down and blowing gently over the paper, once a day. Even if she has no time for anything else, the fact that she touched the work, that she blew until the ember glowed, keeps her going.
And because she does that, the world speaks to her. She finds synchronicity in the happenings around her—she sees an article that inspires a new plot point, or she hears a conversation that illuminates a character trait.
What’s your baseline?
What’s the bare minimum you can decide to do daily to keep your spark alive?
Marrije also pointed me to an AMAZING (truly) talk by the wondrous Austin Kleon with 10 Tips to Keep Going. You should watch this. You won’t regret the time spent. The end, especially, moved me.
So, my friend, find your baseline. Name it. Know it.
Then blow on that spark gently. Grow the ember to a flame and then to a blaze. Feel that warmth. You’re worth it.
Note from Marlene: I watched the 26 minute Austin Kleon video. Totally worth the time. 🙂
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“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.”—Stephen Hawking“Don’t ever give up.”
That’s the message here on The Write Spot Blog.
Just Write. And keep writing.
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Note from Marlene: Guest Blogger Susan Hagen encourages us to have fun. And shows us how we can heal through writing . . . one of my strong beliefs, also.I hope you enjoy Susan’s post:
To celebrate our 62nd birthdays, my best friend and I recently spent the weekend in Disneyland. Despite creaky knees and stiff backs, we were ready to party like … well, like eight-year-olds.
We had great fun on the (not-too-wild) rides and enjoyed being playful and somewhat silly. But in that space of awareness about our childhoods, what arose in both of us were memories of disappointing birthdays of the past.
It’s never too late to have that birthday cupcake.
For me, it was 1963, the year I turned eight. My mother was supposed to bring chocolate cupcakes to my third-grade class at the end of the school day.
But a few days before my birthday, President John F. Kennedy was shot. Guess what day his funeral was? That’s right. My birthday. No school, no cupcakes, no party. I was too young to understand why everything shut down that day. All I knew was that my birthday was ruined, and I was devastated.
Disneyland was my cupcake.
So at age 62, I made Disneyland my cupcake. I screamed like an eight-year-old on the roller coaster. I ate the ears off more than one Mickey Mouse confection. I even climbed aboard a few kiddie rides with my BFF, who found a way to heal her own birthday traumas, too.
When the weekend was over, we declared it all complete. We’d both had the best birthday EVER in the Happiest Place on Earth.
You can heal that stuff through writing, too.
Sometimes it takes putting your story down on paper to see how you can heal things from the past. Writing helps us bring ourselves current. We write a story about some part of our lives, and then we see how we’ve grown—not only since that time, but maybe even because of it. Writing helps us illuminate the dark places. It helps us bloom into greater self-awareness and self-acceptance. And it helps us make sense of our lives: how we got to here from there.
So go ahead. Have that birthday cupcake, even if it is 54 years old!
Susan Hagen’s writing career began in the 1970s as a newspaper reporter in Northern California. She later served as editor of employee publications. She has since worked as a freelance writer for more than 100 corporations and nonprofit agencies across the country.
In 1994, Susan became a firefighter and emergency medical technician in rural Sonoma County, California, where half the members of her firehouse were women. Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, she and her colleagues were acutely aware of the absence of women in media portrayals of rescue workers at Ground Zero.
Susan combined her knowledge of the fire service with her experience as a writer to conceive of the idea for the book, Women at Ground Zero: Stories of Courage and Compassion, with co-author, Mary Carouba. She and Mary traveled to New York City to find and interview female first responders for their award-winning book, which was published by Penguin Putnam in 2002.
Since the publication of Women at Ground Zero, Susan has seen firsthand the power of sharing one’s story. Many of the women featured in her book believe that telling their stories was the first step in healing from the tragedy of 9/11. Susan draws on these experiences, along with those from her own life-changing journey, to help others give voice to the stories of their lives.
Note from Marlene: Women at Ground Zero is one of my favorite books. A fascinating story of remarkable courage . . . the courage that took Hagen and Carouba from their comfortable home in Northern California to New York City to learn more about the first responders for the attack on New York City. They interviewed 30 women whose stories are told in detail in this riveting book that reads like a novel.
