Writing Ideas

Writing and Healing Idea #34: The Next Step

Posted by Diane Morrow on April 24, 2007 in Writing Ideas

This idea is a continuation of Writing and Healing Idea #33: Imagining Refuge. It picks up at a moment after the old woman in the cottage has invited you to tell her your story. It picks up after you have talked and talked—and she has listened. She is, as it turns out, a good listener. And, it turns out that nothing in your story seems to rattle her. She’s interested—and concerned—but not rattled. She’s seen a lot. She’s no stranger to reversal. There is also a kindness in her. Her face is very very kind as she asks you: Did you think it was going to be like a rose garden? That it would be easy? That it would be possible to move forward on a matter of such significance without any danger? Have you not read the books? Seen the movies? The Lord of the Rings? The Harry Potter series? When you were young, she asks, were you not told the fairy tales? She smiles. It’s a rueful smile. It’s all right, she says. She knows it can be terribly terribly difficult at times. But she also tells you that she doesn’t want for you to remain too long in a place of such difficulty. She sits with you and begins to talk about a plan. The first step and then the next and the next. She tells you that one step in the right direction can often be enough—and then one devises the next one, and the one after. She reminds you that, as with the story of the handless maiden, the baby is not ugly, that the baby was never ugly. She explains about the messenger falling asleep and about the twisted messages getting through. Then, after enough time has passed—when it is just the right time—when you are rested—and well-fed—and perhaps a bit clearer—she rises from the table and begins to pack you a satchel. What do you imagine that she might pack for you? What would you like her to pack for you? Where does she think might be a good place for you to go next? (Does she, for instance, think it best to stay with her a bit longer? Or does she suggest some other companion? Or a group of companions? Or does she suggest that it may be time now to go on for a while alone?) What does she think might be a next step? What do you...

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Writing and Healing Idea #33: Imagining Refuge

Posted by Diane Morrow on April 22, 2007 in Writing Ideas

Imagine for a moment that you are at a point in the arc of healing when momentum is carrying you forward. There are positive signs, whatever those might be. There’s a feeling of hope. Of possibility. Of forward movement. And then imagine that just as you are beginning to consider it’s possible—healing is possible—imagine that you receive news of a reversal. Perhaps the reversal is felt in your body—pain, as bad as before, or worse. The fatigue has returned, and you’re mired in it. Or perhaps the reversal comes by way of a lab test or an x-ray. The tumor has grown. Or perhaps you encounter a rejection of some sort. Perhaps you are discouraged by the violence and heartache in the world—- Or perhaps you simply have one of those no-good awful terrible hopeless days. Perhaps it’s raining, hard, and you find yourself without an umbrella, the car parked another three blocks away, and maybe you’re carrying a paper bag, filled with groceries, and it’s wet, it breaks, the contents spilling down the sidewalk. . . . Imagine now—at this very moment—in the wake of a sharp, and potentially devastating reversal—imagine that a figure appears. Perhaps an old woman? She has a kindness about her, and, also, she’s been through some things, she seems to know things—there’s something about her eyes. She can see, for one thing, the obvious—that you are cold and wet and tired. But she can also see that you have come to an abyss. A place of frustration. A dashing of hope. She knows that this is a particularly difficult juncture for you. And she also knows that the first step out needs to be of the most basic kind. She invites you to come back with her to her cottage. She leads you back, ushers you inside. She shows you where you can take a hot bath. She lays out towels. A clean robe. When you come out of the bath she’s laid a place at the table for you—a bowl of soup, a basket of bread, a pitcher of water. You eat and drink, and, after you have done so, she shows you to a bedroom with a clean soft bed. You sleep and sleep, and she lets you sleep. When you wake you find her out in the kitchen. She offers you a cup of tea, or perhaps a mug of coffee. She asks you to sit at the table. And it’s only then, after you are warm and fed and rested, that she asks you to tell her all about it. About all that has happened and what your hopes were at the beginning and how, at least in some ways, those hopes have been dashed. She has, she tells you, plenty of time. She has all the time in the world. What would you tell...

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Writing and Healing Idea #32: Keeping a Process Journal: A Long-Term Solution to Writer’s Block

Posted by Diane Morrow on April 15, 2007 in Writing Ideas

Peter Elbow and Pat Belanoff, in their text, A Community of Writers, suggest that each writer keep something they call a process journal. It’s a way of learning from the ups and downs of one’s own process. It’s a way of learning more about what works for you as an individual—and what doesn’t. In a sense you are beginning to write your own very personalized, and individualized, textbook of writing. Elbow and Belanoff suggest, for instance, writing for a few minutes about the writing process itself whenever you have completed a significant piece of writing. What facilitated flow? What impeded it? “The goal,” they write, “is to find out what really happens—the facts of what occurred on that particular occasion. Don’t struggle for conclusions; trust that they’ll come.” Another way to use a process journal is to turn to it before you finish a piece of writing—when you’re right in the middle. This can be of particular benefit if you’re stuck. Sometimes what is happening when we get stuck is that our thoughts are too complex and convoluted to write the next line. In a process journal it becomes possible to hit this problem head on—to write about it. For instance: I have too much to say. . . It’s too complicated. . . And then, having said this, you can begin the process of untangling the complicated threads. It’s too complicated because. . . You can begin a process journal any time, including any time that you are stuck. You can begin it on a new sheet of paper or you can create a new document on your computer and begin there. You can begin a process journal by writing, I have too much to say. . . Or, I have nothing to say. . . Or, I wish I had something to say. . . Or, I wish that I wish I had something to say. . . Or I wish someone would bring me a sandwich because more than anything else right now I am hungry. . . And then you can keep going. I am hungry because. . . I have too much too say because. . . It’s too complicated because. ....

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Writing and Healing Idea #30: Chapter Titles

Posted by Diane Morrow on March 29, 2007 in Writing Ideas

This writing idea is offered as a companion to Writing Idea #29: Choosing a Title for Your Quest, which appears below. Say that this same person who needs you to generate a title for your book—your quest—also needs you to generate chapter titles—a structure for getting started. What might you name the chapters of your memoir? As with book titles, other people’s chapter titles can spark ideas. Here are some archetypal chapter titles from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces: The Call to Adventure Refusal of the Call Supernatural Aid The Crossing of the First Threshold The Belly of the Whale The Road of Trials And here are some chapters from Judy Blunt’s Breaking Clean: A Place of One’s Own Salvage Lessons in Silence The Year of the Horse The Reckoning What might your own chapter titles...

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Writing and Healing Idea #29: A Title for Your Quest

Posted by Diane Morrow on in Writing Ideas

Imagine for a moment that someone approaches you and tells you that they want to write a book about your life. But they need some help. They need a title for one thing. Perhaps they invite you to call out the first title that comes to mind. Then the second title. The third. Perhaps they tell you they need you to make a list of all the titles that come to mind and when you’re finished they offer to help you choose the best one. And perhaps it might help while you’re thinking about your own list of possible titles to consider other titles. You may want to look around your own bookshelf for ideas. Or a trip to the bookstore might provide inspiration. Or a trip to the library. Memoirs especially can be a good source of titles that embody a sense of quest. Here are four (five actually), drawn from my own bookshelves, and offered along with a brief summary of what each title depicts: Meditations from a Movable Chair. Andre Dubus’ collection of autobiographical pieces, written after Broken Vessels (that searing memoir published after he lost his legs in an accident) and describing life as he sees it now from the vantage point of his wheelchair.   Holy Hunger. Margaret Bullit-Jonas’ memoir about healing from an eating disorder and, in the process, reframing her hunger as a spiritual hunger.     Breaking Clean. Judy Blunt’s memoir of leaving the flats of Montana and her life as a rancher’s wife to pursue her own dreams.     Stronger than Dirt. A husband and wife’s memoir by Chris Losee and Kim Schaye about leaving Brooklyn to start a flower farm in upstate New York....

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