The truth is that it is really quite difficult to describe any human being. So the writer says, ‘this is what happened.’ But she doesn’t say what the person was like to whom it happened. And so the events mean very little unless we know first to whom they happen.
-- Virginia Woolf, Author & Memoirist
I will never forget the women in the first writing group I put together in Taos, New Mexico almost twenty years ago. Remarkable women, vivacious, charming and so very talented, they were some of the best teachers I've ever had. We gathered once a week around the kiva fireplace in my tiny pink adobe cottage for about a year and what transpired then and there was an alchemy that only a midlife woman, endowed with a burning desire to know how to live fully her second life, could know.
Virginia
Twenty years ago modern day memoir writing was reaching its peak and anyone working with autobiographical material realized the debt owed to our chosen muse, Virginia Woolf. Virginia paved the way by laying a groundwork for the frankly personal writing then beginning to enjoy a resurgence. Known for her literary innovations in the early 20th century she brought her unique stamp of individuality to the genre, giving fair warning that many memoirs are failures for just one reason: They "leave out the person to whom things happened." She was adamant that if you want to write memoir, an understanding your past is the foundation for coming to a point of view about the meaning of the present. This is the prime prerequisite to finding your true writer’s voice and if you try to tell your story without this voice, the story you choose to tell will not only lack interest it will probably languish or be instantly forgotten. She said it well when she noted that "stories becalmed in the doldrums of neutrality become neither fiction nor memoir. The reader loses respect for the writer who claims the privilege of being the hero in her own story without meeting her responsibility to pursue meaning."
Virginia
Twenty years ago modern day memoir writing was reaching its peak and anyone working with autobiographical material realized the debt owed to our chosen muse, Virginia Woolf. Virginia paved the way by laying a groundwork for the frankly personal writing then beginning to enjoy a resurgence. Known for her literary innovations in the early 20th century she brought her unique stamp of individuality to the genre, giving fair warning that many memoirs are failures for just one reason: They "leave out the person to whom things happened." She was adamant that if you want to write memoir, an understanding your past is the foundation for coming to a point of view about the meaning of the present. This is the prime prerequisite to finding your true writer’s voice and if you try to tell your story without this voice, the story you choose to tell will not only lack interest it will probably languish or be instantly forgotten. She said it well when she noted that "stories becalmed in the doldrums of neutrality become neither fiction nor memoir. The reader loses respect for the writer who claims the privilege of being the hero in her own story without meeting her responsibility to pursue meaning."
Me
I'd learned the truth of this back in my journalist days when I wrote a weekly column about entrepreneurs and my job depended upon my ability to build a loyal reader following. I soon figured out I couldn't write to Everybody but I could write to Somebody. And I could tell them enough about myself so that they knew I was a real person with the ability to establish a relationship between writer and reader from the first sentence in. I wrote as if I was having an intimate conversation about thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams, desires and aspirations. I knew that Somebody wanted to feel they were being allowed to listen in on a series of confidences, that they’d been invited to sit on a special little perch with me that gave them a view they couldn’t get anywhere else. “Hi, good to see you again, and listen, you will never believe what happened, let me tell you the latest…”. Clearly, it's really the voice and mood that are the important elements in conveying the necessary sense of immediacy and confidentiality. Any successful story, no matter what form it takes – memoir, column, rumination, anecdote, diatribe, fantasy, food or travel story – requires above all that your reader feel spoken to directly and and that he or she feels they can trust the writer's voice to deliver the truth.
I'd learned the truth of this back in my journalist days when I wrote a weekly column about entrepreneurs and my job depended upon my ability to build a loyal reader following. I soon figured out I couldn't write to Everybody but I could write to Somebody. And I could tell them enough about myself so that they knew I was a real person with the ability to establish a relationship between writer and reader from the first sentence in. I wrote as if I was having an intimate conversation about thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams, desires and aspirations. I knew that Somebody wanted to feel they were being allowed to listen in on a series of confidences, that they’d been invited to sit on a special little perch with me that gave them a view they couldn’t get anywhere else. “Hi, good to see you again, and listen, you will never believe what happened, let me tell you the latest…”. Clearly, it's really the voice and mood that are the important elements in conveying the necessary sense of immediacy and confidentiality. Any successful story, no matter what form it takes – memoir, column, rumination, anecdote, diatribe, fantasy, food or travel story – requires above all that your reader feel spoken to directly and and that he or she feels they can trust the writer's voice to deliver the truth.
Us
When I decided to take my journalistic skills and apply them to teaching I don't think I fully realized the enormous benefits I would reap. It was clear I had a lot to learn and these women were intended to be my teachers. Lucky me! As the weeks went by and our fledgling writer's group grew stronger the truth of Woolf's pronouncements became abundantly clear. All of us
stumbled into deeper and more verdant places that revealed ourselves and our
past, and each began to find the elusive ‘voice’ that is unique and special and precious. Even if we wanted to we could never mistake the voices
that were becoming strong, loud and clear. It was, as I said, a special time and place with each woman ready to say hello to a past to which she would ultimately say goodbye. I think it was Annie Dillard, the brilliant writer and memoirist, who said that to write about your past is to cannibalize it and that once you've written it, you'll never be the same person again. It's true and the women in our group proved it. Thank you ladies, you've meant the world to me.
Nadia
Nadia tended to write in strong declarative sentences with very little superfluous description. She was our ‘just the facts ma’am’ expert. She’d grown up in Germany and was a small and frightened girl during the WWII bombing of Dresden. She still spoke with the merest hint of accent, and somehow it was perfect for holding everyone rapt when she read her story with just the right amount of historical detail and accuracy, bringing it to life with her descriptions of being driven almost crazy by the wailing warning sirens and the ensuing rain of destruction on her and her family’s hiding places. It was an experience that found us enthralled, knowing it was unlikely that any of us would probably ever experience anything like it. She finished her full blown memoir before any of us and it was, in a word, great. She had the gift of the storyteller, the mental approach of a builder and the focus and endurance of a long distance runner. That's what it took to get it out there and she inspired us all.
Nadia
Nadia tended to write in strong declarative sentences with very little superfluous description. She was our ‘just the facts ma’am’ expert. She’d grown up in Germany and was a small and frightened girl during the WWII bombing of Dresden. She still spoke with the merest hint of accent, and somehow it was perfect for holding everyone rapt when she read her story with just the right amount of historical detail and accuracy, bringing it to life with her descriptions of being driven almost crazy by the wailing warning sirens and the ensuing rain of destruction on her and her family’s hiding places. It was an experience that found us enthralled, knowing it was unlikely that any of us would probably ever experience anything like it. She finished her full blown memoir before any of us and it was, in a word, great. She had the gift of the storyteller, the mental approach of a builder and the focus and endurance of a long distance runner. That's what it took to get it out there and she inspired us all.
Katherine
Earth Mother Katherine on the other hand, never
failed to include some engrossing emotional or romantic detail generally
concerning her own reactions to life as she found it. Her ethnicity was the
focus on a number of occasions, revealing poignant tribal roots and stories
while providing instructive lessons about the hurts and horrors of present day
race relations. She'd been a devout Catholic, left the church, found a new spiritual path and later began to write seriously, entering her work successfully in contests. She was interested in psychic matters and used her abilities to bring an incredible depth and richness of feeling to the dramatic renderings she favored. It didn't take her long to master the 'you are there' element so necessary to unforgettable stories.
Nancy
Nancy was something of a blend of Nadia and Katherine as
she knew how to describe a scene but wasn’t afraid to reveal some of her
emotional landscape as well. The colorful sense memory was her forte as she had
the eye and ear of an artist. She didn’t just grow up in Connecticut, she ‘lived by the ocean,
awakening each day to the snap of faded but still colorful beachfront flags
whipped by the incessant winds and twisting throughout the day to provide
directional cues to would be sailors.’ Wow, I thought, what I wouldn’t give to
have been there. I kept in touch with Nancy for many years, until she moved back to Connecticut from Taos several years ago. She was so adept at bringing her experience to paper and had the fortitude of a bull (now that I think of it I remember she was a Taurus). But I've never forgotten her amazing ability to look deeply and profoundly into the hearts and minds of others and react with feeling straight from the heart.
Martha
Marvelous, musical and mellow, Martha entered shyly into the group experience, having lost herself for years in the lives of others. She wrote stiffly in the beginning but soon developed a superb style that simultaneously and very successfully brought together factual recollection with the necessary personal emotional resonance. I remember to this day a description she wrote about her mother's wedding dress, the gauzy white lace flowing out of the dumpster where it had been deposited when she and her siblings had to clean out the old homestead after her mother's death. So poignant, so brave, so real. But that was Martha. You always got just what you saw, which was sometimes very little, sometimes more than she could hold in all at once. She worked for years on her memoir and dug deeply to uncover incredible riches acquired over a lifetime, realized fully only in her seventh decade.
Helen
Martha
Marvelous, musical and mellow, Martha entered shyly into the group experience, having lost herself for years in the lives of others. She wrote stiffly in the beginning but soon developed a superb style that simultaneously and very successfully brought together factual recollection with the necessary personal emotional resonance. I remember to this day a description she wrote about her mother's wedding dress, the gauzy white lace flowing out of the dumpster where it had been deposited when she and her siblings had to clean out the old homestead after her mother's death. So poignant, so brave, so real. But that was Martha. You always got just what you saw, which was sometimes very little, sometimes more than she could hold in all at once. She worked for years on her memoir and dug deeply to uncover incredible riches acquired over a lifetime, realized fully only in her seventh decade.
Helen
The oldest of us, in her eighties then, Helen simply forged ahead with her
chronicle, scene after scene of factual recollection, a genuine family history intended for her children and grandchildren. Unremarkable in one
sense and yet because she was who she was and had lived a deeply interesting
and satisfying life, her remembrances were so authentic and true to her own voice that they could not help but be interesting and satisfying to us too. Her Jewish mother persona shone through loud and clear,
a strong and archetypal image that I for one have always found it hard to
resist. I heard she died a few years ago, still writing but having written enough so that her family has an irreplaceable legacy to cherish forever.
Marianne
Marianne joined the group later and she tended to read as if she
were whispering secrets and as we craned our heads forward so as not to miss
anything, we heard her sweet, sometimes sad stories in droplets, little
pearls tossed onto a pond creating ripples of deep emotion that took a while to
register. We always knew when she read we would hear profound and unforgettable
wisdom about how a life could ultimately be lived so that the idea of ‘highest
and best’ could be realized. She’d been a Methodist minister, back in the days
when this calling was still an extreme rarity for women and in her post-professional life she couldn't help but retain a sweet aura of acceptance and kindness. I felt simultaneously blessed and awed in her presence. as if she contained within her a deep well that would always be able to serve up a refreshing taste of wisdom.
Phyllis
Then there was darling Phyllis, whose writer’s voice carried a distinct sense of individuality. She too came into the group later but had an unforgettable voice and if writing
can be loud, hers was. This was a time before ‘in your face’ took its place in
the lexicon and had we known, it would have been the perfect modifier for a description
of Phyllis' writing voice. I could not tell you the many times I trembled with
admiration when she spoke with the confidence and vigor of the undefeated,
knowing that it was born of the iron will of a charming but relentlessly
insistent infant. To hear her was to marvel appreciatively at the insouciance
of youth and yet to shudder at the
twists and turns that still lay ahead unbeknownst to her as she marched forward
on her road to maturity.
Me
And me? I was the official asker of the question of ‘why’ and any philosophical meanderings
present in our group usually began and ended with yours truly. I'm rather proud to say that by
the end of our time together the group experience had shaped and transformed my
writer’s voice so that instead of the constant (and sometimes whiney) ‘Why’, I emerged with an ability to say ‘Why not?’ Which has proven over the years to be lots more fun. Now I'm not saying my writing is always as colorful and raucous as a barrel of monkeys but, by god, I've still got a few laughs up my sleeve so just stay tuned....I might surprise you!
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