In answer to the many questions I’ve received on how to infuse more passion and emotion into your stories, here are a few thoughts on how to make it happen.

You set the tone of your story by injecting passion and emotion as you see it, as you feel it. We all have emotional memory, and it is best illuminated through the power of imagination, when we recall the emotions we felt at the time an incident occurred. We each see people and actions in a special light – a light stemming uniquely from the very core of each of us.  As a collector of stories, I revel in this light; it is this reflection of ourselves that ignites the radiant glow of colors making up the spectrum of our collective souls.

The best way to write passion and emotion into your stories is to put yourself in your characters’ shoes.  In each particular circumstance, take yourself to that place where the character you’re writing about is. With a little practice, you will learn to use your innate powers of imagination to feel what the other person is feeling, so that you will infuse your story with emotional intensity and enthusiastic passion. By envisioning the scenes, you will come up with ideas and feelings that may not have occurred to you before and, in so doing, create the mood of your story.

Through actively engaging your imagination, you are getting to the heart of your character, what makes her tick, not just what’s on the surface, but the inner workings of her character.  Perhaps the most important aspect of writing a “Mother Memoir” is to remember that to convey on paper how you see your mother will bring her alive with all the passion and emotion you are feeling. People reading your story don’t know what’s in your mind and heart; they can only feel and realize what you bring to life about her through your written word – so the responsibility is yours alone.

I suggest you go to a quiet place, close your eyes, and let your mind drift to the particular scene in your mind that you want to write about. We create mood by recreating the memory through all of our senses – sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste. Yes, you will taste the frosting on your 7^th birthday cake, or smell the freshly cut grass in your backyard, or listen, once again, to the melody she often hummed; you can even see her face change before your eyes when you bring to life through your imagination the time she became furious or saddened by something or someone she perceived did her wrong.

Now that you know how to get in touch with the emotion and passion of your character, to set the scene, write your heart out. Get that raw emotion down on paper – make us laugh or make us cry, and portray, in writing, the passion you’ve conjured up like never before.  

Daughters & Sons Write Bio-vignettes as Mother Memoir

           PUBLISHING PANEL

  ZEN AND THE ART OF THE BOOK DEAL

            Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010 • 2-5 p.m.

              San Francisco Main Public Library

          Women’s National Book Association – San Francisco Chapter brings you the latest news in the publishing industry from the following insiders:

• JENNIFER JOSEPH – publisher and editor of Manic D Press
• PETER BEREN – literary agent and publishing consultant
• BRIDGET KINSELLA – Breaking Books & navigating the publishing landscape
• GEORGIA HUGHES – editorial director of New World Library

Moderator: Mary Knippel, immediate past president, WNBA-SF Chapter.

September is National Literacy Month. Join our panel of experts as they share the newest insights into the publishing industry.

Participate in our Great Book Give Away. See you there!

Event address: San Francisco Public Library, Latino Hispanic Community Room, Lower Level, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. FREE TO THE PUBLIC

Visit WNBA-SF website for more details on this powerful event.

Aha! We’re back to the power of words and how writing affects each of us. When we write stories, we stir memories, and to put those memories down on paper, we call on creative insight, which is triggered by a specific, scientifically traceable, kind of internal energy. When you to write short, true tales—bio-vignettes—about someone of significance in your life by finding the Aha! moment you will seize as the basis for your story, your creative instincts are jump started.

It’s no wonder why, during one of my workshops, for instance, people move into a space of intense focus and high energy while writing their “Mother Memoirs,” as well as becoming completely tuned in to the work of other writers in the group. These power filled experiences come about as a direct result of finding and moving compelling memories to memoir.

Let’s find that Aha! moment by walking through the labyrinth of our minds with this tried and true exercise:

• Tell yourself you are going on a little journey to find a special memory—the Aha! moment
• Bring into focus the person you plan to write about and hold that personal image close, very close
• Now sit comfortably, let your thoughts move inwardly as you close your eyes
• Leave your heart and spirit open to what will flow out of the recesses of your subconscious mind 
• Breathe slowly in and out through your nose; let your tongue relax on the bottom of your mouth to release tension
• Feel your breath softly touch your nostrils with each inhale, while you bring the personal image you’ve chosen to the forefront of your mind
• With each exhale, breathe out mind chatter and relax into yourself
• Let memories appear—it is as though they slide in through the filmy layers of the subconscious to gain a conscious presence
• Now take note of an essential memory that has caught your attention and begin to write about it

Your Aha! moment has arrived, bursting into consciousness, sparked by a surge of electricity in your brain. Allow your insight and creativity to take over.

I don’t know a writer of memoir who feels empty while writing. They experience myriad feelings, but emptiness isn’t among them. They are engaged in the very personal, willful, and soulful act of creating a true story from memory, which is incongruent with the definition of emptiness.

Lately, however, I see and hear the word empty all over the place. Empty has many meanings. Unfulfilled seems to cover a lot of ground, from empty emotions, empty pages, empty promises, empty pocket books, to empty buckets—buckets not filled with tears, since the river has gone dry.

When one woman said she felt so drained and empty, life was so meaningless after experiencing a great personal loss, she had no tears left to cry, I was filled with compassion. After expressing my concern towards her and suggesting she could seek comfort by writing about her loss, she wrote me saying a renewal of her spirit had taken hold, in unanticipated ways, as she sensed emptiness diminish through the energy of her thoughts and feelings as she wrote.

A writer friend recently wrote a blog post, in her inimitable way, saying her well was empty; she had no more words. Her prose so beautifully expressed her feelings that I was filled with awe. Surely, as she creatively filled that blank page with words, she proved to herself her well was not dry.

Empty is, in some disciplines, considered bliss. In other words, your mind must be empty to feel bliss. If bliss takes over is the emptiness filled?

If empty is a void is there still a desire or a mental, physical, or spiritual drive to fill it? Does emptiness carry with it the connotation of a need to be filled?

Let me know what you think.

Some time ago, as tears I thought had dried dissolved into curve of smile,

I sprinkled my mother’s ashes in my garden under the apricot tree,

From which we made amazing jam for many years to come.

Touch of cinnamon, of nutmeg, not too sweet…

One spring no buds appeared on that pleasing tree. 

It was old, it died—as creatures do—tears then on gnarled branches.

A simple stump remains, marking. Nice to touch, sensing.

My mother winks at me, sometimes, from apricot jam on buttered toast.

The following quote from Will Meecham, whose mother memoir I post a few days ago, is one powerful answer to the question, “What’s in it for you to write mother memoir.”

 “I want to emphasize how huge the impact of writing my mother-memoir turned out to be. Creating that piece provided me the confidence to start my blog, which in turn gave me a forum to work out some longstanding and serious emotional concerns. This soon prompted me to meditate more. As I meditated, the blog helped me make sense of my experiences, until I ultimately began entering improved states of consciousness. These eventually helped me break free of my chronic depression, and soon after I saw that my life’s purpose could be to carry this healing paradigm to others. Before long, the idea of acupuncture occurred to me in the ‘aha’ sense: I knew it was the right idea the moment it came to me. 

Did the fact that I wrote about my mother really lead to this major healing and redirection of my life? I think so.

 Your prompting me to write about my mother brought me in touch with a woman whose memory had been buried for decades. I like to think that my mother led me to this new path (interestingly, you prompted me to write the piece just before Mother’s Day, which in 2009 happened to fall on my mother’s birthday.)

So yes, the work you do has enormous power. 

Best Wishes and Many Thanks. —Will” 

I thank you, Will, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your path at long last, and that you attribute some of your success to writing your mother memoir. Nothing could make an author/teacher happier than to know her work made an impact such as this.

In case you missed it, scroll down or click here to read Will’s story and author bio.

I want to thank Will Meecham for writing his story for my TellTale Souls collection. Will Meecham’s story needs no introduction. It is complete:

Perhaps it was the last time I saw her.

We lived in a remodeled house on Woodcrest, with freshly painted clapboard siding, and a lawn that always looked like it needed mowing. Since our life there lasted less than a year, I surprise myself by remembering the name of the street. Lined by lookalike houses placed as regularly as railroad cars, Woodcrest had nothing to distinguish it from countless other suburban streets around Detroit. My mother’s father had built a handful of those postwar subdivisions, so with a bit of effort he had his construction company redesign our little gray tract house.  As a result, it differed from all the others, with two extra bedrooms and a garage converted into a playroom. But if you looked at the house from the street, it still appeared identical to the rest.  God forbid we look different from the neighbors. My mother had enough trouble as the only divorcee on the block. This was 1964, and broken families still scandalized the neighborhood.

I had just climbed the stairs to find my mom opening my dresser drawers, and placing neatly folded clothing into a slightly tattered brown and tan suitcase. As my mother added in some rolled up socks and my favorite toy fighter jet, I knew she was preparing me for yet another sleepover with my grandparents. I stopped and stared at her, and began the process of boiling into a tantrum. She didn’t look surprised when I started trembling with fury; everyone was used to my quick temper. I shrieked, whined, and stamped my feet. “I don’t want to go! Don’t make me go! I want to stay with you!” Perhaps because she wore an unfamiliar facial expression, as if resigned to eternal grief, I felt more fear of being apart from her than ever before. She grasped my arms and hugged me firmly against her breasts. Her eyes might have been wet with tears.

They say she received over thirty treatments with electroshocks in the course of her many hospitalizations. Sometimes when she left my mother seemed far away, shoulders and head huddled forward, arms wrapped around her torso. Her demeanor this time felt different. Her arms, at once both firm and tender, warmed me through to my boyish frame, and I could feel the rise and fall of her chest as she pulled me close. She was the most beautiful woman I knew, and I gradually melted into her embrace. A six-year-old boy adores his mother with a soul-saturating passion that he tries to rediscover for the rest of his life.

“You don’t want Grandma and Grandpa to think you don’t love them, do you?” I remember her exact words, and I can almost hear her voice, soothing me like a mourning dove’s song. She sounded tender and sorrowful, radiant with affection; but also as if she were leaning out a train’s window, the details of her face fading as a coal-colored and implacable engine tugged her away from me, gathering speed.

 I calmed. Her touch and her words had that effect on me. Beyond the innate responses of motherhood, she believed love should be profuse and resilient, no matter how furious, disappointed or despairing someone felt. I had been taught to return to love quickly, and I knew my grandparents deserved my affection. My attitude became pliant, and I let her finish packing flannel pajamas and wool socks, while I sat on the bed and watched. My cheeks were damp, my eyes puffy from quiet sobs.

It might have been the last time I saw her.

“You’re lying! It’s not true! Shut UP!” This tantrum went on and on. We were gathered in the tiny living room of my father’s mother, which always seemed crowded to me.  The carpeted floor was nearly obliterated by overstuffed furniture upholstered with exuberant floral prints, but faded into a dusty and pinkish pastel. Not long before, while scrambling fast across the carpet on my hands and knees, I had impaled my index finger with one of my grandmother’s sewing needles. My father had required pliers to pull it out because, as he told me, it had penetrated all the way to the bone.  For some reason, I had barely cried.

Now, however, I did not hold back my tears. I felt a rage explode inside me that was unlike any prior outburst. I shook so severely I could barely stand.  Tears burned down my cheeks like drops of hot oil. My entire mind, body, and heart screamed for my mother’s embrace, but it did not come.

The adults let me cry. They were too shattered themselves to provide comfort. I retreated into a corner and sat down, hugging my knees and regressing to sucking my thumb. When my father phoned from Minnesota I could barely whisper to him. “Have Grandma make you some warm milk,” he said. Leave it to my dad to suggest drinking a liquid to drown my grief.

She loved my father too much. After the divorce her faith in the redemptive power of affection and kindness must have been tested. She never gave up on it, despite the feelings of betrayal and jealousy that consumed her. When he married his mistress her wounded psyche crumbled like dry clay.  “God, just let me die!” When I heard her pleading, I would enter her room to visit her as she lay sobbing in her single bed, the air layered with a stale cloud of cigarette smoke. I would sit next to her, fascinated by the dust motes drifting in the thin shafts of sunlight squeezing between the pulled curtains. 

Despite her torment, and even after the nuclear battles that preceded the divorce, she never said an unkind word to me about my father.  She forgave him. She forgave him completely even though she was limping through life with a fractured heart, saddled with two needy children, facing piles of bills on the chrome and Formica kitchen table, and living in a house owned by her mother.

As much as anyone ever has, she was dying of a broken heart. But when I fell off my bicycle she still wiped my tears with an embroidered handkerchief, and left a trace of lipstick on my forehead. 

Part of me refused to believe that my mom would never come for me. I remained stranded in that living room where they told me she had died. I sat sobbing in the corner, waiting for my mother to gather me back into her arms. I wanted to feel safe again.

 I don’t know when I finally believed her death, or when I gave up and accepted she would never come back. It might not have been until I was ten. Or maybe a small part of me still clings to the prayer that she will return, smiling at last. Perhaps my heart keeps watch for her, expecting to see her unchanged, thirty-six and lovely, the face of a goddess leaning down to kiss my forehead as I lay on my pillow.  “Hush,” she would say, “it was only a dream.”

  Author Bio:

Severe neck problems forced Will Meecham to retire from his oculoplastic surgery practice at age forty-two. Career loss uncovered psychiatric vulnerabilities left over from a childhood blighted by major bereavement and severe child abuse. During a decade spent exploring psychotherapeutic and spiritual paths, Dr. Meecham regained stability with a combination of bodywork, mindfulness meditation, and profound acceptance. He now devotes himself to helping others follow similar paths to peace. He currently is training to encourage emotional wellness with the practice of acupuncture, a healing art ideally suited to the promotion of embodiment, meditation and acceptance. He is an occasional public speaker, and a frequent guest on mental health and creativity websites. His philosophy and suggestions can be found on his blog, WillSpirit.com.

 …And then there’s memoir. Is it wiggly? How honest is it? As you may know, memoir is the focus of my blog. Encouraging people to write short, true tales about their mothers or other folks significant in their lives is what The Story Woman blog is all about. Memoir becomes untenable when referred to strictly as nonfiction. It isn’t. Due to the storytelling aspect and the nature of memory, memoir combines elements of both fiction and nonfiction, although many people would have you believe their memoirs are nothing but the truth.

Memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies of famous people are often fabricated to some extent due to ulterior motives and egotistical reasons. On the other hand, I believe the ordinary women and men, whom I have worked with for over a decade as they write bio-vignettes about people important to them, do tell their truths as openly and honestly as they can. I know this, because I’m often closely involved with them throughout their memory and writing processes. I witness their joy and anguish, expressed through smiles, twinkling eyes, or tightly knitted brows, and I appreciate their struggle to find the right words to honestly convey the passion and emotion they feel deeply. It takes courage, soul-searching, and creativity to write short, true tales that capture the character and spirit of our mothers.

Memoir can be described as creative nonfiction. But it is more than that, and it differs from creative nonfiction in general. Memoir is a specific form of creative nonfiction. Memoir is writing a true story rooted in fact, but with the license to use one’s imagination to fill in hazy spots that need greater illumination in order to bring the elements of the story together.  It is also appropriate to describe any one character using a composite of images and actions known to comprise the protagonist’s true nature.

In part one, I fumed about the lies and deception passed off as truth today in media and beyond. Celebs will inevitably grow old and wrinkled and sink out of sight (except for Meryl Streep!), dishonest politicos will be voted out of office, and people who expose their whole lives on the internet in one form or another, will live to regret the resulting lack of intimacy in personal relationships. (Could it be we’re reaching the tipping point?)

In contrast, ordinary people writing stories to capture the character of their mothers to keep their spirits alive for generations to come, know that their short memoirs will provide invaluable family legacies. And, if they’re in the mood to share their stories with a wider audience, the simple threads they have spun will add texture to our dynamic human tapestry.

 If you’re a writer of memoir or want to be, tell me, where do you stand?

• Are you ready to tell the whole truth?
• Will you tell it like it is, or tell it like you think others would like to hear it?
• Rather than rock the boat, are you choosing to write nothing at all?
• Where do you think the wisdom of mothers dwells?
• Do you believe that photo of your “mother” is enough, or will you write a bio-vignette bringing out her character and spirit so she will always be remembered in a way only you can portray?

I’d love to hear your comments about what you see as the true nature of memoir, especially as it relates to your writing about a person who significantly touched your life. Your words give me grist for the mill. Thank you.

… Back to the blurry line between fiction and nonfiction. I enjoyed the comments I received from searchers for truth after posting the first part of this short three part series. The following are a few extracted comments that hit home: 

• I received a Goggle alert announcing my death
• The reality check has bounced
• I think humanity has for the most part lost the ability to confront the truth and instead seek escapism in any form
• Without truth, we’re crossing swaying bridges with no railings
• Buyer beware has grown into listener beware
• Tawdry “reality” that surrounds us today becomes the worst sort of lie

First of all, I love literary fiction and read it voraciously – more than I read literary nonfiction, actually. I’m wondering if fiction is perhaps one of the most honest forms of writing after all. Fiction writers don’t pretend to tell the truth, but I believe their writing is based on seeking and portraying the truth about human nature. Fiction, by definition, is not based on fact, but on fabrication and the work of a darn good imagination. We only buy into fictional stories if and when the writer gives us believable characters with whom we can connect on an emotional level.

Nonfiction, with memoir being most dear to my heart, is supposed to be based in fact. Now, who said memory is made up of nothing but facts?  I teach that it’s okay to use your imagination while writing memoir. And I say that the way in which you see the truth about people and events will be very different from how your sister, for example, will look at those same people and events.  The whole matter becomes blurred to some degree by each person’s feelings, emotional posture, passion-set, and personal claim on each moment in time.

Both memoir and fiction, when skillfully written, “…[have] the ability to evoke the entire spectrum of human emotions to distract our minds, to give us hope in times of despair, to make us laugh, or to let us experience empathy without attachment.” (Quote from word iQ, regarding their definition of fiction. I chose to add memoir, because it, too, aptly fits the description.)

I remember reading a novel written by a woman I know socially. It was a lively story, entertaining, rife with emotion. While reading it, I began to believe she was the protagonist and this was the story of a portion of her life before I knew her, since many events fit what I knew about her colorful life. When next we talked, I mentioned something about what a brilliant little guy her son was, and I was curious as to what he was up to now, since I thought he surely would have turned out to be an astronaut or someone equally remarkable. Through a wry smile, she informed me that she didn’t have a son, in fact, no children at all, as planned. Turns out she was pleased that she’d written so convincingly about a son in her story that many readers believed he was hers – I wasn’t the only one caught in the snare of a talented writer. She had no intention to deceive, she’s a novelist. It was I who was reading fiction as nonfiction and loving every word of it!

I’ll move to a short post about the wiggly nature of memoir next time. In the meantime, write a true tale, a bio-vignette, about your mother or another person you know you want to portray in writing so she/he will always be remembered.

Oops, due to a busier than usual past couple of months that went by in a blur, I just noticed part 3 was never posted. To make my trilogy make more sense to you, I’ll to post parts one, two, and three consecutively:

Is fiction the 21^st Century’s nonfiction? From many points of reference, it is. We are inundated with the gyrations and hubris of movie stars, politicians, government, sports figures, singers, authors, You Tubers, bites & bits from social networkers, and staged stunts on “reality” shows, most of which/who are anything but legitimate or authentic. This Stuff, lacking in veracity, is pitched to us as nonfiction, and it has moved so far over-the-top that it has become difficult to separate fiction from nonfiction, illusion from truth, and fabrication from fact.

The media serves up the lies, air-brushed & siliconed lovelies, cover-ups, and pathetic excuses and insincere apologies for bad behavior, while a whorl of adoring fans and supporters suck up this fiction as truth. I wonder if these actions are because some of them don’t know any better, or is it that they just don’t give a flying fig?  We belly-up to bunk in one form or another on a daily basis, and, whether we believe the drivel or not, it seeps stealthily into our collective consciousness. But most of us crave honest emotional reactions that come from taking in truths that we don’t have to second guess – genuineness that just sits-right in the gut.

I realize that in writing this on The Story Woman blog, I’m probably preaching to the choir – there’s always hope for validation. With this little rant out of the way, I’ll get back to you in a couple of days with a few thoughts on the topic of where truth and honesty fit into the literary world of writing fiction and nonfiction. I surprised myself with where some of this line of thinking has taken me. Truth is often stranger than fiction, but is it as entertaining? Let me know what you think.