Memoirs and those who write them

I have fallen behind with posting on my blogs.

Teaching two classes each week on Zoom is keeping me very busy. I work at making the sessions new and interesting for my students so I spend hours making my lesson plans. With beginning writers, I don't want them to feel overwhelmed so I make sure to keep that in mind.

One student said, "There is so much to learn. I didn't know there would be so much information to take in."

He reminded me of the beginning writer I was in 1995 when I took my first writing class with Nancy Simpson who would become my mentor and friend. I took classes from Nancy for years and while I heard some things over and over, I realize that I needed to hear them over and over. That is how I learned.

No matter if we are filled with a natural talent for any kind of art, we still must learn the craft of making our art appeal to others. We must learn about paints and brushes, about the tools that help create our images, and all the tips we can only learn from an accomplished artist if we want to be a very good painter.

The same is true for writers. We must learn how to put the words on the screen or on paper in such a way that readers will be enthralled by our stories, feel they are in the scenes, or hearing the characters we want them to know.

Many of my students never planned to be writers, but they want to leave a legacy for future generations of their families. They want their grandchildren to know what life was like sixty or seventy years ago.

My responsibility is to prod their memories and help them remember the little things, the details that bring the past alive. My students are not likely to write a best-selling book for the public, but their motivation is to leave part of themselves for the people who come after them.

Having compiled a family history with true-life stories of my ancestors and my siblings, I know the joy of having family tell me they want my book or tell me how much they enjoyed the book. After all these years, I still get orders from distant relatives who want to read about their family history.

Profiles and Pedigrees, The Descendants of Thomas Charles Council

1858 - 1911

I began working on that book ten years before it was finished. I combined my interest in genealogy with my love of writing a good story and created a blue, hard-backed book that will be in my family for generations to come. It is filled with photos of family. I even have a picture of my great grandfather, John Cecil Council, my great grandfather John Monroe Robison and my grandfather, William Henry Robison, and his wife, Lula Jones Robison. The main characters in this book, however, are Tom Council and his family of ten children. These children became my father, my uncles, and aunts. Most of them had died when I began my research, but I know my cousins who contributed much of the history of their families, loved the book.

I hope my students will discover the satisfaction of writing their life stories and the joy of passing them on to their loved ones. 

Everyone has a story, an individual unique story no one else can tell. How many of my readers have written about their past? Perhaps you don't have children or grandchildren and you don't feel the need to tell your story. But someone would enjoy hearing about the place where you grew up, the family you remember, and the ups and downs of your life. We all enjoy a good story. 

I urge my students to first, entertain their readers. But they should inform by making sure the facts are correct and be sure to enlighten the readers with new information the reader has never heard.

Read any good memoirs lately? I can recommend two. One is the life of Jimmy Carter and was written after he hit ninety. The other is the latest book by Barack Obama. I listened to it on Audible and it was even better because he read the book.

I love to hear from you and maybe one day you will take a class in writing if you aren't already a writer. With Zoom everyone can register for classes and take them at home in front of their own computer. 

Take care and get vaccinated for COVID. I have had both my shots and had no reactions other than an itchy arm for a day or two. Even those who had a 24 hour reaction say it is much better than having the virus and much, much better than dying from the virus.

Find my books here.

Writing classes, Writing Conferences, and Spring

Life is good in spite of all the BAD news we hear constantly on TV and the radio as well as on social media.

We are beginning the beautiful month of April. Spring is here. My azaleas are blooming and some of the blossoms on the trees survived the last freeze and snow. I have loved spring my whole life and I seem to love it more now. When things begin to pop up green and strong, when birds sing in my yard, the bluebirds come to scout out their house, I want to shop for flowers and shrubs. Geraniums thrive on my deck and I enjoy them all summer long.

I am an indoor gardener now, filling my deck with colorful flowers I can see from my chair in my living room. I also choose flowers that attract humming birds. With my feeders and my flowers they hover all day outside my windows.

Spring is a time for new beginnings and making plans for the future. Today I talked with someone at EAGLE one of the first places I taught writing. This is a church organization over in north Georgia. I have two good friends who attend classes and, one of them, Linda teaches dulcimer there. I began teaching writing to those folks back in 2006.

I agreed to teach a one day workshop this fall between September 21 and November 9. I won't be paid for these classes, but I will do this for my friends and for the good people who run this program.

I also accepted an invitation to teach this summer at ICL, the Institute for Continuing Learning, another program for adults, at Young Harris College. Those classes will be two hour sessions once a week for four weeks. I hope my former students will come and will tell their friends. 

In the fall, I am on the schedule at TCCC, our local community college to teach two hour sessions each Monday for four weeks. You can tell I enjoy teaching. I have met the finest and dearest people in the classes I've taught. I have heard the most touching, heart-felt stories about the lives of my students. The joy of it all for me is that the families of my students will have the interesting and well-written life stories to pass on to generations of the future. I know they will appreciate their ancestors telling about what life was like in the twentieth century, before cell phones, before computers and before the world became so very small.

I can hear some of my loved ones saying, "You take on too much. You don't have to do this."
But I enjoy every minute in class with my adult students. I feel euphoric when I hear former students telling new students some of the things they learned in my classes.

For now, I look forward to attending a writing conference in Blue Ridge Georgia April 8. I have not missed one of these since my friend, Carol Crawford, began the event almost twenty years ago. Gosh, how could it have been that long?

On May 6, I look forward to A Day for Writers, our conference in Sylva, NC at the beautiful Jackson County Public Library. The historic old courthouse of Jackson County, NC is now being used as part of the library. Most of our workshops and sessions will be held in the part that was once a courthouse.

Jackson County Public Library in Sylva, NC

This will be a busy spring for me, but I think it will also be interesting and fun. What will you be doing as spring comes to your area?

What Defines Your Life? You Choose.

“What defines your life? Your days? What is your achievement? Whether it's running or writing or some other feat, own it. Don't make excuses for what you choose not to do. Enjoy to the fullest those things you choose to do.”  

             --- Funds for Writers Newsletter by C. Hope Clark, author of Lowcountry Bribe. 

 Hope Clark hit me square between the eyes today with the above lines. I complain that I don't have time to write a book or complete my next poetry collection, but I have time to answer all the e-mail I get on three different addresses, to read blogs and read magazines, and study writing in all forms. 

I have time to talk for an hour on the phone with my sister or friends, and I have time to research various items of interest on the Internet. I find the time to write posts for two personal blogs and to promote all my writer friends, but I just can’t find time to revise and organize those poems or focus on my book long enough to write the next chapter. 

I can spend too long on Facebook, which is probably my biggest waste of time, and I don’t even enjoy it. In fact the Internet is an addiction for me. I sometimes dread checking my e-mail because that seems to be the jumping off point where I lose myself. Instantly my best-laid plans fly into cyberspace and I, the junkie, am hooked on what is out there.

I have days, oh yes, days when I write and stick to my goals. I have about two hundred personal essays or memoir pieces written and stored in a file. Many of them could be published if only I would submit them. I ask myself now, as Hope says, what is defining my life?

I am a caregiver. That is part of my DNA. Recently, since my brother has been sick, I have been overly concerned about his care. I live five hours drive from him. There is little I can physically do for him. But I get a call from him and I hear his issues and wonder if anyone there is aware of what he needs. Can I be of help in some way? I can spend hours on the phone with doctors’ offices, social services or others who might have answers for helping a sick man and his wife who has dementia. 

I am presently holding the leadership role in our writing organization until a more permanent person is found. I did this already for two years when my husband was sick with cancer. Part of who I am is doing my best in any job, volunteer or paid position. So I try to promote our writers and write articles and reviews while I help new members adjust to our tried and true methods of running the group.

I keep the lines of communication open between our region and the director of the state writers’ network. Meanwhile, I have to hear complaints, squelch gossipy misinformation, and help out any volunteer who has a crisis. Thank God for the close friends who listen and console me when others find fault. 

Then, I do my own work of teaching and running my writing studio. I bring in writers and poets who teach various types of classes for the local literary community. Advertising and collecting fees, keeping the grounds and the building in adequate shape, all take much time and energy. I also mentor students, especially those who have talent and ability to one day publish their writing.

As Hope says, we all have the same 24 hours in each day. We make the decision as to what we do in that time. 

I think I have found from writing this post what is defining my life. Now I have to make some changes if I expect to be a writer. I have to be cold hearted about it and stop giving away my time when I should be using it for my passion - writing. 

What about you? What is defining your life?

I Just Can't Multi-Task Anymore

When there is too much on my plate I get a bit unfocused. I never plan on that happening, but this past week I proved to myself --

I am not superwoman. I am not even related to superwoman.

For several days I prepared for this week. Some of the things on my schedule were hosting Coffee with the Poets on Wednesday morning where my dear friends, Mary Mike Keller and Estelle Rice, were reading.

Another thing was completing a photo presentation with over 100 pictures to scan into my computer, enhance and caption each one. I wanted to make sure that the families of each of my siblings were represented in the presentation and include some of my cousins who planned to be at the gathering of nieces, siblings, nephews, their children and grandchildren. 

During this preparation and learning to use Power Point and a borrowed projector, I also regularly talked with my brother's caregiver and tried to bolster his confidence in taking care of his father, deal with the weird medical world, and keep his sick mother calm. I couldn't sleep at night as I tossed and turned with "monkey mind" raging until the wee hours of the morning. 

Would my brother still be with us, or able to come to the reunion? Were his needs being met at home or would he have to be readmitted to the hospital? I was torn between wanting to be there with him and all the other things in my life such as Writers Circle, my business. 

At the same time, I learned that my dear niece, Lyn, had emergency surgery for a torn retina on Monday. She was terrified she might lose her sight. She had faced this trauma before and the outcome was not good. When I couldn't sleep at night, I prayed that she wouldn't lose her sight. But the worry did not go away.

Worry negated all my positive promises to myself. I work diligently  to be a positive person and so far it has worked fine. But this week I also wore my Interim Program Coordinator hat. The Netwest News should have gone out on May 1. The editor said she had to go out of town last weekend and asked me to complete it and mail it to our members. I agreed.

But, I had to go out of town last weekend to see my brother. I worked on the newsletter on my old antiquated, but well loved, laptop. It would not send the newsletter with all the graphics in place. When I arrived home on Sunday night, I sent the editor a note and said, I can't do this now. When it is complete, I will mail it.

It was Wednesday before we managed to get the newsy letter out to our members. That was one chore off my back.

But my PC hat was well in place, and I spent one hour or more on the phone discussing Netwest business. As I tried to multi-task, including doing laundry and pack, I made errors of judgement, I made errors in the reunion project which I am hosting, I forgot to pack some important photos, but I didn't forget to get a cat sitter.

Trying to be superwoman resulted in my stress level shooting higher and higher. I missed the writing event I was supposed to host. I let myself become fearful, become the woman I was a few years ago when I didn't have confidence in myself. I questioned whether I should have begun the reunion project all by myself.

But I did something right. I asked for help. I asked a writer friend to take over Coffee with the Poets for a few months. I let my sister come to my rescue and help me with the reunion duties. 

I realized I could not function on four hours of sleep each night so I am taking a sleep aid for a few more days until I get back on schedule. Lack of sleep knocks me off kilter. When I don't sleep I hurt from fibromyalgia which I've dealt with for about 15 years.

My regret is that I hurt the feelings of others. I raised my voice to those I love and cut them off on the phone. I lost track of my priorities for a while, but tonight I've regained my equilibrium.

By writing about this, I see what I need to do to be healthy again.

By writing to you, my readers, I have learned what has been happening in my life and how I must fix what I can. To anyone I have hurt this week, I'm sorry. I'll do better next week, I hope.

But that will be a full week as well. I begin teaching a new course on Healing through Writing and I will be reading at the John C. Campbell Folk School on May 16. I hope my brother will improve when he gets his pacemaker next week. My niece will be at the reunion because the doctor says she can go. I hope that means that her eye is healing and she will have full vision again.

For now this superwoman needs some sleep.