LIFE STORY WRITING 6: find the pivot

You find out that you're going to have your first child, and your life pivots, turning in a whole new direction.

You lose a parent or mate, and your life pivots too.

You have a car accident. Win the lottery. Transfer to Seattle. Get diagnosed with diabetes. Decide to get divorced. Decide to get married. Fall in love with watercolor painting. Lose your house in a hurricane.

Each of these moments is what I call a "pivot," a time when your life takes a different and perhaps surprising turn.

If you want to try writing life stories but aren't sure where to start, find a pivot and write about that.

It doesn't matter which one. Any will do. With your pivot in mind you can write about a myriad of things. What you hoped. What you feared. How it happened. What you thought. Where you went. Who went with you. What you learned.

Everyone has pivots in their life. They will enjoy, and be educated by, reading about yours.

LIFE STORY WRITING 5: undoing the lessons of the past

Some more thoughts on writing life story as a part of building your personal legacy...this time, musings on the things we have to undo, rather than those we must do.

Most of us are taught writing in school—with mixed results. Hopefully, we end up with a working knowledge of English and its forms at the end of our schooling. But many of us also leave our years of English classes with less helpful lessons as well.

We learn to expect others to judge the small points of our writing, sometimes quite harshly. We learn to prize organization and logic over feeling and grammatical correctness over expression. We learn to write more easily in response to external pressure than in reaction to our own needs and preferences. We learn to admire "great" writers, but also to discount our own voices.

It's not surprising that as adults, we may find it more comfortable to avoid writing entirely than to take the risk of "failing." If we want to do any creative or legacy writing as adults, we must actually unlearn those lessons. This can be a slow process, and almost always requires some patience.

It may help to think consciously about your readers as you begin to write. Replace the mental image of that high-school teacher who picked on your grammar with a vision of your children, grandchildren, friends, colleagues: whoever it is you feel you are writing for. Seeing those loving faces in your mind's eye will help remind you that these days, there are no grades and no demerits.

To pass this "test," all you need to do is sit down and share a little of your heart.

LIFE STORY WRITING 2: bigger is not necessarily better

In my last post, I spoke about the trust—in ourselves and others—that we need to write and preserve our life stories. Today, just a brief practical note on that same topic.

Self-doubt is especially likely when we make a life story writing project too big or too complex. When we bite off more than we can chew, so to speak, we can end up getting mired in the details, losing momentum over time, or feeling unable to meet our own expectations. That's why I link this suggestion to the issue of trust. When we don't trust our potential readers to "get" us or our story, we may feel we need to over-research, over-explain, or over-complicate. We may not even be conscious that we're feeling uncertain or distrustful. Assuming that our kids, grandkids or other readers need lots and lots of information just feels natural...and so does assuming that our life stories won't be meaningful unless they are long or detailed.

I don't mean to prevent you from going into detail or writing at length if those modes feel right for you. Some life story writers genuinely enjoy sinking their teeth into ambitious projects. My point is just that you don't have to produce long or detailed writing to offer a meaningful written legacy.

To prove this point, picture an older relative that has passed on—a grandmother, perhaps. Now imagine that you have just discovered a diary you never knew existed—a journal in which that relative noted down her thoughts. Would you be less grateful for, and fascinated by, that diary if its entries were brief? Would you find it any less valuable if its "author" did not write at length or provide lots of background information? I'm confident that the answers to both questions would be "no." It might inspire you to find out more or even do some research. It might even make you wish its owner had written more. But the diary would be a treasure whether it was short or long, expansive or succinct. And what you would remember about it over the years wouldn't be its length or detail or historical accuracy, but rather the glimpse it gave you of your relative's heart.

Have I convinced you? I hope so. Check out my next post for some "life story starters" that can help you record memory or family material effectively and easily.

LIFE STORY WRITING 1: begin with trust

I recently wrapped up a class called "Life Story Starters" for the LifeLong Learning Institute at the Indian River State College. (I'm giving a one-day variant on this same class, this time called Effortless Memoir, at the Vero Beach Museum of Art in late February; it's alphabetized under W for Workshops here). This series of posts is inspired by those classes, the peer students it's my privilege to serve within them, and the idea of leaving one's life stories as part of a personal legacy.


All of the lively and intelligent participants in the class wanted to write memory material. As always in such classes, many admitted to doubts about the value of their memories or the quality of their writing. I have complete empathy for anyone with these concerns. After many years as a professional writer, I still often doubt that what I am writing will be of interest to readers, even those in my own family. Especially in the middle of the process, the text I'm creating always feels like a formless mess with no redeeming value.

Yet I also know that when we let such doubts silence us, we withhold a genuine gift from the world. Every life story has value, whether one person reads it or one million. Every personal history witnesses the human condition, and the life of joy and struggle that all of us share in a myriad of different ways.

A funny thing happens in my life story classes after the participants share their self-doubt. The same folks who question their own pieces are rapt in listening to others. Always, without exception, the assignments we read aloud get nods of recognition. Always, the only pieces anyone doubts are their own.

Let’s remember that all of us doubt the value of our thoughts and the skill of our writing. Let’s laugh at our fears and write our reflections down anyway. Let's trust ourselves, and others, enough to share our life legacies generously.

There are enough times in our lives when we need to keep silent, even situations when we need not to speak our truth. This, happily, is not one of them.