Where do you want to be in your story?

I’m finding that there is a relationship between who I am in my own life story and how I write my gardening story.  As I was thinking about the gardening analogy, I began to wonder if I want to be:

• The gardener
• The narrator
• The storyteller
• The main character
• The audience
• An observer

I began to wonder who I am in my own life story. Am I an active participant, an observer, telling the story to others, or the audience waiting to be entertained? I suppose at times I might fall into any one of those categories.

As I write about people while using the gardening analogy, I begin to ask myself: Am I writing for the audience, a publisher, or myself?

As I think about these questions, I begin to notice my storytelling voice. I find myself scolding, preaching, teaching, speaking, and sharing at different times in the story. I hear myself talking to myself, and as I begin listening, my voice becomes more pleasing. I like myself better. I let go of what I should be doing, what I could be doing, what I have done or not, and enjoy the story.

I think more than anything my story is a gift to myself. As I take better care of myself, and listen to my needs, I can share myself with others and hear their stories. Whether my story is based on a true story, fiction, or fantasy, my story is based on how I remember things. As human beings with complex neurological pathways, the information we take in through our senses goes through an elaborate process in our brains to determine what information is important, how it relates to what we know, and if it is important to our values and belief systems. At any one time, we see, hear, and feel more than we can possibly take in (or even want to.) Through an intricate network our emotional brain centers respond to information that is perceived as important. This emotional system is tied to past memories, values, and expectations. We write our stories through our neural networks and pass them on to be stored as memory.

Whether you tell your story as fact, fiction, or fantasy, it is your interpretation of your life. Telling your story in fiction, fantasy, or analogy can tell your story as truthfully as a biography. The feelings, people, voice, and places in the story are the real story. In nonfiction facts are just another way of telling your story.

When telling your story in a job interview, testimony, or mediation the facts become very important, but the real you is the underlying story that your interviewer will hear. Who are you? What are your values, personality and resilience? Most importantly how do you relate to other people? These are all parts of the story you are telling in personal interaction, narrative, fiction and fantasy. See how many ways you can tell the same story to different people.

The beauty of blogging is that you can tell your story in different ways in different blogs for different audiences. Your social networks reach out to different audiences. It’s interesting to see who is listening, respond to other people’s stories, and keep a treasure trove of prose scattered over the net.

Use Life’s Tensions

Use life’s tensions to stay energized. Sometimes small tensions, physical exercise, or excitement about an upcoming event can keep help us maintain momentum to write. Do you have an upcoming event or activity that gets your juicing going, but doesn’t involve a tremendous amount of nervousness?  Some examples are:

• Professional/Career Event
• Phone interview
• Vacation
• Family Activity
• Workday
• Conference
• Appointment
• Class
• Winter Storm

Daily events can provide a healthy tension that you can use to boost your creative energy. All life events have something that you can write about. Your life in words can be about anything that you stumble upon or plan in your life. Share your story with family, friends, colleagues, and your favorite blog.

Charging my Brain

I need to charge new areas of my brain and activate new synapses. According to V.S. Ramachandran, author of “A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness,” the number of “brain states” is greater than all of the elementary particles in the universe. Our potential brain activity is endless. We can mix up the little specks of brain jelly in so many different ways that our creativity is limitless.

The idea that I have the ability to make new sparks and ignite parts of my brain I am not using is inspiring and motivating. I felt disappointed today because I had planned to organize and complete a section of my book today. Instead I felt bored and frustrated wondering why I thought I could write. I had a goal, I planned the time, I knew what I wanted to do, and it just wasn’t happening. Then I realized that it might take more than planning, discipline and motivation to write the way I wanted to. It might take practice and brain exercise.

I was wondering if I am avoiding the big task of writing my book by blogging, journaling, and making notes on my ideas. I need to quit fooling around on things I am having fun with and get to the big job. Then the light bulb came on (maybe a new synapse!) I am exercising my brain and practicing my writing skills by blogging.

An athlete needs more than a motivational speech and a goal to win the game. S/he needs practice to build skill and muscle. That’s what I am doing. I am using a different tone in each of my blogs. Whether I am writing about Coaching, being Greener, Entrepreneurship or Community, I find my passion and voice for each one.

As I journal through blogging, I see clarity in my writing, less use of “it”, and more creativity. I can feel my brain firing up for another day. I’ll just keep writing and see where it takes me.

How do you like to write?

Writing Out of Tune

When I read the first draft of something I’ve written the content is there but there’s no harmony. Like an array of beautiful instruments needing the director’s tuning fork, the words play their own melody. A thought here, a word there, and a run on sentence devouring half the page. Oh, the run ons—the’re everywhere. Ideas come whirring across the page as if they blew in from a storm. The passion and energy once whirring through my head form rivulets of disciplined work. When the storm settles, the rhythm like ocean waves gather in lines and paragraphs.

As the director of my work, I bring the parts together into a beautiful symphony that I call “The Page.” I run across the pages later and say, “I wrote that?” Wow! Then another thought dances in scattered words across my page. I scoop them up, move them around, and begin the job of forming a book out of individual pieces that were once out of tune.

Just me and my book

I’ve waited years to have time to write. My personal vision statement includes self-expression as one of my deep values. I’ve taken notes, journaled, written papers, presentations, and workshops. Now it’s time to put it all together – a blending of my career story so to speak.

I have so many ideas, thoughts, and feelings. I can’t wait to go to my computer or find a pen and paper to write them down. Now I am here at my computer with journal books, small slips of paper, numerous folders and documents, and my head just spins or draws a blank. It was so much fun to just write. Then I decided my great idea could be a book. I want to copyright my idea and share it in more than a workshop. Other people have already started using it just from the workshops I’ve presented. But then I decided that it should be a book. A book is a lot more work than presentations, classes, and worksheets. In the muck & muddle of trying to sort out all of the information I have gathered, I seem to lose the magic.

I went out to the garden this morning and watched the vegetables and herbs growing. Some get stuck in one position, while others grow like crazy without producing much. I watch the way the garden grows and realize that I am growing a book. Writing for a blog or social networking site is easy. It’s bits and pieces strewn together day by day. But a book is where it all comes together. It’s like taking individual vegetables and herbs and simmering them slowly until the flavors all blend together in harmony. When I feel the harmony of words, I get so excited that I have to stop for a moment and take a deep breath. Then I go back to putting together the puzzle that is my book.

Hobby or Job?

Do you find writing to be easy or hard? Not long ago I picked up a book at the library written by a professional author. He began by describing writing as hard work. He talked about the need to be dedicated and ready to put in the time, energy, and sacrifice to write. Then someone told him that he wrote in the evenings in his spare time after work and had published novels. A professional writer has a hard time seeing his work as a hobby, but the author was gracious enough to understand that for some writing is work and for others it is a hobby or after work activity. I laid the book down without much thought and later wished I had bought it. Sometimes the best books take time to soak in.

For years I wanted to have time to write. It became a passion and goal to publish something mainly as a way of expressing my ideas. I came to the realization that I like writing about my ideas (easy in blogs) and I like talking about them, but organizing my thoughts into a book is completely different. For me writing is work, and editing is more work. I’ve gotten in a slump many times and wondered why I chose to write. I’ve wondered if I will ever finish and publish something. Then the big question of whether or not anyone would want to read it. Am I just writing for myself, or do I need an audience. Maybe it’s a little bit of both.

Do you get in a slump with your writing? Do you find writing a fun relaxing way to express yourself or a job you have to discipline yourself to show up for? Kathy Hansen, A Storied Career, said that she doesn’t find writing hard. She is a prolific blog writer and published author. She sometimes draws inspiration and information from her graduate thesis while she was getting her PhD. Where do you get your inspiration, skills, or experience for writing?

Happily Ever After?

Our lives are not always fairy tales, and if they are for awhile, they don’t necessarily have happy endings. That is, if you define a happy ending as good health, wealth, and long life. How would you define a happy ending to your story? What is a tragedy? On her website “A Storied Career,” Katherine Hansen shares the article, “What if your story changes for the worse,” about Elizabeth Edwards tragic story. The author ponders whether or not we can change a tragic story and make it better.

We may not be able to change our stories, but we can tell them in different ways. Our life stories can be cheerful, funny, heartfelt, fairy tales, dramas, and mysteries. We can choose which part of the story to tell and how to tell it. We watch out takes, funny movie clips, and bloopers to see people make mistakes, hurt themselves, and feel stupid. These stories are made into humorous videos that help people laugh about their mistakes. While not all tragedies have funny moments, all stories can be healing. Telling your story as a tragedy can heal the soul, and then finding something positive can heal the mind and body. In my story, “Freedom Walking,” I changed disappointment about not driving into positive energy.

Lost it!

Have you ever had one of those mornings where you just lost it? I just finished writing a blog article and realized that some of it belonged on a new entry. I saved the article to a new document and deleted the main portion. When I went back to edit the article I had written it was deleted. I felt like I had lost more than just the article. I felt like I was losing my mind. I KNOW how to save! But my article was missing from both documents.

I can rewrite the article, but it won’t be the same. I lost what I had written. I will go back and write it this afternoon. Maybe it will be more than just lost time. Maybe the article will be better the second time around. Is it true that the more we write the better we get? I will just call this morning’s writing good practice and see what comes up this afternoon.

Fifteen Feet Walking

As I was working on my book this morning, I found myself working on different sections individually and trying to piece them together so that they flow and make sense. After doing some writing and research, I began to lose my focus and get a little tired. I decided to try taking three dogs out for a walk at the same time. I’ve never done it before. I always take my little Cockapoo, Pepper, and my husband takes Maggie, a Terrier mix. Now we have a guest staying with us. Her name is Ellie and she is a Chow mix. So I have three dogs of different sizes, shapes, and temperaments, and two of them don’t even play well together.

I thought about how Cesar, the dog whisperer, always says that dogs get along better if you walk them together. They develop their order and work together. So as we were walking I noticed that we all had to keep up the same rhythm. We each had a distinct stride and energy, as 15 feet walked together. At one point I realized how easy it would be to trip over one of the dogs (it wouldn’t be the first time.) I knew I needed to make a conscious effort to keep a steady rhythm in my walking and pay attention to all of the dogs.

Walking with three dogs keeping all 7 of our feet in step made me think about the book I was writing. Each element may have a different flavor, but the book needs to speak from the same voice. I need to have a flow and rhythm that binds the book together. I find it easy to trip over myself while I am writing. Initially my writing is like having myself, Pepper, Maggie, and Ellie working and playing in the house. We run, walk, and sometimes trip over each other without any injuries or disruptions. But when we get out, we need to be harmonious in rhythm and pace. Whenever I get stuck in my writing or creativity, I go for a walk and learn from nature. The world around us has such a beautiful rhythm, I hope to absorb some of that beauty into my writing.

Universal feelings

The best way to connect with your readers is through feelings that we all have and can relate to. Some of the strongest feelings are love, hate, fear, and anger. The last three are feelings we don’t often want to admit that we have. Through stories whether fiction or nonfiction, we can get in touch with our own feelings through villains, heroes, and action plots. Living vicariously through characters in a story we become aware of our own strong feelings that can’t find an outlet in civil society. We ache for lovers to come together. We can hate the evil and overcome it through the heroic adventures of a charming character. We feel more powerful after reading a compelling and exciting adventure. 

I am reading the book, “Three Cups of Tea” and I am in awe of the mountaineer who overcomes extremely harsh conditions in Pakistan while appreciating the hospitality he finds there. He becomes the hero as he builds schools for children thirsty to learn any way they can. I can feel Mortenson’s struggles and victories in the comfort of my home. I feel like the world is a better place because Dr. Greg made a difference. The emotions stirred in me while reading the book inspired me to want to do more. To do good with others not just “at them” as Thoreau would say.

What are you passionate about? Do you have a cause, a purpose, a product, or something you have triumphed over? Share your thoughts & write your feelings. Find a character who can live your feelings for you. Give them to someone else for a change! 

You can find me on Facebook or LInkedin at: clwd@njmiller.info. Send a friend invitation and let me know you found me on “Your LIfe in Words.” Keep writing.