Writing to heal yourself is a very powerful process. If a writer has a deeply personal and painful story, how should he begin to get it onto the page?

Start by considering the special moments in your life, the turning points that changed the direction of your life in a significant way. Make a list of these moments, at least ten to twenty, and write down the significant event and when it occurred. Memoirists can feel overwhelmed by the large number of memories they have, so the turning point and timeline tools that I talk about in the book help to organize memories. We need to sift through to find the most important stories as a spine around which to build a longer work.

I also suggest that writers keep track of the “dark” and the “light” stories so they are not so overwhelmed by the more painful memories, and make sure they follow a “darker” story with a happy one that allows them to sink into the fullness of a delicious pleasant memory.

Learning about story structure and scenes is another way to contain and put in perspective the events of our lives. A story, unlike a journal entry, has a structure—a beginning, middle, and an end, and is constructed with a goal in mind and a plot with dramatic action.

When we write a scene, we find ourselves in the places and times of our lives in a kind of creative hypnosis. A story uses scenes to bring the past to life. A scene takes place at a particular moment in time, and draws upon the use of sensual details—smell, sound, texture, description, color, and taste, along with characters, dialogue, and action. In a story, we are both the narrator and the “I” of the story—the main character. This dual point of view helps to create a witnessing experience of ourselves as we write from our current point of view about who we once were, an artful weaving of then and now, past and present.

Alice Miller, a Swiss psychiatrist, said that being witnessed is a significant part of the healing process, and points out that while we need others to witness us and our stories, we can witness ourselves by becoming self-aware.
Writing allows us to witness the stages of our lives, and when we read others’ memoirs, we witness and empathize with them, thus deepening our connection with humanity and giving us new ways to think about our own lives.

If you have memories you don’t want to detail in your memoir, create distance. Write about what happened in the third person: “she” or “he” instead of “I.” Write as if you are watching the event unfold in a movie. Write a scene about a difficult incident, but make it turn out the way you wanted it to, ending it positively. Tell what happened before and after a difficult incident. Write around it, but not about the event itself. These techniques are protective–when you are ready to go deeper, you can do it later.

To tune into this powerful work, keep adding to your list of turning points. And remember this: the researchers that explored writing to heal found that writing happy stories was nearly as healing as writing about painful moments.
Remember that when you write your memoir, you are weaving a new tapestry of your life one story at a time.

Jane Friedman’s energizing workshop
After teaching my memoir group, I battled traffic and got to the conference in time to tuck into the workshop by Jane Friedman, the publisher and editorial director of F+W media and the Writer’s Digest Community as soon as I arrived. Throughout the year, I listen to a lot of authors, writers, teachers, and publishers talk about the current state of writing and publishing, too often hearing something like: “Sure, go ahead and write, but don’t get your hopes up. Publishing is in a transition, and it’s hard to know what will happen. There’s so much competition that you shouldn’t count on anyone accepting your work, but you can write if you want. Have fun!”

Jane’s message is very different. The summary of what I heard was this: “All of you are creative and there are so many ways to participate in the ongoing conversation in the world. Technology has expanded so that we can draw upon all these new ways to connect—from traditional publishing to blogs, social networks, radio, webinars, ebooks, podcasting and so on. Just write, get your work out there in every way you can. Over time the energy will build and you will make new connections, find new opportunities to publish, and create new ideas. It’s ongoing and creative. Join in and express yourself.”

After listening to her explain the current state of publishing, writing, and connecting, you could feel a lively energy buzz around the room, and uplifting of creativity, a juicy excitement about what we are all doing. Everyone knows that we work better in an atmosphere of support and optimism, so the seeds were planted there for the young people in the audience as well as us adults—to keep writing, creating, and connecting!

The young girls who spoke in the workshops knew so much about writing and literature—I was really impressed. They were writing stories, checking out ebooks and blogs, and were tuned into the online community of newsletters and social networks. It all is so natural to them, they’ve grown up with computer since babyhood. The rest of us are catching up!

In my work with memoirists, it’s important to work on several levels at once: writing—creating new material that comes from somewhere inside us. Re-shaping and revisioning—looking again at our work, seeing it anew, which is what revision means. Being open to continue the creative process in a new way. And sharing our work with the world, when we’re ready, and when we’ve taken the work to fullness and completion.
In the meantime, we need to find our writing tribe, whether in “real” groups face to face, online, or in the social networking and blogosphere where thousands, perhaps millions of writers from all over the world are making new friends.
I have to go now. I need to post on Facebook, Twitter, check my other blogs, check in on the Writer’s Digest Community which I recently joined, and…oh, I’d like to get some writing done on my book too!
Keep writing! Everything you write makes you a better writer.

Memoir writing is a journey that invites exploration into the inner as well as the outer life of a person, and demands that we reveal ourselves deeply, that we confess on the page our secrets, and open our hearts to the reader. How do we dare do this? What will other people think? I talk about these questions in The Power of Memoir, inviting the memoirist to dive into the family myths, to take risks as they write their first drafts. To uncover their secrets, and chase away the shame.

Last weekend I enjoyed teaching a roomful of people in Grass Valley, CA about memoir writing. At first they were shy, making the usual apologies about their writing, but one by one they opened up like poppies in the fields after morning sun–smiles wreathed their faces as they shared their personal stories.
The stories were invited out of their hiding places because we were gathered with the idea of exploration, not unlike the original 49ers who came out to look for gold. And by gathering together, we were supporting each other in revealing confessions that had never been shared before.
I invite you today to look for the nuggets of truth, honesty, and freedom in your stories today. Write for 10 minutes, capture a moment. And celebrate finding another gem in the necklace of your story line.

It’s time to go back to the basics. While I don’t want to discourage people from being published someday, the idea of “someday” needs to be stressed. It seems easier for people to realize that playing a violin sonata or concerto, or being on stage giving a solo piano concert will take many years of practice. Because everyone has to do some kind of writing all their lives, it seems that the expectation that a person who decides to “write” seriously and with goals for professional notice is that after a few stories, journal entries, or a year or two, they will be able to go “out there” with their work. Of course, this does happen, and no teacher wants to discourage magical and unexpected treasures that may arrive at the writer’s doorstep. On the other hand, I’ve learned too that if I give into the student’s desire to be published, to learn how to edit in a time frame that I sense is premature, that they may plunge into self-doubt, depression, and as if a mule is guiding their creative cart, find themselves backing up instead of moving forward.

All creative learning involves this back and forth process, but at the same time, it’s my desire as a coach, as a person who keeps an eye on the pulse of the creative process, to help people to feel encouraged. Premature “professionalism” can throw ice water on that process and even contribute to people not writing at all.
When in Doubt…
The cure for this malady is to return to “freewriting,” without much editing input. To return to the raw, free voice and creative spirit that made them want to write in the first place. The cure is to return to the inner self, mess and all, incorrect grammar, and misplaced modifiers, and not worry about them.
The creative self needs freedom, it needs applause and smiles and unconditional acceptance. When in doubt, I suggest that you find the joy in self-expression once again, and sink into your free floating stream of consciousness. Allow it to guide you down the stream to the heart of yourself. Listen inwardly not outwardly. Forget the editor. Invite your readers to give you what you need to continue to create. Let the “goal” go and return to the Source.

There are a lot of great questions and interview at Women on Writing and Women’s Memoirs. People are stopping by to comment, to leave a question, and so far I’m keeping up with them!

The blog tour at WOW–Women on Writing–lasts all month. Stay tuned this week at Women’s Memoirs for audio posts, a book review, and a recipe and photo scrapbook, along with some great ideas and questions from the hosts at Women’s Memoirs.

The topics on the blog tour include: How to Write Your Memoir and Go Home for the Holidays, Write a Healing Memoir, Truth and Secrets in Memoir Writing, how to manage writing a memoir and the inner and outer critics, and much more.

In the meantime, begin your own memoir with,  “I remember the day that everything changed…”

Be brave–write your story!

To view a complete schedule and links for the Blog Tour, CLICK HERE.

Nine years ago, I decided to write my first book, which became Becoming Whole: Writing your Healing Story. I organized this book from the workshops I’d been teaching therapists for several years, and wrote it in five months. I researched editors, joined self-publishing groups, and learned about the book world step by confusing step. The book was published first by a very small press, but the experience was rife with misunderstandings and problems for three years. During that time I learned about publicity: what you have to do to get people to buy books. I gave talks, workshops, and book events all over the bay area, and even in a few independent bookstores in the Midwest.

Once I was free of the contract, I went on to self-publish the book again under my own press, still learning the ropes of the self-publishing world. I learned about ISBN numbers, Bowker, The Library of Congress, Lightning Source, Amazon, layout, design, paper, fonts, print companies, shipping, and distribution. Most of all, I discovered that a whole world existed about publishing and books that I had always taken for granted. No longer!

In the meantime, I’d started my organization The National Association of Memoir Writers because of my passion to support and develop the world of memoir writing, and eager to become involved with writers like you. I wanted to create a world of memoir writers that I could participate in every day and share my knowledge of how to begin, develop, and complete a memoir. In my writing life, I was writing a novel about WWII, and had traveled to England twice and to Germany to research it. Finally, the first draft was done, and I decided to pitch the novel at the East of Eden Conference in 2008, hoping to be published the traditional way, which I knew was best for a novel.

I was teaching a workshop at the conference, so I grabbed a few extra moments to have an appointment with Verna Dreisbach, one of the agents at the Speed Dating with Agents event where you get five minutes with an agent or editor. I’d learned to always bring with me a copy of my books and the brochure for NAMW. Verna is a warm, friendly young woman with wise eyes, a soft voice, and a cascade of lovely red hair. I felt comfortable with her. I noticed that as I pitched the novel, she kept glancing at Becoming Whole and my brochure. Finally she pulled them toward her and said, “That all sounds good, but tell me about this.”

To make a long story slightly shorter—she was impressed by my organization and liked Becoming Whole. She said to sit with her at lunch, and in the meantime, she’d look at the book. Wow. I was shocked to receive this kind of reception after having gone through at least 50 agents already for my various books.

At the end of lunch, she said, “I’ll be happy to represent you.” I stared at her in shock, seeing her mouth form the words. I mumbled something, trying to make sure I wasn’t imagining this. I had virtually no expectation that I would find an agent that day. I guess having tried for so long, I thought I’d just talk to a couple of agents as a matter of course since they were there, but I’d learned along the way not to have high expectations.

She smiled, and nodded, and I realized: I have an agent! You could hear the whoops and hollers from my writing group friends all over the hall.

Later, Verna told me that one of the reasons she signed me was because I was, “Bigger than just the book.” She was talking about platform—that there was more going on than just Linda Joy Myers who had written a book. I had an organization behind me, and had created a larger network. These days in the publishing world, that is what we have to think about. NAMW is part of your platform, and there are many ways of creating your network that in future articles and workshops we’ll be talking about.

Within two months, I’d written a proposal for a new book, similar to Becoming Whole, but different. Alan Rinzler, the Executive Editor at Jossey-Bass, a division of Wiley in New York asked to meet me, and supported my book to be accepted for publication. Well, I was in shock all over again, and deeply happy.

In the cold early months of 2009, I wrote a new book, drawing upon all I’d learned in the last nine years about writing, healing, transformation, and the impressive research about how writing changes the brain. I included other things that I’d discovered through my teaching: when we place ourselves through our imagination in the body of the child we once were as we write in scene, we have a new experience. The narrator of now and the child of then each have a point of view; each has a wisdom that needs to be integrated in the mind of the author.  It is this weaving, this process of going back and forth through time, of entering the world of memory that helps to change our perspective. This process gives us new eyes through which to see the world, and we become transformed, no longer experiencing our traumas, the past, or ourselves in the same way. This is a multilayered process that takes time.

I find the idea that we witness ourselves through compassionate eyes as we write ourselves backward very powerful. When we share our writing with others, we witness each other. This witnessing, according to a Swiss psychologist Alice Miller, is a very powerful part of the healing process.

Another important point that I wanted to make is the structure of story, It starts with a problem, goes through the complex layers of solving the problem or situation, then resolves, even if messily, at the end. This is the arc of the story, also called the arc of narrative. Just as your narrative goes through an arc of change, so does the writer, and eventually, the reader.

My book and I have both gone through an arc of transformation through writing and publishing The Power of Memoir. Now that my book now has a life of its own, I will do my best to guide it to the right places, and I hope to share it with many open hearts who want to be free of old restraints. It stands on its own now in bookstores and online, a book about memoir that has its own secret story.