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.

Writing a story has a different kind of power. A story has structure—a beginning, middle, and an end, and in a story, we use scenes and other writing techniques to bring the past to life: characters, dialogue, and action.

A scene takes place at a particular moment in time, and draws upon the use of sensual details—smell, sound, texture, description, color, taste. 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, says that being witnessed is a significant part of the healing process.

To start creating stories from your memories, list the ten most important events or turning points, moments that changed your life. Write each vignette one by one, focusing on your emotions and the meaning the story has for you. This will give you a good start to a memoir or life story. After you have several stories, you can quilt them together in whatever order you desire.

Dr. James Pennebaker, one of the premier researchers in the field of writing and healing, says, “Story is a way of knowledge.” This is a very exciting idea—to think of a story as having a life of its own, to imagine that a story can teach us something as we write it. I have discovered this to be true in my memoir writing and coaching. When memories are kindly invited to join us at the table, when we put fingers to keyboard or pen to paper, something interesting starts to happen: as we write, fresh and strange ideas meander onto the page, unexpected sentences arise out of us, thoughts and feelings that we hadn’t thought of in a long time. We wonder if we should delete these unexpected sentences, we may feel alarmed, ashamed, excited, even giddy. This is great! It means that you have allowed your true expression to come through. It means you burst out of your usual control, and allowed an inner wisdom to speak through you.

In my book I talk about the ways that memory is stored in the brain and explain how traumatic memories are stored differently. We might stay stuck in the trauma, even having flashbacks and feeling traumatized all over again as memories replay in our minds. Putting our experiences into a story—even a fictionalized story—helps us to reprocess our memories and frees us to move forward. Researchers found that the immune system is improved by writing for only 15 minutes four times a week.

As you write, it’s important to make sure you also capture the positive stories of your life, keeping a balance between dark stories and the lighter ones of happiness and joy. If you write only ten minutes a day, you can begin one of your vignettes, finding new meaning and appreciation for who you are and create new opportunities for a better future. It takes courage to write our truths, but the rewards are great. Begin today!

Tips for Writing to Heal
1. List 10-20 important turning points in your life. Create a timeline and plot these events on your timeline so you can see how the events cluster.
2. Choose one or two new turning point stories a week to write. Be sure to use sensual details and write scenes.
3. If you write a darker story, follow it up with a lighter one for balance.
4. Genealogical and historical research can help to create understanding and compassion for your ancestors. You can write from the point of view of your father, mother, or grandparents after you discover some of the details of their lives.
5. Write from old photos—describe the photo in detail, and then imagine what happened before and after the photo captured that moment in time.
6. Write freely—don’t listen to your inner critic.
7. Notice how you feel empowered as you claim your voice, your memories, and your past.

During my workshop, I encouraged everyone to come up with a “Turning Point List” of events that were significant in a deeply emotional or spiritual way, and then to write one of those stories. I also talked with the group about plotting their turning points on a timeline so they could visually locate when these events happened.
Suggestion: Write a list of 10-20 turning points, moments of being, moments of significance in your life. Then each week, choose 2-4 of those moments and write about them. Soon, you will have written what could be the spine of your memoir. Writing even just 20 minutes at a time helps you to get your memoir written!
Be Brave–Write your Story

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.