Back in 2009, I left the Marine Corps a disabled veteran and had been introduced to painting as a therapeutic practice to help manage my chronic pain and its underlying elements. "Paint whatever makes you happy," they'd say to me, and so I chose sea turtles; they make me happy.
Painting ushered me through the ups and downs of a botched early-life marriage and divorce at 27 and the slew of life's hardships that followed. The happiness of the sea turtles carried me on their wings, and the therapy evolved from painting to variations of psychological modalities, the reckoning of abuse from childhood, the searching for truth in therapy rooms and self-help books, and facing the moral inventory of my 'self,’ making space for its ego death and surrendering to greater spirituality.
I landed in 2017 with a renewed sense of being and discovered my love for sea turtle wings actually related to literal flying, so I listened and trusted myself; I flew. My path of following my passion led me to a flight instructor who swept me off my feet, and now we're married and have a baby girl; we named her Adena.
Adena burst open within me a prioritization of inner-knowing and self-revolution. She empowered me to erect a firewall of fierce boundaries from my old life and the abusive family relationships, which needed to be lovingly detached and properly distanced. Adena now blesses me with a daily reckoning of past-life coping mechanisms which no longer serve me.
The ego death triggered the painted sea turtles to suddenly fly free and disappear into the deep blue abyss. I felt as if I were floating in it -the abyss- now devoid of the joyful beacon I once relied on for navigation, lost in a sea of nothingness. Some would call this postpartum depression. I call it divine intervention.
My desperation led me to Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" last November, which helped uncover my inner secret. I had hidden from myself my want to be a writer after getting in trouble in the first grade for writing a book when I should have been paying attention to the lecture. In January (this year, 2022), I hopped on google and found the Blackbird Studio. I signed up for Bones of Storytelling and continued to listen to the faint voice of my inner child from first grade who continues to whisper, “write.”
Okay! I'm fricken loving this!!! TY. You are a powerhouse of a writer and human. I'm honored you're here and I get to be on your journey to realizing the fullness of yourself as a writer. Sea turtles. So cool.
When I was five, she gave my brother and I a roll of pennies. She told us to call her Ginger. Every time we called her mom, she took a penny. I called her Ginger most of my life.
I was named Rosemarie Jeanne’. That was what my father wanted. That’s the name that went on the birth certificate. Since the day I was born my mother called me Tracy. Everybody calls me Tracy. (Except my husband, he calls me Pinky : )
Ginger was a writer. She wrote poems and short memoir prose. Years into a project of putting her poems and prose together for a book, my mom passed on, book unfinished. Her desire was to be a beacon of hope and light to others that may have suffered a tragic childhood and survived to tell the tale.
I decided to take the project on. I would finish putting Ginger’s book together. As I started sorting through and organizing what she had completed and what she was still working on, the enormity of the task hit me full force. I ran straight into my own messy, tangled life. I couldn’t deal with my mother’s story until I faced mine.
When I was nine Ginger gave me my first diary. I’ve journaled off and on throughout my life ever since. I’ve written many poems and even songs. Now, at fifty, I was going to get serious and write memoir. So, I signed up for a seven week online memoir writing class. I loved it! I took a couple more. Being in the class structure helped to keep me focused and on task. Then my life took some interesting twists and turns and the writing project took a backseat. I have speculated on the inner workings of what that was really all about but will save that for later. For now, it’s been ten years since I started the project, seven since I set it down. Lately I have been feeling the tug, a whisper in my ear, “it’s time”……time to pick it back up……..
Well done. Ginger who charged a penny (I'll never forget this story! How much did you end up keeping of that roll?) I'm so glad you're here. Welcome to Tracy who is Rosemarie Jeanne who is also Pinky. That feels like a post...all our names. Welcome again.
When I was 43, my dad died and my mom (married 47 years) moved to Florida near me from Iowa where they had lived and I had grown up. For four of the five years my mom was here, all I did—when I wasn’t managing work, raising three children, helping my 10-year-old manage his OCD--was try to please her, make her happy, give her the life I thought she always wanted.
I remember sitting in my car on a sunny spring afternoon. I had just left my mom and I was screaming and sobbing in frustration, thinking “Why is she so difficult? Why can’t I make her happy? Why do I let her make me so crazy?” and this last thought got my attention. I realized I had some responsibility in the way I was feeling and reacting. I started to relax, breathe, and knew in that moment that I had to explore that. I knew I had to write about it.
That was seven years ago and up until the summer of 2021, I had just written dribs and drabs of a story. Some things that needed to come out, came out, and I housed them in a “Book” folder on my computer. Last summer I was introduced through a friend to Creator Institute and I dove blindly into writing a book that I had longed to write for so long.
Currently, I have the first draft written—all the chapters are there in their pathetic little paragraphs, half-stories and gag-me references begging for me to come back and massage them or put them out of their misery altogether.
My initial writing intention was to get it out. Something inside would not let me go and I had to write it. During the writing, however, more things about my life and upbringing came to light that I realized should be shared and openly discussed. I talk about my mom’s (apparent) depression, my depression, dysfunctional family dynamics, and what losing a child and sibling does to a family. I introduce my discovery of something called childhood emotional neglect and share how that manifested in my life and affected me into adulthood.
So, my new intention is to relate to people who struggle or have struggled in a rocky relationship with their mother, and anyone seeking to understand personal battles with depression, dysfunctional relationships and/or emotional disconnection and neglect.
It’s good. Mother was abusive, then Laura needed to care take before she died. Laura’s a friend and the co-writer of the original The Courage to Heal thirty years ago.
Hello Jennifer. A year or so ago I took your Bones of Storytelling course and enjoyed it very much. Was inspired to think about writing by the fact that I had retired from a pretty intense career in politics and government. I had heard from younger women and peers that I should leave something for the next generation. A grandson was born, and I had begun to think about family history and what to pass along to him (or any other grands that might come along). Hadn't yet committed to actually write, however. Right at the end of the Bones course I was diagnosed with breast cancer and now after chemo, surgery, and radiation treatments I am again hoping to pick up my pen and produce something to leave behind. I have many ideas and stories to tell but need to get up and flying.
Oh my gosh, Jeanne, hand to heart...of course I remember. And welcome. How touching you are back and I'm grateful you are okay now. Welcome in. And thank you for this update. You have much to leave behind, of course and your family will be blessed for it.
I graduated from college in 1985 from the University of Hawaii with a BA degree in Spanish.
I packed up my bikinis and moved to Sacramento where my parents and younger sisters had settled. Then, I floundered.
I worked in restaurants, which I was skilled at, yet always with my Dad's comment floating in my head: "Are you going to be a bilingual cocktail waitress all your life?" I had begun to perceive that my degree prepared me for...not much.
After much fruitless newspaper ad searching, I bought specialized Spanish-English legal dictionaries and began to study to take a test be a court translator. As I learned the Spanish words for so many crimes and misdemeanors as well as the legal processes, the glamor factor of my choice became clear.
I saw Pan Am's ad in a travel magazine for stewardess trainees and fleetingly felt that was the best use of my single skill - waitressing - and my half developed skill, Spanish translation. The (male) interviewer asked if I would be willing to wear makeup and fix my hair to maintain the certain look Pan Am required for its (female) stewardesses. I nodded compliantly. When I got the letter directing me to show up in a few weeks to the flight school training center in Miami, there was the briefest sensation of thinking my future was figured out.
At night, though, doubts multiplied.
Wanting to be a writer was always in me, that secret longing unconnected with daylight action. Also in me was a timid girl who could cried after the criticism of college-level creative writing attendees. That girl also craved a sure path, a figured-out future.
The few weeks after receiving Pan Am's letter might have been best spent learning how to do make up or blow dry my hair – I was proficient at neither. Instead I traveled south to Monterey, where I had heard there was a small language school for liberal arts majors. The 'campus' was a cluster of ramshackle houses still looking quite a bit like the waterfront shacks described in Steinbeck's Cannery Row.
In one was a 'café' - the parlor of the bungalow – with a cluster of tables and chairs, all filled with students. A single counter had a stained coffee machine and a cardboard box filled with plastic-wrapped cookies.
The music in the café as I stepped in was the languages being spoken – French and Spanish, Russian and Arabic, German and Chinese. I stood at the coffee counter and drank in the chatter. This was where I wanted to be.
I never made it to Miami and instead took a long grad school detour. After two years and many $$ I had a fancy paper proving that I had a master's degree but when it came to jobs bilingual cocktail waitress still fit my skills best. Desperation pointed me that first post-grad summer to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg. By summer's end I was no less clear on what to be, but clearer on what to do. Be a journalist! I became proficient, earned a living, wrote millions of words in articles and blog posts.
The moment arrived, though, at which that output turned meaningless. I could no longer put them together to make articles that floated out into the netosphere yet never seemed to make a bit of change in the world. I had only begun (!) to see that I had to write words that mattered to me, with the hope that someday I might figure out how to make those words into stories that would matter to someone else.
Lovely! Thank you. A bit more than the 400 words LOL. : ) But look at this new story hitting the page, meaning it's so well worth it. I'm touched you are here.
My earliest memory or thought about writing my story is split between two memories. One was a vision of me signing my book, the cover was yellow and purple. The line was out the door. That was back in like 2006 maybe?
The second memory is a reality. It wasn’t that long ago, but back in 2018 I had the opportunity to stay with my ultimate bestie, my Wheeza. Her family was stationed in Germany. The house they rented just so happened to have had an apartment attached. I stayed for six whole weeks writing and finding my voice with my story and quality time traveling the world with my best friend (and even a few weeks with my husband) Ever since then I have been driving myself mad with physical and emotional healing and reparenting myself and trying to figure out who I am as an empty nester and my whole new life path and purpose all while experiencing life through a pandemic. Geesh, no wonder I’m so exhausted all the time! No, that's Fibromyalgia. Yay!
This is where we are today. I've done so much internal work and I am in a healthy balance with my mind-body connection that I do believe it is time for me to really work within the lines of memoir. I know that I have morphed and changed the blurred lines of my life multiple times inside my mind. In reality, I haven’t touched it since I left that version of myself, frozen in time when the pandemic began. I believe now it is time to start anew, with who I am today. This version of myself that has healed in some areas, is softer yet more firm. Not sure why I’m thinking of corn on the cob right now but I am. Short story long, I’m excited for this whole Flight School thing!
The universe is always providing and for that I’m grateful.
Hi Jennifer! You know me from a while back. Quite a while! I've been waiting to learn from you again until I had something kind of solid... more solid footing and more time in the trenches. That time has now come. Yey!
I decided to be a writer at age 7. I lived with my grandma, and she wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to be like her. Also, I loved words and language from as early as I can remember. I wrote my first "memoir" in high school, about becoming a Christian. I never finished it, but I worked on it, with permission, during English class while others wrote about the prompt on the board. In my mid-20s, I came out of Christianity, and wrote another "memoir" about that experience, and about being mixed race and living in an "interesting" family. All that not-so-great writing helped prepare me to be a better writer. I got my BA and MA in English Lit, but creative writing kept tugging at me. My dad passed away when I was 24, and I knew I had to write about that. I wrote what I thought was the last page first (part of it is now the first page, and another part the last page). I kept rewriting and rewriting and participated in workshops (including one of yours, of course Jennifer!), then was chosen to be a featured writer at a mixed race festival and got even more serious about it. Over the past few years, I've been published in a number of places, including the New York Times and Real Simple. I also had an essay go viral, about being mixed race during police brutality.
My goal has always been to be a published book author. Exactly a year ago I signed with an agent, and this past week I got an offer for my book, and another publisher is interested. I'm beyond excited.
Jennifer, your workshop has been the biggest help to date with crafting my voice and writing scenes. I'm part of an online Facebook group for women writers but also wanted to connect back to you and to your writing community. This seemed like a great way to do so.
You did. And hello Shannon. Good work getting your work in the world and for this update. Now...exactly what is your hope for your writing? What do you see from this work (beyond publishing and reaching readers...which again, is great). See how I'm already nudging? ;-)
I appreciate the nudge! Writing has a couple uses for me: My head always feels full of disparate, out of order, flashes of memories... fond ones, hurtful ones, banal ones... Writing my own story helps me mentally put these memories into some sort of structure, not just on the page but also in my brain. It almost feels like cleaning (which I don't do enough of, but always enjoy its effects). There's space to breathe, and to meander through events that are neatly laid out before me. The other benefit is getting to another level of understanding my connections with loved ones. I realized some things about my dad that I wouldn't have realized without writing all that I have for the book. Sometimes I think I won't get further clarity, that I've reached a certain, finite level of understanding, and then something will click that makes things even clearer.
Thank you for putting into words what it feels like for me....."feels like cleaning, space to breathe.....understanding my connections with loved ones....." and learning there is no "finite level of understanding". There is always room for "further clarity". Thanks again : )
A friend jumped off of a bridge to his death, a final step in a series of attempts ultimately taking him from our world. Jim was a doctor, beloved by his colleagues, his patients' families and the community and his loss continues to be felt in the laughs, smiles and stories now absent from our hospital's beige hallways and corridors. The weight of "it all" finally crushed him.
The news of losing a physician colleague to suicide came infrequently to me as a student and surgical trainee. My life had not been touched by those who had made that fateful and irreversible decision, they were a name and a sad story, but not a familiar face. Now, two decades since beginning my training, these losses to our community, locally and abroad, have added up and now I've experienced personal loss, unfortunately more than Jim.
Physicians carry a heavy burden, not only to provide solutions to challenging medical problems, but to move on after those solutions have succeeded or failed. Every spectrum of failure has a weight. Society has given the term "second victim" to describe it; however, the phrase feels empty. Over a career, some short and others long, the weight of failures combine with other weights in one's life to create a state of helplessness and solitude.
My inspiration for beginning a journey in writing finds itself in giving breath to the story of this burden. A doctor who appears as the construct of success; wife, children, possessions, and health yet finds himself spiraling. I've written a prologue and now am mapping out the story as a creative memoir. I don't know how it will end though I'm excited to learn the ending as the story and characters evolve.
More than the story, I am looking forward to engaging with the community here, it feels like a safe and authentic place to share and develop.
Eric, thank you so much for this and forgive me for being so lame and getting back to you. What an incredible story and what a good writer you already are. That’s evidence in what you’ve done here. And shared. You have a powerful story to tell and I hope that flight school can be helpful to you. Thank you.
Thank you so much Jennifer, I appreciate your thoughtful reply. I have already been educated and inspired watching your videos and discussions, your writing and the vulnerable shares by the community here. Your subctack is a gem for those of us new to writing and of course of for those fortunate to be reaching deeper into their craft. The future is bright for all of us.
I am a child sexual abuse survivor—my dad, who also emotionally abused my sister and my mom.
I escaped from that situation after putting myself through college and followed my dream by traveling and backpacking all around the West and Southwest, living in several different states.
My second husband was a therapist and convinced me to get therapy, thank goodness. We are now divorced by are best friends getting along better than ever.
I discovered writing in my 60s, though I have always loved reading, and recently published my first novel, "At What Cost, Silence?" this past October with She Writes Press. I discovered that expression through writing gives me control over what happened and over my feelings, which lacked when I was a child. I write about people outside the norm who must struggle to find their true selves. My historical novel is about the damage done when one feels they cannot speak out.
Karen: Wow. What a story. I’m so sorry for the pain you’ve undoubtedly been through and honored to have you here on Flight School. I hope you find a lot of solace, support and inspiration in the posts. 😊
My sister and I have good lives now. I express myself through writing, and she does so through her amazing art. We have always been close, though we live physically in different states. I have much to be grateful for.
I have found the most difficult part is not writing the novel, but getting it read. The few people who have read it love it. But how do I reach all those others without spending a fortune? (Which I already have.)
I was 10 and dreading the moment my father, an award-winning journalist, came home from work to discover that I had almost failed my English Grammar paper. I was usually at the top of my class, but essay writing had kicked my ass and now I had to face my father’s wrath.
Horrified that anyone carrying his DNA could “almost fail” essay writing, my Dad devised a program where my two younger sisters and I had to write 3 essays a week or we couldn’t go out to play all summer vacation.
I raged and protested, but Indian parents don't care about their standing in the polls.
To his credit, he made things super interesting.
We each had a scrapbook. He’d encourage us to cut images out of magazines and create fictitious characters. We wrote autobiographies of inanimate objects. We wrote book reviews of our favourite bedtime stories and reports on family outings.
Each weekend, my father would sit with me and painstakingly critique my writing. He showed me how to write a strong headline and how to use metaphors. He explained how connecting a conclusion to the intro of a piece made it stronger and more satisfying. He showed me the power of a well-placed adjective.
By the end of that summer, I was hooked. I realized that I’d discovered the thing I was born to do. I kept writing. Essays, short stories, terrible poetry and my father both encouraged me and helped me hone my craft skills with careful critiques.
When I was 12, I wrote a short story called “Crash Landing” that was inspired by a dream I’d had where I was in a plane crash and helped rescue some of the other survivors.
My father decided it was time to show me how to pitch. This was before the internet, so we typed out my story and cover letter and sent it off to a youth magazine in Dubai.
A few months later, I received my first acceptance letter and a paycheque for the princely sum of $110 dirhams. It was CRAZY money in rupees. I was rich!! AND I’d broken my Dad’s record of having first published at age 14.
Wait, I could do this thing I loved doing AND make money?! I was completely and totally hooked and have been writing ever since (33+ years now).
And to continue the family tradition, I homeschool my son and he published his first piece at 11, breaking my record and winning a laptop in a writing contest.
Fourteen years ago now, I was sitting in a treatment room with my mom while she received chemo. We were talking about life and what I wanted to do with mine. I was in my early thirties with two degrees but still didn't have a clue what would make me happy. A classic "malcontent" as my mom liked to describe me. "Maybe write a book," I said in passing though I would have never for a single moment imagined myself worthy of such a thing. "I could see you doing that," she had said. So it was my mother, all those years ago, who planted a seed.
Three years ago I was living in NE Portland. I would drive down Sandy boulevard on the daily, usually to shuttle my kids to and from dance class or basketball or some other activity. There was a sign post on the sidewalk that read, "Blackbird: A Studio for Writers." I never bothered to learn more, because I just didn't see myself as worthy to call myself a writer. Until one day, I read the email listed on the sign. Jlauck. What?! Jennifer Lauck is like my favorite writer. She lives in Portland?! She teaches in Portland?! I paid her to read my crappy manuscript. I've been working with her ever since.
I don't know if I'll ever publish my book (but I have a feeling I will.) But if I never do, I am grateful for the journey. And what a journey it has been. Who would have guessed that it was the memoir that would take me so deep into myself, to re-experience my past in a way that has made me whole again. I couldn't be more grateful for this journey and to you Jennifer for your wisdom, your dedication to your students and to this craft. And for your wicked sense of humor and well timed snarkiness. I adore you.
You know how I adore you too. And I wish I could say, "Oh yeah, baby! You're getting published," but you know how I feel about all that. More on this site later...but for now, the rewards we generate for ourselves, for the world, for our soul...well, they are the biggest prize of all. Publishing is actually kind of a let down, I've found. LOL. Just sayin'. (Lovely story too. Very concise and tidy arc line. Very much feeling your Mom).
Creative writing has become the tool I never knew I needed, helping me navigate 'it all'—the weight of life, and the delicate balance of traversing the fog between the personal and professional. Like Dorothy’s ruby slippers, the freedom it offers had been with me all along; I just hadn’t recognized it until recently.
Really wonderful addition. There is such a power to this art form. It can hardly be summed up. The trick, and few have the patience to invest is writing in scene. Nail scene and you have the keys to the kingdom of this art form. Truly. 🔑 And scene is one thing: Embodied presence.
I’ve always been a writer. You know, that one in the office that writes all the marketing copy, business proposals. I love writing letters to people I adore, and for the last thirty years I send one personal note, by mail, to someone every month. I want my words heard, I want people to know how I feel but I can’t always speak to them the way I think them, they jumble in my head and stick to my tongue like I took a bite out of a peanut butter sandwich.
In 2018 I visited with my father and asked him questions about my childhood, about my deceased mother, about how my stepmom abused me. He answered none of my questions and only spoke about it as his story, not mine, and it was a new version I had never heard. No validation of my trauma, in fact, he dismissed what happened to me as a thing we go through in life and in my case, I turned out just fine. Angered words jumbled in my head, expanding my pain like a sponge soaking in water for days and days. The words finally escaped through my fingertips. A hundred words per minute. Relief. Like wringing out the full sponge. Sentences misshaped, overtelling, too much exposition. I didn’t know what I was doing but it felt so good as my fingers slapped the keys. Chronologically. 35,501 words.
My therapist read it to understand how she could help me. And her response was “you need to take a writing class.”
And I started attending Jennifer’s class in 2021.
Now I write anywhere from 500-2000 words per day. I work with a teacher that is helping me grow this new love of mine. I don't know if my memoir-turned-fiction will sell one day. But I am writing it anyway.
SO, . . . breath. This is a great question, Jennifer.
I think it is I feel things I can't say, well. The short version would be life hits you with things, as it does all of us, but we don't know quite what to do with them. When I'm being honest, I journal. There are dozens of tablets filled with musings on things, with no particular destination. I think they're often intellectualizing stuff. Way back in the late 80's I lost a brother to AIDS, and a crack developed. I used to be able to hold things in, but then there was this crack and I found I couldn't keep everything in. It just wasn't possible.
Shortly after that, a career change landed me in Respiratory Care, where all day long people, in some challenging spaces. A bit later and into a marriage, lupus became a part of the journey for my wife and I. There were some losses later due to miscarriage. Again coping, but not yet through writing. Politics became an obsession-who is in charge, am I being represented? Alot of energy without expression. Age progressed and I thought to count the days to retirement; if I just had a number to count down.
Then there was Covid.
I heard of someone who took 'ice baths' for therapy. . .and I gave it a go. I liked it. The crazier things were getting, the more soothing or rather, numbing the therapy. It was actually developing more mindfulness, but I was also freezing alot of my angst.
In my political searchings, I had read some authors on Substack. I didn't give it much thought at the time. We were just trying to get through Covid. When things finally began to break near the end of the pandemic, I again ran across this Substack app. In a moment of weakness I wrote a post about my cluttered basement, likening it to all the stuff I had been stuffing down there below the surface.
When I proofread it before posting, I panicked and deleted the post. It was too much. It was too real. I ended up writing a softer little piece, just dipping my toes in the water.
I wrote another piece about having to read some poetry in college, in an English Literature class. About how it freaked me out when I read it, as it felt like me.
This writing journey, I know I'm just scratching surfaces here. There's a whole lot behind the door. Why do I write-oh my goodness. We all need to write.
Thanks Jennifer; it was still therapeutic and I regret it too! Thanks for your forum. I read your prompt and it really stirred some things. Finished about 4a and went to bed!
Jennifer Lauck asks: “What have you done, up to now, in your efforts? Have you studied in MFA programs, taken a few local classes, worked from a book like The Artist Way by Julia Cameron or Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, or journaling on your own?”
My reply, in 400 words:
I actually have read both of those books, own copies of them.
I studied with Jennifer in Manzanita, Oregon at one of her beach retreats. That was life-changing in ways I’m still processing.
I’ve worked as a professional technical writer. I received my bachelor’s degree in composition and journalism.
These efforts and more have led me here, at age 65, to consider what else I might have to say. Plenty, it seems.
I sat down with pen and paper a little while ago to journal some thoughts. After writing today’s date, I remembered a childhood friend born on this day. We were 9th grade classmates. We eventually lost contact, as our circumstances changed. I think we must have gotten back in touch through social media. Since we were pretty close back then, with sleepovers and even a few family vacations together, we decided it would be fun to see each other again. We made plans and had that reunion.
It was great to feel those same bonds of friendship that had not eroded over time. By the same token, it became clear to me that our religious and political viewpoints had grown vastly dissimilar.
How could this be? I wondered then, and now. It shouldn’t matter, right? Religion and politics ought not interfere in genuine friendship and the subsequent goodwill we experience toward each other.
How about just people in general? Here we are facing another election. I will attend a “watch” party tomorrow night. This one is sponsored by the local political party of my choice. It should not matter which party, right? RIGHT?
Well, of course it matters. I want to be with people who will celebrate with me if things go the way we hope, or — worst case — to console each other in our disappointment in case they don’t go the way we hop they will.
I came across a phrase yesterday and it contained the words “audacious hope.” That’s what I aspire to have toward my writing. At this stage, my ambitions are different than they were before. This is true for everyone, of course. We grow. We change. We want to attract new things and discard others. I thought I no longer wanted to write for publication.
This turns out to be untrue, however. I do want to be published, somehow and somewhere, because all these words aren’t just for me. I must share them.
Hey JENNIFER, it’s so great to see you here. My deepest apologies for not hopping on here and seeing this post sooner. I love that “audacious hope.” I hope, perhaps audaciously, that I’ll see you in the challenges or in some of our mini classes. Let me know how I can be helpful.
I just read your post about falling off the ladder. Would you believe that just over a month ago I fainted in our kitchen and the back of my head hit the tile floor, causing a tear in my scalp about half an inch long. Of course, you know how much blood can flow from that! It was so scary. I’m glad you’re feeling better and hope you recover fully from that. Much love to you!
When I was in third grade, I got caught swinging from the pipes criss-crossing the high ceiling in rhe
old elementary school's bathroom. My very young teacher, Miss Cell, took me aside and asked, "What am I going to do with you? You don't seem to be able to control yourself."
I told her if she just let me read in a corner I'd be no problem. And to her credit, she agreed to the deal. And it worked! So I've always had this obsession with words. And I've always thought of myself as a writer. But until a few years ago, I was too head-down on work and family to really really get in the chair every day.
Now I have a few short stories in the words, and two novels, and I'm going for it. I'm ready for flight school, as long as it doesn't mean sitting still for too long.
Hey Kurt, thank you for this share. Like you, I used to sit in the back of the class and read rather than my attention to the lessons. A D student. But now look… A New York Times best seller under my belt. I look forward to hearing more about your work and seeing you and some of the many classes and challenges. Let us know how we could be helpful to you.
Back in 2009, I left the Marine Corps a disabled veteran and had been introduced to painting as a therapeutic practice to help manage my chronic pain and its underlying elements. "Paint whatever makes you happy," they'd say to me, and so I chose sea turtles; they make me happy.
Painting ushered me through the ups and downs of a botched early-life marriage and divorce at 27 and the slew of life's hardships that followed. The happiness of the sea turtles carried me on their wings, and the therapy evolved from painting to variations of psychological modalities, the reckoning of abuse from childhood, the searching for truth in therapy rooms and self-help books, and facing the moral inventory of my 'self,’ making space for its ego death and surrendering to greater spirituality.
I landed in 2017 with a renewed sense of being and discovered my love for sea turtle wings actually related to literal flying, so I listened and trusted myself; I flew. My path of following my passion led me to a flight instructor who swept me off my feet, and now we're married and have a baby girl; we named her Adena.
Adena burst open within me a prioritization of inner-knowing and self-revolution. She empowered me to erect a firewall of fierce boundaries from my old life and the abusive family relationships, which needed to be lovingly detached and properly distanced. Adena now blesses me with a daily reckoning of past-life coping mechanisms which no longer serve me.
The ego death triggered the painted sea turtles to suddenly fly free and disappear into the deep blue abyss. I felt as if I were floating in it -the abyss- now devoid of the joyful beacon I once relied on for navigation, lost in a sea of nothingness. Some would call this postpartum depression. I call it divine intervention.
My desperation led me to Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" last November, which helped uncover my inner secret. I had hidden from myself my want to be a writer after getting in trouble in the first grade for writing a book when I should have been paying attention to the lecture. In January (this year, 2022), I hopped on google and found the Blackbird Studio. I signed up for Bones of Storytelling and continued to listen to the faint voice of my inner child from first grade who continues to whisper, “write.”
Hello, everyone, I am Julia, and I am a writer.
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Okay! I'm fricken loving this!!! TY. You are a powerhouse of a writer and human. I'm honored you're here and I get to be on your journey to realizing the fullness of yourself as a writer. Sea turtles. So cool.
Welcome to a fun, productive life!🙂
This is beautiful! Welcome fellow writer!
My mother was named Rosemarie Jeanne’ at birth.
When I was five, she gave my brother and I a roll of pennies. She told us to call her Ginger. Every time we called her mom, she took a penny. I called her Ginger most of my life.
I was named Rosemarie Jeanne’. That was what my father wanted. That’s the name that went on the birth certificate. Since the day I was born my mother called me Tracy. Everybody calls me Tracy. (Except my husband, he calls me Pinky : )
Ginger was a writer. She wrote poems and short memoir prose. Years into a project of putting her poems and prose together for a book, my mom passed on, book unfinished. Her desire was to be a beacon of hope and light to others that may have suffered a tragic childhood and survived to tell the tale.
I decided to take the project on. I would finish putting Ginger’s book together. As I started sorting through and organizing what she had completed and what she was still working on, the enormity of the task hit me full force. I ran straight into my own messy, tangled life. I couldn’t deal with my mother’s story until I faced mine.
When I was nine Ginger gave me my first diary. I’ve journaled off and on throughout my life ever since. I’ve written many poems and even songs. Now, at fifty, I was going to get serious and write memoir. So, I signed up for a seven week online memoir writing class. I loved it! I took a couple more. Being in the class structure helped to keep me focused and on task. Then my life took some interesting twists and turns and the writing project took a backseat. I have speculated on the inner workings of what that was really all about but will save that for later. For now, it’s been ten years since I started the project, seven since I set it down. Lately I have been feeling the tug, a whisper in my ear, “it’s time”……time to pick it back up……..
So here I am : )
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Well done. Ginger who charged a penny (I'll never forget this story! How much did you end up keeping of that roll?) I'm so glad you're here. Welcome to Tracy who is Rosemarie Jeanne who is also Pinky. That feels like a post...all our names. Welcome again.
When I was 43, my dad died and my mom (married 47 years) moved to Florida near me from Iowa where they had lived and I had grown up. For four of the five years my mom was here, all I did—when I wasn’t managing work, raising three children, helping my 10-year-old manage his OCD--was try to please her, make her happy, give her the life I thought she always wanted.
I remember sitting in my car on a sunny spring afternoon. I had just left my mom and I was screaming and sobbing in frustration, thinking “Why is she so difficult? Why can’t I make her happy? Why do I let her make me so crazy?” and this last thought got my attention. I realized I had some responsibility in the way I was feeling and reacting. I started to relax, breathe, and knew in that moment that I had to explore that. I knew I had to write about it.
That was seven years ago and up until the summer of 2021, I had just written dribs and drabs of a story. Some things that needed to come out, came out, and I housed them in a “Book” folder on my computer. Last summer I was introduced through a friend to Creator Institute and I dove blindly into writing a book that I had longed to write for so long.
Currently, I have the first draft written—all the chapters are there in their pathetic little paragraphs, half-stories and gag-me references begging for me to come back and massage them or put them out of their misery altogether.
My initial writing intention was to get it out. Something inside would not let me go and I had to write it. During the writing, however, more things about my life and upbringing came to light that I realized should be shared and openly discussed. I talk about my mom’s (apparent) depression, my depression, dysfunctional family dynamics, and what losing a child and sibling does to a family. I introduce my discovery of something called childhood emotional neglect and share how that manifested in my life and affected me into adulthood.
So, my new intention is to relate to people who struggle or have struggled in a rocky relationship with their mother, and anyone seeking to understand personal battles with depression, dysfunctional relationships and/or emotional disconnection and neglect.
Wonderful, Tracy. Thank you for this generous share. Welcome in.
I wonder if you have you read The Burning Light of Two Stars by Laura Davis? Terrific mother-daughter memoir with similar themes
Hi hi...no I haven't. You recommend it?
It’s good. Mother was abusive, then Laura needed to care take before she died. Laura’s a friend and the co-writer of the original The Courage to Heal thirty years ago.
Hello Jennifer. A year or so ago I took your Bones of Storytelling course and enjoyed it very much. Was inspired to think about writing by the fact that I had retired from a pretty intense career in politics and government. I had heard from younger women and peers that I should leave something for the next generation. A grandson was born, and I had begun to think about family history and what to pass along to him (or any other grands that might come along). Hadn't yet committed to actually write, however. Right at the end of the Bones course I was diagnosed with breast cancer and now after chemo, surgery, and radiation treatments I am again hoping to pick up my pen and produce something to leave behind. I have many ideas and stories to tell but need to get up and flying.
Oh my gosh, Jeanne, hand to heart...of course I remember. And welcome. How touching you are back and I'm grateful you are okay now. Welcome in. And thank you for this update. You have much to leave behind, of course and your family will be blessed for it.
I graduated from college in 1985 from the University of Hawaii with a BA degree in Spanish.
I packed up my bikinis and moved to Sacramento where my parents and younger sisters had settled. Then, I floundered.
I worked in restaurants, which I was skilled at, yet always with my Dad's comment floating in my head: "Are you going to be a bilingual cocktail waitress all your life?" I had begun to perceive that my degree prepared me for...not much.
After much fruitless newspaper ad searching, I bought specialized Spanish-English legal dictionaries and began to study to take a test be a court translator. As I learned the Spanish words for so many crimes and misdemeanors as well as the legal processes, the glamor factor of my choice became clear.
I saw Pan Am's ad in a travel magazine for stewardess trainees and fleetingly felt that was the best use of my single skill - waitressing - and my half developed skill, Spanish translation. The (male) interviewer asked if I would be willing to wear makeup and fix my hair to maintain the certain look Pan Am required for its (female) stewardesses. I nodded compliantly. When I got the letter directing me to show up in a few weeks to the flight school training center in Miami, there was the briefest sensation of thinking my future was figured out.
At night, though, doubts multiplied.
Wanting to be a writer was always in me, that secret longing unconnected with daylight action. Also in me was a timid girl who could cried after the criticism of college-level creative writing attendees. That girl also craved a sure path, a figured-out future.
The few weeks after receiving Pan Am's letter might have been best spent learning how to do make up or blow dry my hair – I was proficient at neither. Instead I traveled south to Monterey, where I had heard there was a small language school for liberal arts majors. The 'campus' was a cluster of ramshackle houses still looking quite a bit like the waterfront shacks described in Steinbeck's Cannery Row.
In one was a 'café' - the parlor of the bungalow – with a cluster of tables and chairs, all filled with students. A single counter had a stained coffee machine and a cardboard box filled with plastic-wrapped cookies.
The music in the café as I stepped in was the languages being spoken – French and Spanish, Russian and Arabic, German and Chinese. I stood at the coffee counter and drank in the chatter. This was where I wanted to be.
I never made it to Miami and instead took a long grad school detour. After two years and many $$ I had a fancy paper proving that I had a master's degree but when it came to jobs bilingual cocktail waitress still fit my skills best. Desperation pointed me that first post-grad summer to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg. By summer's end I was no less clear on what to be, but clearer on what to do. Be a journalist! I became proficient, earned a living, wrote millions of words in articles and blog posts.
The moment arrived, though, at which that output turned meaningless. I could no longer put them together to make articles that floated out into the netosphere yet never seemed to make a bit of change in the world. I had only begun (!) to see that I had to write words that mattered to me, with the hope that someday I might figure out how to make those words into stories that would matter to someone else.
April 💙💙💙
Lovely! Thank you. A bit more than the 400 words LOL. : ) But look at this new story hitting the page, meaning it's so well worth it. I'm touched you are here.
Hey Jennifer, I’m Sara. Also, a PNW’er.
My earliest memory or thought about writing my story is split between two memories. One was a vision of me signing my book, the cover was yellow and purple. The line was out the door. That was back in like 2006 maybe?
The second memory is a reality. It wasn’t that long ago, but back in 2018 I had the opportunity to stay with my ultimate bestie, my Wheeza. Her family was stationed in Germany. The house they rented just so happened to have had an apartment attached. I stayed for six whole weeks writing and finding my voice with my story and quality time traveling the world with my best friend (and even a few weeks with my husband) Ever since then I have been driving myself mad with physical and emotional healing and reparenting myself and trying to figure out who I am as an empty nester and my whole new life path and purpose all while experiencing life through a pandemic. Geesh, no wonder I’m so exhausted all the time! No, that's Fibromyalgia. Yay!
This is where we are today. I've done so much internal work and I am in a healthy balance with my mind-body connection that I do believe it is time for me to really work within the lines of memoir. I know that I have morphed and changed the blurred lines of my life multiple times inside my mind. In reality, I haven’t touched it since I left that version of myself, frozen in time when the pandemic began. I believe now it is time to start anew, with who I am today. This version of myself that has healed in some areas, is softer yet more firm. Not sure why I’m thinking of corn on the cob right now but I am. Short story long, I’m excited for this whole Flight School thing!
The universe is always providing and for that I’m grateful.
//s.moore
//330 words
"I have morphed and changed the blurred lines of my life multiple times inside my mind." I love that!
Well done! And you word counted too. The second had that move through time, that story, I was asking for too. So again, well done and welcome!
Hi Jennifer! You know me from a while back. Quite a while! I've been waiting to learn from you again until I had something kind of solid... more solid footing and more time in the trenches. That time has now come. Yey!
I decided to be a writer at age 7. I lived with my grandma, and she wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to be like her. Also, I loved words and language from as early as I can remember. I wrote my first "memoir" in high school, about becoming a Christian. I never finished it, but I worked on it, with permission, during English class while others wrote about the prompt on the board. In my mid-20s, I came out of Christianity, and wrote another "memoir" about that experience, and about being mixed race and living in an "interesting" family. All that not-so-great writing helped prepare me to be a better writer. I got my BA and MA in English Lit, but creative writing kept tugging at me. My dad passed away when I was 24, and I knew I had to write about that. I wrote what I thought was the last page first (part of it is now the first page, and another part the last page). I kept rewriting and rewriting and participated in workshops (including one of yours, of course Jennifer!), then was chosen to be a featured writer at a mixed race festival and got even more serious about it. Over the past few years, I've been published in a number of places, including the New York Times and Real Simple. I also had an essay go viral, about being mixed race during police brutality.
My goal has always been to be a published book author. Exactly a year ago I signed with an agent, and this past week I got an offer for my book, and another publisher is interested. I'm beyond excited.
Jennifer, your workshop has been the biggest help to date with crafting my voice and writing scenes. I'm part of an online Facebook group for women writers but also wanted to connect back to you and to your writing community. This seemed like a great way to do so.
Hopefully I answered the prompt correctly!
You did. And hello Shannon. Good work getting your work in the world and for this update. Now...exactly what is your hope for your writing? What do you see from this work (beyond publishing and reaching readers...which again, is great). See how I'm already nudging? ;-)
I appreciate the nudge! Writing has a couple uses for me: My head always feels full of disparate, out of order, flashes of memories... fond ones, hurtful ones, banal ones... Writing my own story helps me mentally put these memories into some sort of structure, not just on the page but also in my brain. It almost feels like cleaning (which I don't do enough of, but always enjoy its effects). There's space to breathe, and to meander through events that are neatly laid out before me. The other benefit is getting to another level of understanding my connections with loved ones. I realized some things about my dad that I wouldn't have realized without writing all that I have for the book. Sometimes I think I won't get further clarity, that I've reached a certain, finite level of understanding, and then something will click that makes things even clearer.
Hi again...took me a moment or two to get back in here...great. All good things. Perfect.
Thank you for putting into words what it feels like for me....."feels like cleaning, space to breathe.....understanding my connections with loved ones....." and learning there is no "finite level of understanding". There is always room for "further clarity". Thanks again : )
Congrats on the book deal! That’s such wonderful news!!
Thanks!
A friend jumped off of a bridge to his death, a final step in a series of attempts ultimately taking him from our world. Jim was a doctor, beloved by his colleagues, his patients' families and the community and his loss continues to be felt in the laughs, smiles and stories now absent from our hospital's beige hallways and corridors. The weight of "it all" finally crushed him.
The news of losing a physician colleague to suicide came infrequently to me as a student and surgical trainee. My life had not been touched by those who had made that fateful and irreversible decision, they were a name and a sad story, but not a familiar face. Now, two decades since beginning my training, these losses to our community, locally and abroad, have added up and now I've experienced personal loss, unfortunately more than Jim.
Physicians carry a heavy burden, not only to provide solutions to challenging medical problems, but to move on after those solutions have succeeded or failed. Every spectrum of failure has a weight. Society has given the term "second victim" to describe it; however, the phrase feels empty. Over a career, some short and others long, the weight of failures combine with other weights in one's life to create a state of helplessness and solitude.
My inspiration for beginning a journey in writing finds itself in giving breath to the story of this burden. A doctor who appears as the construct of success; wife, children, possessions, and health yet finds himself spiraling. I've written a prologue and now am mapping out the story as a creative memoir. I don't know how it will end though I'm excited to learn the ending as the story and characters evolve.
More than the story, I am looking forward to engaging with the community here, it feels like a safe and authentic place to share and develop.
Eric, thank you so much for this and forgive me for being so lame and getting back to you. What an incredible story and what a good writer you already are. That’s evidence in what you’ve done here. And shared. You have a powerful story to tell and I hope that flight school can be helpful to you. Thank you.
Thank you so much Jennifer, I appreciate your thoughtful reply. I have already been educated and inspired watching your videos and discussions, your writing and the vulnerable shares by the community here. Your subctack is a gem for those of us new to writing and of course of for those fortunate to be reaching deeper into their craft. The future is bright for all of us.
Very dear! And good to hear. People are busy! I want to make sure to NEVER waste your time.
I am a child sexual abuse survivor—my dad, who also emotionally abused my sister and my mom.
I escaped from that situation after putting myself through college and followed my dream by traveling and backpacking all around the West and Southwest, living in several different states.
My second husband was a therapist and convinced me to get therapy, thank goodness. We are now divorced by are best friends getting along better than ever.
I discovered writing in my 60s, though I have always loved reading, and recently published my first novel, "At What Cost, Silence?" this past October with She Writes Press. I discovered that expression through writing gives me control over what happened and over my feelings, which lacked when I was a child. I write about people outside the norm who must struggle to find their true selves. My historical novel is about the damage done when one feels they cannot speak out.
Karen: Wow. What a story. I’m so sorry for the pain you’ve undoubtedly been through and honored to have you here on Flight School. I hope you find a lot of solace, support and inspiration in the posts. 😊
My sister and I have good lives now. I express myself through writing, and she does so through her amazing art. We have always been close, though we live physically in different states. I have much to be grateful for.
I’m so glad. Art is a wonderful outlet. How’s the novel going?
I have found the most difficult part is not writing the novel, but getting it read. The few people who have read it love it. But how do I reach all those others without spending a fortune? (Which I already have.)
That's the $1000 question. If you find an answer...let me know.
I was 10 and dreading the moment my father, an award-winning journalist, came home from work to discover that I had almost failed my English Grammar paper. I was usually at the top of my class, but essay writing had kicked my ass and now I had to face my father’s wrath.
Horrified that anyone carrying his DNA could “almost fail” essay writing, my Dad devised a program where my two younger sisters and I had to write 3 essays a week or we couldn’t go out to play all summer vacation.
I raged and protested, but Indian parents don't care about their standing in the polls.
To his credit, he made things super interesting.
We each had a scrapbook. He’d encourage us to cut images out of magazines and create fictitious characters. We wrote autobiographies of inanimate objects. We wrote book reviews of our favourite bedtime stories and reports on family outings.
Each weekend, my father would sit with me and painstakingly critique my writing. He showed me how to write a strong headline and how to use metaphors. He explained how connecting a conclusion to the intro of a piece made it stronger and more satisfying. He showed me the power of a well-placed adjective.
By the end of that summer, I was hooked. I realized that I’d discovered the thing I was born to do. I kept writing. Essays, short stories, terrible poetry and my father both encouraged me and helped me hone my craft skills with careful critiques.
When I was 12, I wrote a short story called “Crash Landing” that was inspired by a dream I’d had where I was in a plane crash and helped rescue some of the other survivors.
My father decided it was time to show me how to pitch. This was before the internet, so we typed out my story and cover letter and sent it off to a youth magazine in Dubai.
A few months later, I received my first acceptance letter and a paycheque for the princely sum of $110 dirhams. It was CRAZY money in rupees. I was rich!! AND I’d broken my Dad’s record of having first published at age 14.
Wait, I could do this thing I loved doing AND make money?! I was completely and totally hooked and have been writing ever since (33+ years now).
And to continue the family tradition, I homeschool my son and he published his first piece at 11, breaking my record and winning a laptop in a writing contest.
So the family tradition continues…
This is so wonderful. Thank you. Great to have you with us.
Fourteen years ago now, I was sitting in a treatment room with my mom while she received chemo. We were talking about life and what I wanted to do with mine. I was in my early thirties with two degrees but still didn't have a clue what would make me happy. A classic "malcontent" as my mom liked to describe me. "Maybe write a book," I said in passing though I would have never for a single moment imagined myself worthy of such a thing. "I could see you doing that," she had said. So it was my mother, all those years ago, who planted a seed.
Three years ago I was living in NE Portland. I would drive down Sandy boulevard on the daily, usually to shuttle my kids to and from dance class or basketball or some other activity. There was a sign post on the sidewalk that read, "Blackbird: A Studio for Writers." I never bothered to learn more, because I just didn't see myself as worthy to call myself a writer. Until one day, I read the email listed on the sign. Jlauck. What?! Jennifer Lauck is like my favorite writer. She lives in Portland?! She teaches in Portland?! I paid her to read my crappy manuscript. I've been working with her ever since.
I don't know if I'll ever publish my book (but I have a feeling I will.) But if I never do, I am grateful for the journey. And what a journey it has been. Who would have guessed that it was the memoir that would take me so deep into myself, to re-experience my past in a way that has made me whole again. I couldn't be more grateful for this journey and to you Jennifer for your wisdom, your dedication to your students and to this craft. And for your wicked sense of humor and well timed snarkiness. I adore you.
You know how I adore you too. And I wish I could say, "Oh yeah, baby! You're getting published," but you know how I feel about all that. More on this site later...but for now, the rewards we generate for ourselves, for the world, for our soul...well, they are the biggest prize of all. Publishing is actually kind of a let down, I've found. LOL. Just sayin'. (Lovely story too. Very concise and tidy arc line. Very much feeling your Mom).
Creative writing has become the tool I never knew I needed, helping me navigate 'it all'—the weight of life, and the delicate balance of traversing the fog between the personal and professional. Like Dorothy’s ruby slippers, the freedom it offers had been with me all along; I just hadn’t recognized it until recently.
Really wonderful addition. There is such a power to this art form. It can hardly be summed up. The trick, and few have the patience to invest is writing in scene. Nail scene and you have the keys to the kingdom of this art form. Truly. 🔑 And scene is one thing: Embodied presence.
I’ve always been a writer. You know, that one in the office that writes all the marketing copy, business proposals. I love writing letters to people I adore, and for the last thirty years I send one personal note, by mail, to someone every month. I want my words heard, I want people to know how I feel but I can’t always speak to them the way I think them, they jumble in my head and stick to my tongue like I took a bite out of a peanut butter sandwich.
In 2018 I visited with my father and asked him questions about my childhood, about my deceased mother, about how my stepmom abused me. He answered none of my questions and only spoke about it as his story, not mine, and it was a new version I had never heard. No validation of my trauma, in fact, he dismissed what happened to me as a thing we go through in life and in my case, I turned out just fine. Angered words jumbled in my head, expanding my pain like a sponge soaking in water for days and days. The words finally escaped through my fingertips. A hundred words per minute. Relief. Like wringing out the full sponge. Sentences misshaped, overtelling, too much exposition. I didn’t know what I was doing but it felt so good as my fingers slapped the keys. Chronologically. 35,501 words.
My therapist read it to understand how she could help me. And her response was “you need to take a writing class.”
And I started attending Jennifer’s class in 2021.
Now I write anywhere from 500-2000 words per day. I work with a teacher that is helping me grow this new love of mine. I don't know if my memoir-turned-fiction will sell one day. But I am writing it anyway.
I remember that day! A good one when you reached out. Great to see you here, Laura! We've got Becky helping me in SII. You should come back.
SO, . . . breath. This is a great question, Jennifer.
I think it is I feel things I can't say, well. The short version would be life hits you with things, as it does all of us, but we don't know quite what to do with them. When I'm being honest, I journal. There are dozens of tablets filled with musings on things, with no particular destination. I think they're often intellectualizing stuff. Way back in the late 80's I lost a brother to AIDS, and a crack developed. I used to be able to hold things in, but then there was this crack and I found I couldn't keep everything in. It just wasn't possible.
Shortly after that, a career change landed me in Respiratory Care, where all day long people, in some challenging spaces. A bit later and into a marriage, lupus became a part of the journey for my wife and I. There were some losses later due to miscarriage. Again coping, but not yet through writing. Politics became an obsession-who is in charge, am I being represented? Alot of energy without expression. Age progressed and I thought to count the days to retirement; if I just had a number to count down.
Then there was Covid.
I heard of someone who took 'ice baths' for therapy. . .and I gave it a go. I liked it. The crazier things were getting, the more soothing or rather, numbing the therapy. It was actually developing more mindfulness, but I was also freezing alot of my angst.
In my political searchings, I had read some authors on Substack. I didn't give it much thought at the time. We were just trying to get through Covid. When things finally began to break near the end of the pandemic, I again ran across this Substack app. In a moment of weakness I wrote a post about my cluttered basement, likening it to all the stuff I had been stuffing down there below the surface.
When I proofread it before posting, I panicked and deleted the post. It was too much. It was too real. I ended up writing a softer little piece, just dipping my toes in the water.
I wrote another piece about having to read some poetry in college, in an English Literature class. About how it freaked me out when I read it, as it felt like me.
This writing journey, I know I'm just scratching surfaces here. There's a whole lot behind the door. Why do I write-oh my goodness. We all need to write.
Thanks so much, Jennifer.
Welcome! I'm so so glad you're here. I wish I could see that piece about the basement. I bet it was amazing.
Thanks Jennifer; it was still therapeutic and I regret it too! Thanks for your forum. I read your prompt and it really stirred some things. Finished about 4a and went to bed!
Jennifer Lauck asks: “What have you done, up to now, in your efforts? Have you studied in MFA programs, taken a few local classes, worked from a book like The Artist Way by Julia Cameron or Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, or journaling on your own?”
My reply, in 400 words:
I actually have read both of those books, own copies of them.
I studied with Jennifer in Manzanita, Oregon at one of her beach retreats. That was life-changing in ways I’m still processing.
I’ve worked as a professional technical writer. I received my bachelor’s degree in composition and journalism.
These efforts and more have led me here, at age 65, to consider what else I might have to say. Plenty, it seems.
I sat down with pen and paper a little while ago to journal some thoughts. After writing today’s date, I remembered a childhood friend born on this day. We were 9th grade classmates. We eventually lost contact, as our circumstances changed. I think we must have gotten back in touch through social media. Since we were pretty close back then, with sleepovers and even a few family vacations together, we decided it would be fun to see each other again. We made plans and had that reunion.
It was great to feel those same bonds of friendship that had not eroded over time. By the same token, it became clear to me that our religious and political viewpoints had grown vastly dissimilar.
How could this be? I wondered then, and now. It shouldn’t matter, right? Religion and politics ought not interfere in genuine friendship and the subsequent goodwill we experience toward each other.
How about just people in general? Here we are facing another election. I will attend a “watch” party tomorrow night. This one is sponsored by the local political party of my choice. It should not matter which party, right? RIGHT?
Well, of course it matters. I want to be with people who will celebrate with me if things go the way we hope, or — worst case — to console each other in our disappointment in case they don’t go the way we hop they will.
I came across a phrase yesterday and it contained the words “audacious hope.” That’s what I aspire to have toward my writing. At this stage, my ambitions are different than they were before. This is true for everyone, of course. We grow. We change. We want to attract new things and discard others. I thought I no longer wanted to write for publication.
This turns out to be untrue, however. I do want to be published, somehow and somewhere, because all these words aren’t just for me. I must share them.
Hey JENNIFER, it’s so great to see you here. My deepest apologies for not hopping on here and seeing this post sooner. I love that “audacious hope.” I hope, perhaps audaciously, that I’ll see you in the challenges or in some of our mini classes. Let me know how I can be helpful.
I just read your post about falling off the ladder. Would you believe that just over a month ago I fainted in our kitchen and the back of my head hit the tile floor, causing a tear in my scalp about half an inch long. Of course, you know how much blood can flow from that! It was so scary. I’m glad you’re feeling better and hope you recover fully from that. Much love to you!
When I was in third grade, I got caught swinging from the pipes criss-crossing the high ceiling in rhe
old elementary school's bathroom. My very young teacher, Miss Cell, took me aside and asked, "What am I going to do with you? You don't seem to be able to control yourself."
I told her if she just let me read in a corner I'd be no problem. And to her credit, she agreed to the deal. And it worked! So I've always had this obsession with words. And I've always thought of myself as a writer. But until a few years ago, I was too head-down on work and family to really really get in the chair every day.
Now I have a few short stories in the words, and two novels, and I'm going for it. I'm ready for flight school, as long as it doesn't mean sitting still for too long.
Hey Kurt, thank you for this share. Like you, I used to sit in the back of the class and read rather than my attention to the lessons. A D student. But now look… A New York Times best seller under my belt. I look forward to hearing more about your work and seeing you and some of the many classes and challenges. Let us know how we could be helpful to you.