Telling Herstories: The Broad View

Put Story Poems in Your Memoir Tool Box!

During Stories from the Heart V (February 5-7, 2010 in Austin, Texas) Story Circle Network’s National Memoir Conference will be abuzz with myriad ways of storytelling. Among these workshops will be mine: “Story Poems: A Tool for Writing Our Stories.”

The story-poem is an often-overlooked form for telling our stories. We'll discuss the genre and its unique niche in storytelling. We’ll compare samples of prose and story poems. Then you’ll practice turning your own prose into a story poem.

What is a story poem? A story poem combines highly compressed narrative, musing, and observation using poetic techniques such as alliteration, imagery, and metaphor. In the story poem, as in prose, the sentence rather than the line is the primary unit.

Besides introducing the story poem genre, we’ll examine when the form is best used. What are its advantages and disadvantages as a writing tool? Would your own writing projects benefit from using or borrowing from the story poem form?

Poetry is an excellent genre for memoir because it condenses the story, handles emotion deftly, and is open to non-linear constructions. The story poem fosters dialogue, character, event, and understated language.  Being familiar with story poems allows you to see your story from a different perspective. They are also good teachers of craft elements that make your writing strong.

To learn more about story poems and my work browse three links from Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler’s Women’s Memoirs site.

Read the full guest post and writing prompt here

Listen to a recording of our discussion on story poems as memoir:

Check out Kendra’s review my audio book “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music” :

Effective Openings, Memoir Writing Craft, and SCN's Stories from the Heart V Conference

Opening Salvos # 13 by Matilda Butler

“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

An Opening Sentence Indelibly Inked in Our Minds

If you follow this Opening Salvos blog, you know that I focus on effective ways to begin a memoir. My writing and business partner, Kendra Bonnett, and I regularly interview memoir authors to get their perspective on multiple topics, including openings. As soon as I saw the date for today’s SCN Telling Herstories post, my mind immediately turned to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's opening sentence in his message to Congress asking for a formal declaration of war. There are many ways that he could have started that speech. Yet the carefully crafted beginning was so effective that many of us can recite it from memory 68 years later. 

In pursuit of effective openings, I continue to seek multiple answers to the question, “How do you write in a way that gets the reader’s attention, that makes her want to know more, that causes her to turn the page to see what you are saying next?” That’s really the point of this blog and as you’ll see that the end of this post, I’ve recently gotten some new perspectives from award-winning author Sue William Silverman. 

More To It Than Just Openings

Effective openings, of course, are just that. They are important, but even the best written opening will only hold a reader’s attention for a couple of pages. Writers have to deliver compelling content page after page. How can you take a story, any story, and tell it in a way that engages readers? That’s the question that students ask us frequently. Even those who are writing for their family tell us that they don’t want to create a boring memoir that their children and grandchildren won’t even read. 

It’s the question that my business partner, Kendra Bonnett, and I have been asking ourselves directly and indirectly over the past seven years, first as we wrote our collective memoir (Rosie’s Daughters: The “First Woman To” Generation Tells Its Story) and now as we teach women’s memoir writing classes and regularly blog on our website: womensmemoirs.com  Sometimes we get a glimpse of what it takes to write effectively, such as using the five senses. We tease out that particular writing element, hold it up to the light, research it, develop writing materials, and teach it. Each time we do this, we see improvements in our students writing, but we know that just like effective openings, a single element is just a part of the whole. But what is the whole?

In the spring this year, Kendra drove out from Maine to spend a month with me in California. We do this once or twice a year, a time of joint teaching, planning the coming year, and developing new products. A major focus for 2009 was better ways to teach writing. Lots of ideas, but nothing seemed to really answer our question. We had even come up with a concept for a book about writing although it seemed too derivative of what had already been done. Several weeks into her stay, we drove to San Jose for a concert, a rare and well-earned evening of relaxation. We arrived an hour early so that we could hear the composer discuss his composition, which would be publicly performed for the first time that evening. During the lecture, he described and demonstrated the deconstruction of the piece into its three basic elements. About three-fourths of the way through his presentation, Kendra and I turned to each other and whispered in almost the same words at the same moment, “That’s it. That’s what we’ve been looking for.” Both nodding, we went back to listening to the composer. I suppose Louis Pasteur would listen to our story and repeat his line that “chance favors the prepared mind.” 

Experience Our New Writing Concept at SCN’s Stories from the Heart V

Kendra and I spent the rest of her stay developing our new concept for effective writing, an approach that we will present in our SCN Stories from the Heart V pre-conference workshop in Austin on Friday February 5, 2010. Our writing approach has come a long way from our aha moment. We have now elaborated the concept, researched the elements, found examples in the writings of bestselling and well-known authors, developed materials about what have become five elements, taught the approach in many courses and have students regularly using this approach in their memoir writing. We have seen writers produce professional quality work as soon as they embrace our technique. In addition to teaching students how to use it, we are finishing our book that fully explains and exemplifies our approach, a book entitled Five Magical Elements that Turn Your Words into Gold: Secrets of Writing Alchemy. For more information about our SCN pre-conference workshop, Click Here. 

An Invitation to Join Us and Others in Austin, February 5-7

We invite you participate with us in Austin as we join with keynoters Heather Summerhayes Cariou, author of Sixtyfive Roses: A Sister’s Memoir and Mary Gordon Spence author of Finding Magic in the Mundane, and a group of 27 incredibly talented memoir writers, teachers, coaches, and editors who are bringing their ideas to Austin, February 5-7 to share with you in a vibrant and insightful series of workshops.

Before You Know It, You’ll Be Writing from the Heart 

Give yourself and your writing a holiday present by signing up now for Stories from the Heart V. The SCN early-bird registration discount is only good until December 15. Click Here for more information about the conference and to register before the conference fees increase.

Back to Opening Salvos

Of course, this is Opening Salvos for December so I want to give you two presents -- both audio interviews with well-known memoirists. The first is a link to our interview with Susan Wittig Albert, known to you as founder of Story Circle Network, author of multiple bestselling series including The China Bayles Mysteries and The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter among others, and the author of Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place. If you are engaged in writing your memoir, or thinking about beginning to write, you’ll want to listen to Susan describe both her experiences with writing her memoir and her advice on how to handle various aspect of memoir. Click Here to go to Susan's interview.

My second gift to you is my just completed interview with Sue William Silverman in my Memoir Moments series. Kendra and I conducted a longer interview with Sue about her memoirs, but in this recent interview, Sue and I focused on memoir openings. In her interview, you’ll learn how your opening helps to create a portal into the experiences you want to describe. Especially important are her comments about "giving details an attitude" so that they help to convey your emotions. Click Here to listen to Sue William Silverman’s interview.

Cycle 5-2: Critique--Group Ears, Eyes, Voice, and Heart

We want to do good and help our sister writers. We join groups to do just that. When like minds come together with the same purpose—intent on trust, kindness, and truth—everyone benefits. How do critique groups produce virtuous rather than vicious circles?

Caption: Wizard & Elf Bring Gifts

Doing Good

·    A good match between writer and group encourages writing.

·    Thoughtful critique makes work stronger.

·    Beyond the individual piece by the individual writer critique offers the entire group lessons in effective writing. What is good writing? How do we do it?  How do we communicate beyond ourselves? Discerning critique opens our eyes to new ways of thinking and confirms what we’ve already intuited or believed.

Who are you as a group?

Know what kind of group you are. Here are a few possibilities.

1)  Witnessing—Story Circles  “encourage and facilitate story-sharing” without analysis or correction. Susan Albert in “Writing From Life: Telling Your Soul's Story,” says: We are mutual presences, simply, and in that attentive being-with, that delicate, careful listening, we help one another bring forth—ourselves." (p.12)

 2) Listening Back is a term I coined as an alternative to “feedback”. How can you be useful and specific in your comments while creating a cozy, supportive environment? Clive Matson’s “syngenetic workshop” (having the same origin) illustrates a version of listening back.

 Clive’s Crazy Child process is based on the writing itself. Group members take notes on the piece they’re hearing and reading in order to repeat memorable lines exactly; clearly and positively they say why these work. The author also takes notes and speaks only at the end. (Clive’s complete process is on Pp. 16-17 “Let the Crazy Child Write.”)

 3) Craft-based or genre-based groups focus on developing writing skill in more detail. Such groups may be directed towards refining work to present to the marketplace.

How to Critique?

Be a Girl Scout: trustworthy, kind, and truthful.

Trust.  Act and speak so that each writer in the group feels that her work is respected.

Kindness. You would never say to a new mother “What an ugly baby!” Remember that the writer is showing you her literary baby.

Truth. If your group is one that gives feedback, make it specific, honest and respectful.

 Kindergarten Rules: Structure

Choose someone to facilitate the group. You might choose to rotate this role. The facilitator keeps the critique on track and redirects unhelpful feedback. A timekeeper is useful as well.

Set up levels of feedback.  These levels provide readymade goals for each person’s turn. Ask the writer what she wants and address only that. For example, does she want her piece to be witnessed as she reads it? Does she have a specific question about craft (perhaps pacing or length)? Is she open for a broad band response? Grammar and nitpicking is off the board.

 What did you like? The humor? Beautiful language? Skillful structure? The idea behind it? Specific passages? Be specific.

 Follow up with concerns and suggestions. Is the writing clear? Is the language appropriate to the genre? Where and how can she improve her writing? Be specific.

Manuscripts at the ready. When we have the written words in front of us, we can more easily be helpful and specific. Small changes can be noted in the margins. These copies go back to the author at the end of the critique with names at the top.

Note it! In addition to individual notes on the manuscript, appoint a recorder to capture group responses and suggestions during the discussion.

Anything else? Have you addressed the writer’s questions? The writer may want to follow up on comments.

With practice and attention your critique group can, as Denise Levertov says, allow each woman “to say or sing all that she can, and to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to  her in language”.

How does the writer contribute to a good critique? Tune in next month. 

END NOTES

Column written by Janet Grace Riehl of St. Louis in collaboration with Stephanie Farrow of Albuquerque.

Pose questions about practical creativity; give ideas for future cycle themes; and join in the dialog in the comment section below.

See the Creative Catalyst archive at: http://storycircle.typepad.com/scn/creativity/

Go to www.riehlife.com to sign up for a free download of a 10-minute audio from“Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music.”

Finding Our Voices Online

Do you have a blog? Do you plan to start a blog? Do you wonder why anyone would want to have a blog? Do you wonder what the advantages and disadvantages of blogging are?

For the answers to these and other questions about blogging join us for the Finding Our Voices Online panel discussion with a group of SCN Star Blogger award recipients on Sunday February 7 from 9:00-10:AM at Story Circle Network's Stories from the Heart V conference in Austin, Texas from February 5-7, 2010.

I (Linda Hoye) will be moderating a panel discussion with the following incredible bloggers.

Nita Lou Bryant maintains two blogs.  Check out Cafe Nita Lou for Today's Special, and Electric Nita Lou where she shares her adventures on an electric bicycle.

In addition to posts about writing, daily life and fascinating tales from the Middle East  Rhonda Esakov's Rhonda's Ramblings displays beautiful photographs of her gardens.  Rhonda is sometimes serious, sometimes thought provoking, and if you are looking for tax-tips for writers it is the place to go.

You'll find Kara Flathouse at Eskimo Kisses and Air Hugs.  Kara's blog is chock-full of nuggets about her faith, writing, family, home, garden, crafts, and life in general.

Over at Seasonality, Becky Lane (also known as Hill Country Hippie) writes about living her own good live in the Texas Hill Country.  Check out her very creative To-Do lists.

International Mom, Judy Miller, is the mother of four beautiful children, a writer, and adoptive parent mentor.  Judy's blog is a wonderful resource to anyone involved with adoption in any facet.

Becca Taylor, at  Becca's Cyber Home shares beautiful photographs from her travel adventures and, in her words, "celebrates both the magical and the mundane".

I'd love to have you stop by My Own Velvet Room and leave a comment or two as well.

Finally, if you have questions or topics you would like us to cover in the panel discussion, please post them in the comments below.  We'll see you in February!

What Would Rip Van Winkle Say?

Kendra Bonnett--Getting Read #10

If I am forced to use just one word to describe the publishing world in 2009, that word has to be CHANGE. And as soon as I’ve uttered it, I’m going to cry foul and demand a second word. What would my second word be? I’m sure you guessed it, EBOOK.

If you doubt me, then imagine what Rip Van Winkle would find upon waking from his 20-year nap. He falls asleep in 1989…probably waiting for his acoustic modem to connect to CompuServe. He awakes to a world of iPods, iPhones, and Kindles. It’s a world where bookstores in the United States are shuttering their doors at a rate of about 400 a year (according to Grant Thorton LLC’s August report on retail, and that number is up 500 percent from 2008). A world of print on demand, Amazon.com, and ebooks…thousands and thousands of ebooks and millions of downloads. 

I love stats for their ability to give a quick view of trends. Here are a few I've corralled for you:

• 3 million smartphone ebook application users (according to Flurry.com book apps overtook game downloads in September) 
• 700,000 is the number of ebooks offered through Barnes & Noble’s new eBookstore (they expect the number to surpass 1 million in 2010) 
• $46.6 million is the third-quarter revenue from ebooks in the United States (from the International Digital Publishing Forum). 
• 3.6 percent is the amount book sales are UP for the year 2009 (so far, according to the Association of American Publishers); we hear so much bad news about book sales, it’s nice to report some good news. 

Join Us in a Discussion on Getting Published

Change and ebooks are big topics in any conversation about publishing…and now a word from our sponsor. Austin, Texas, is the place to be this February 5-7, 2010, when Story Circle Network hosts its Fifth National Women’s Memoir Conference: Stories from the Heart V. You can follow the link to the conference program. This is going to be an exciting conference, filled with hands-on workshops, interesting speakers, and excellent networking opportunities. 

Specifically, I want to draw your attention to the publishing panel discussion on Saturday from 11:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., moderated by Helen Ginger, who in addition to her editorial and marketing services writes one of my favorite blogs, "Straight From Hel." The panelists include my co-author and business partner Matilda Butler, author Susan J. Tweit (whose "Walking Nature Home" also ranks among my favorite blogs), poet and lover of all things western Laurie Wagner Buyer, award-winning journalist Linda Wisniewski, and me. I expect this will be a lively discussion. By my quick count, the six of us have written more than 30 books (and we've all published memoirs), so I think it's fair to say that we have a few stories, and probably even several war wounds, to share.

Do You Have Questions?

With so much going on in the publishing industry, I’m sure you must have questions. So why don’t you share your questions in the form of comments appended to this post. Helen has asked her panelists to suggest topics for our discussion. I thought it would be useful to open that request to all of you.

 

One More Word

I have one more word that I have to use when describing the publishing industry in 2009. But to learn what that is, you must follow this link to my post over on Women’s Memoirs.

Telling--and Re-telling--a Thanksgiving Story

One of the most basic issues in writing is how to tell the story: where to start, where to end, what voice or voices to use, what to include, and at least as important, what to leave out. Perhaps it's obvious, but sometimes we forget that any one story can be told in many ways with many different results. Which way you choose depends in part on what your aim is, as well as on the audience you're speaking to. Knowing how to tell a story involves enough introspection to know what the story says,its underlying meaning. (Sometimes we only learn the underlying meaning by writing out the details of the story and then letting it sit a while--I call this letting it compost--and reading it anew to see what it has to say.)
 


Here's an example of telling one story--in this case, a life-story, part of my ongoing project to write memoir about my life as it happens--in two different ways for two different audiences. The first version, "A Tale of Two Hospitals," is on my blog at http://tinyurl.com/ybkbmet. Read that first, and then read the version below, which appeared in my weekly newspaper column as "Thanksgiving Is For Giving Thanks."

One unseasonably lovely November afternoon a few weeks ago, my husband, Richard and I drove over the mountains to Denver. We left on time for once, the weather and traffic cooperated, and we arrived in the Metro Area before rush hour got crazy.

I should have known things were going too smoothly.

We had planned to bring dinner to my parents, who live near the city. But when we arrived at their senior community, we learned that my mom been taken to a nearby hospital, with my dad accompanying her.

We drove straight there, and found my mother in a room off the busy ER, looking tiny under a mound of blankets and attached to a plethora of tubes and wires and monitors. She was sitting up though, and devouring her hospital dinner.

Turns out that the sore throat she had reported when I called the previous weekend had been the beginnings of pneumonia. Hence the antibiotics dripping into her veins from one bag and the saline solution from another, plus oxygen chuffing into her nose, and electrodes attached to her chest to monitor her heartbeat.

Now that she was stable, she was slated to be transferred to a regular room. So we drove my dad back to their apartment and fed him dinner.

By that time, Richard and I had almost forgotten why we ventured the long drive to Denver in the first place--almost. Our destination was another hospital, where Richard was scheduled to meet with Oncology to learn what's next in the journey that began with him hallucinating birds more than two months ago and continues through treatment for brain cancer.

By the time we left the city the next afternoon, headed back home over the mountains, my mother had improved so much that she hoped to be discharged from the hospital the next day. And we had conferred with Richard's oncologist, who explained that his tumor, a Grade 3 Astrocytoma for those who track these things, is serious enough that they want to treat it aggressively.

That means radiation to start, accompanied by chemotherapy to enhance the cell-killing effect, and then a course of chemo by itself.

That's where Thanksgiving comes in: Our two-hospital trip reminded me of why I give thanks. Not just on Thanksgiving, or just for the turkey, no matter how delicious it and the trimmings might be.

No, what I give thanks for on this holiday and every day is not stuff--nor the chance to stuff myself with food, nor money, power, or prestige.

My giving-thanks list is short, comprised of the essentials that I believe are worth more than any things or money: Sharing my days with Richard, my mother's recovery, being part of a far-flung-in-distance but close-in-heart community of family and friends, the gift of practicing our art and writing, and of being able to live in a generous and sustainable way in a place we love.

Those blessings are what make every day Thanksgiving for me.

Notice that both versions begin with almost the same words, and tell the same story. But the blog version, besides being longer, includes more details of the actual events. It's memoir-in-the-making: here's what's happening, and how it affects my life, plus a bit of the lessons I take from it. The newspaper column version gives an abbreviated version of the events, and then teases out a connection to Thanksgiving (the week the column will run). It's an opinion piece, not a news piece, but it's actually less personal than the blog post, with a tie-in to a more universal meaning. Essentially, it says, "This is what has happened in my life, and it reminds me of things we can all think about and learn from." Both versions are memoir, both tell the same story from my life; where they differ is in the voice and interpretation.

Here's an exercise to practice with your writing: take a story you've been working on. Write it out, and then go back and write it a different way: choose a different beginning, a different voice, add musings about what it means.... Then compare the two versions, read critically, and see what each has to tell you!

Writing Your Memoir by Opening Your Journal - Advice from Susan Wittig Albert

Opening Salvos #12 by Matilda Butler

If you follow Opening Salvos, you know that I interview women memoirists to get their perspective on effective ways to start a memoir. Each discussion has generated insights into multiple approaches. I’ve learned from the conversations and hope you have also. Even if no one technique is right for you, understanding alternatives will help you better consider what will be most appropriate for the memoir you are writing.

This week, Kendra Bonnett and I had the pleasure of a lengthy conversation with SCN founder, Susan Wittig Albert. As you know, Susan’s newest book is Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place. Late in the interview, I asked Susan about her decision to have a Prologue, which presents one opportunity for an opening, as well as Chapter One, the more formal beginning to her memoir. I urge you to listen to her thoughts as I think you’ll find some wonderful insights.

Click here to go to the interview with Susan, available on Women's Memoir website. But before you leave this site, I'd like to share one of Susan's points that will may give you a reason to start journaling or confirm the wisdom of the journaling that you are already doing. 

For this Opening Salvos, I’d like to break with tradition and discuss a point from the interview that puts a completely different perspective on openings. Consider your journaling as the preparation for your opening. Because Susan’s guest blog and writing prompt on Women’s Memoirs focused on the importance of journals, I began to see a new way to think about openings. 

“I began keeping a journal when I was 26 years old, in 1966,” said Susan. She says that  her memoir would not have been possible without reference to those journals that gave her details about both her internal place and her external world. These journals keep her anchored and provide the data for the memoir. 

Right now, you might be thinking, “Well, it’s too late for me. I’ve never kept a journal.” Susan offers encouragement to start your journal now. You can write daily in a physical journal, on the computer, or even in a blog that can be kept private or opened more widely. You can start today or on a special occasion. Two of Susan’s favorite times to start a journal are January 1--a kind of welcoming the new year--or on your birthday--a celebration of the next year in your life. 

What’s the difference between your journal and the memoir you are writing? Susan has thoughts on that as well. Just CLICK HERE to listen to our conversation with Susan. If you missed her guest blog and writing prompt, CLICK HERE. 

Get writing and keep writing. Our life stories are important and should be documented.

2009 November Podcast

Welcome to the Story Circle Network’s new season of Podcasts.

Join us this month for a chat with Susan Wittig Albert while she interviews Susan Tweit before the "Be Our Guest" program in Austin, Texas, on November 2, 2009.

This podcast is presented in 2 parts.

So brew yourself a cup of hot tea, grab a comfy chair, and join me in the circle.

Episode contents:

Interview (0:48-11:00) Part One - Susan Tweit shares some insights about her recently published memoir, Walking Nature Home.

PartOne-Walking Nature Home

Download Part One.mp3 (10895.3K) On a PC, right-click the link to save the file.

Interview (1:00-10:50) Part Two - Susan Wittig Albert asks Susan Tweit about her "writing life" as a full time author.

PartTwo - Finding Voice and Time

Download Part Two.mp3 (9999.1K)  On a PC, right-click the link to save the file.

Song: Change of Autumn by Brian Turner

Don't forget to let us know what you think of the podcast! 

Happy listening! And remember, we all have a story to tell.

This podcast is released under a Creative Commons license. Contributing authors retain all rights to their work. Music in this show was provided by the Podsafe Music Network.

Cycle 5.1: Art of Critique

      EcoArts Walk, Lake County, N. California. Reflections.

       I once cried during a critique.

    It was an MFA upper-level course in visual storytelling taught by two eminent photographers. I had petitioned to get into the course, arguing that my life experience fulfilled the lower-level entry requirement. I’d gotten in, participated, and then blown it by crying during a critique of my work. Before the next class the instructors ambushed me at the top of the stairs and strongly suggested, to the point where I felt threatened, that I drop the course.

      To sit back and observe critique as a sociologist, anthropologist, or psychologist can be an entertaining pastime—as long as it’s not your own work on the table. I’m surprised there aren’t plays, comic strips, and situation comedies based on the stereotypical types that surface during critique: the Ding-Bat, the Sonorous Voice of God, the Professor, the Meanie, the Raconteur.

      Unfortunately, critique—peer or professional—is rife with possibility for misuse, misunderstanding, and misery. In the very worst situations there can be a scoring of points that turns the critique into a virtual blood sport. The writer’s work takes backseat to the critiquer’s social and personal agendas. Small wonder that some writers dread the very word.

      Critique. For myself, I dreaded it. I hated it. I learned from it.

      Fortunately, after the disastrous experience in the photography class, I had the joy of encountering a teacher, Betsy Davids, who fully understood the meaning of critique and its purpose. She regarded critique as a form of appreciation, a time of joining with the piece and giving back to the artist who created it.

      During critique she grew quiet and made the piece the object of contemplation. She then took the class on a tour of what she saw and how she responded to it. She responded to each element—texture, color, shape—and how it affected her feelings and body. Her response to our artwork was fully considered and intimate.

Betsy was there for us, not to make herself more grand. She was there to help us and to know our art and art making more fully. If there were goofs, gaps, or gaffes in our work, she knew how to point these out gently. Her responses inspired us to go back to the work and try to improve it.

      Although Betsy was critiquing visual art, her process would have been equally beneficial for writing. Good critique focuses on the writing—not the writer, not the critiquer. Its purpose is to help the writer make her own work stronger. Ideally, there’s no place for chest thumping or ego massaging or denigration of the writer such as in the experience I related above.

            Oh, and how did that incident turn out? I’m proud to say that I held my ground with the two professors, stayed on in the course, and earned an “A.”

      In our next post we’ll talk about how a group can best benefit individual writers.

_____________________

Column written by Janet Grace Riehl of St. Louis in collaboration with Stephanie Farrow of Albuquerque.

Pose questions about practical creativity; give ideas for future cycle themes; and join in the dialog in the comment section below.

See the Creative Catalyst archive at: http://storycircle.typepad.com/scn/creativity/

Go to www.riehlife.com to sign up for a free download of a 10-minute audio from“Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music.”

It Takes Tenacity to Succeed

 Kendra Bonnett--Getting Read #9

See that little tree growing out of the tiniest crack in an otherwise solid rock surface. We marvel. What enables that sole plant to succeed? We can't help but anthropomorphize it and admire its tenacity when, in fact, it's just doing what nature has always done...persevering. A seed finds an opening and takes full advantage.

See that successful painter, photographer, playwright, novelist, poet...author. Again we marvel. Those of us in the arts know just how rarified is the air the great ones breathe. There are awards, great reviews, lucrative book deals, bestseller bragging rights up for grabs. We aspire. We dream. But what does it really take for us to succeed?

Matilda and I had the opportunity to ask Sue William Silverman this very question. We interviewed her as part of our Women's Memoirs Author Conversations series, and I invite you to take a little time to listen. Sue is the author of two, successful memoirs; a new book on the craft of writing; a poetry collection; and countless essays. Her response, in a nutshell, is "be tenacious." From her writer perspective, she advises us not to be afraid, never give up, and don't worry about failing. It's all part of the process.

From her author-as-marketer perspective, the answer is much the same: Yes it takes some skill and a little luck (e.g., finding the right publisher and agent can help), but above all else it's a matter of showing up every day, writing and not getting discouraged. "Everybody in the arts gets rejected," she adds, "if you're putting yourself out there." So be tenacious, and never stop believing in yourself.

Could it be that simple, you ask? Simple? Yes, I think so. Easy, no. The hardest thing is to keep charging forward in the face of disinterest or outright rejection. But that's what the great ones all have in common. Have you ever heard the saying, My overnight success was 20 years in the making? 

Be tenacious today...and every day going forward. And remember the words of American author and wit Margaret Halsey: "Bulldogs have been known to fall on their swords when confronted by my superior tenacity."

Sue's comments got me thinking about blogging success. Increasingly authors are using blogs as part of their marketing effort to reach audiences through the Internet. If you've tried it, you know how hard it is to keep writing and posting on a regular schedule. It takes tenacity to keep coming up with ideas and finding time away from your job, your chores and your other writing to pound out a blog. But the hardest part of blogging is overcoming the apparent loneliness. Write for weeks on end without a single reader comment and you're ready to scream, "Is anybody there?"

I want to leave you with some hope and a reminder that you're always being read, whether or not you ever see a reader comment. When it comes to the Internet, your biggest (and most important) reader is Google. It's the fact that Google is reading your blogs that gradually builds your prominence in the search engines. So be tenacious and keep writing and blogging. Google's waiting for your words. And take courage from Amelia Earhart: "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity."