Yesterday was the first of the month and that means my newsletter was sent out to the subscribers who have requested receiving a copy -o help them write their life stories. What I sent out was about being an empty nester. I hit a nerve. Mostly because it is that time of year when we are sending our kids off to college and our homes become empty with out the loud noises of people rushing around on their busy lives. I have included the triggers below that may help you write. Some of the questions might get you to start thinking about your life as an adult. This is a great place to start to write your life review or personal history. If you are working on a memoir you might start it at this place to work forward or back. Good Writing—
Triggers
1. Did you do anything to prepare to be an empty nester ?
2. Did you ever think about this before you noticed your nest was empty? If not, why?
3. When did you notice the house was empty? Was it gradual or did it hit you like a hammer over your head?
4. How did your life change once the kids left?
5. Are you still together with the other parent of your children? Did you need to reintroduce yourselves to each other once you were alone?
6. Did you grow apart?
7. What were the ways that you recreated your relationship?
8. If you’re a mom, did you start a career that you had put off to be a mom?
9.If you’re a dad, were you able to pursue new hobbies or activities once your children were gone?
10. Did you view this as a good thing or a bad thing?
11. What is your relationship now with your adult children ?
12. If you are a grandparent, has that changed your life?
13. Many children now go off to college and then move back home again. Did that happen at your home?
14. Since you are no longer an active parent, do you have more time? More money? More peace?
15. Now that you have time to refl ect, are these the best years of your life?
Its that time of year again, its back to school time. And that means many things to many people and it means great writing opportunities especially if your are working on your memoir or consider your self a life story writer. It may even be an entire chapter of writing since it ties up so many emotions on so many levels. Emotion is what really captures your reader. It must be real but the writers who write about their truth and tell it best they can–get read! The triggers here will get you to write but read all of them before you start since they many change your initial thoughts of what you may want to write.
- What did it feel like when you went of to kindergarten?
- how did you get there?
- who took you?
- Did it feel different when you went of to junior high or now called middle school?
- What went through your mind on that first day of high school?
- Were you always excited at the opportunity to start a new year?
- What emotions went through your mind when you went off to college?
- What went through your mind when you dropped your own children off for kindergarten? college?
- at those times did you remember your own experiences?
- Love, hate it– school has many emotions from what our own experiences were– what were yours?
I saw an interview with Rossanne Cash this week talking about her new memoir “Composed.” I wish I could remember what I was watching but I can’t. I loved that she revealed in the interview and said that she did not give dirt on anyone in the family and she was not trying to get even with the people in her life. I think that is where most of us are human and if we have felt pain then we want to give it back on a much larger stage hoping it hurts more. I think she makes her self more readable since she says she wants just to tell her story. This is something that I feel I need to keep reminding you about since it is our natural intention to get even. The reason people write their life story is to introduce ourselves to family members for future generations. When you don’t get even it makes you look more special. As Rossanne stated she wants to live in grace and that is perfect way to put it. Here are some articles written about the new book, read them and see if you want to buy the book. Or just use this as a guide in writing your own life story.
For a five minute memoir you need to spend five minutes discussing an event in your life. You want the characters to jump off the page. You want the story to have some larger reason for being- universal meaning. You are going to have to think this out before you write and not all events were create equally. Impact and topic are really important.
When you write a five minute life story or life review need to answer each question below with one sentence in each catagory but if you write longer than that people will not get your point of you and why you became the you that you want your family to remember.It can be done but you need to think about long before you put pen to paper or fingers on a keyboard.
- My family History
- My parents lives as much as I know
- What was it like to grow up in my family
- My sibling
- My Neighborhood
- High School
- College and/ military Service
- Career and working
- Raising my family
- Family traditions growing up
- Family traditions in my current home
- Empty nesting
- Retirement
- Values I want to share
You know that once I review this list there is no way that you can do it five minutes for even one sentence under each topic. This might even be a half hour with one sentence to capture the flavor of you as a person.
I guess if you can only write for five minutes a memoir is the best way to but if you have more time a life story is going to take a bit longer. If you are leaving it for your family I think they might be happy if you invest the time. This list was taken from Remembering…life story triggers and memory essays which helps you put your thoughts together to write and complete your live story. Everyone is writing one when you look at the list below so you might as well start your own now too.
In the dog days of summer, many think writers take the days off. We just look at summer differently. We need to tell the our stories of summer.It just means we can write about things that are fleeting thoughts and later rewrite to make some sense of it all.
So start the day with writing and then celebrate your accomplishment by getting outside. Here is what I have been thinking about: I think we all look for that perfect vacation place since it epitomizes a wonderful place to be and a wonderful peace of mind. As the baby boomers age they are much more interested in their time away from their “regular life.” The increase in second homes and even third homes gives us much to think about on what our “regular” life really looks like. Part of this can be looked at as success but when the majority of people have one is that really a marker for success but rather what the majority considers important.
Our immigrant ancestors just had enough to put food on the table. They never really vacationed. They might have traveled to a relative for a wedding or other special family event. Some even went over the river and through the woods for holiday celebrations. Most did not, since many homes had any where from two to three generations living under one roof. In fact, in Europe it is easy to trace families since they never really moved that far away from each other. Those who had property were the ones who had it handed down from generation. Some families lived in the same house for hundreds of year. We live in a country where it seems odd to live a house over twenty years. We live in a country where a generation ago you had to be wealthy to have a second home and now it has become common place for people to have a second home whether purchased as a retirement home or a lake place that means a get away from your “regular life.”
In the quest of the perfect vacation and vacation home I find it strange that the baby boomers are searching for all over the world to find that perfect place that no one has been before. We want to tell the world of that perfect place whether is it that zoom vacation where we participate in extreme sports or is it the buzz that we get from looking out over a tranquil vista. How far we have come as society from several generations of a family in one home to finding that perfect place. One way to look at summer and our lives.
So you may ask why write about your ideal vacation. I look at it as away for your loved ones to really see those things that are important to you and that you don’t regularly share with others. Of course you can write about the great vacations of your youth, the first time you went to Disney Land and when you returned with you own kids to Disney World. I think all of us can write easily when are our best which sometimes is when we are doing something totally different than we normally do. It allows the others to really see us to see us as we are or hope to be.
Triggers:
1. Have I been on that perfect vacation? Where did you go? What made it perfect?
2. If you are planning on taking a vacation what could you do to make it a perfect vacation?
3. Do the people you vacation with make the experience perfect or is the place you go?
4. Do you have a retirement home? Is it a seasonal location? How did you choose that area?
5. When you get away from your regular life what is the other life like?
