A helpful article from the Plot Whisperer:
Plot Whisperer for Writers and Readers: Backstory versus Front Story: "Watch your delivery of backstory ~ the story of what, in the past, made the character who they are today (in story time).
Writers want ..."
Copyright © 2011, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award
A few months ago I received The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award from my friend and writing colleague, Mary E. McIntyre. Due to a hectic schedule around that time, I failed to respond and fulfill the obligations of the award. These are: to thank the person, tell 7 things about myself and pass the award on to other new bloggers. So here goes.
Thank you, Mary, for nominating me for the award. I appreciate the honour and I appreciate you! I first met Mary in one of Allyson Latta’s online memoir writing courses in 2007 and from my first impression I knew Mary was intelligent, sensitive and friendly. She was also a sensational writer and able to give helpful feedback. We met in person in 2010 and shortly after formed our writing support group Life Writers Ink, along with Cheryl Andrews and Anahita Printer Nepton.
Seven things About Myself
Pass It On
I would like to pass this award on to the following bloggers:
Seven things About Myself
- I worked on several archaeology digs in Ontario.
- I travelled to Mexico by myself.
- I worked for the British Museum of Natural History measuring Bronze Age Skulls.
- I love chocolate.
- I have 4 children and 7 grandchildren.
- I love flowers.
- I live on a farm.
Pass It On
I would like to pass this award on to the following bloggers:
- Gabriele Wills The Obsessed Writer
- Kathleen Pooler Write On!
- Dan Curtis
- Lori Thatcher Memoir, Poetry, Short Story, Musings
- Kristin den Hartog and her daughter http://www.blogofgreengables.blogspot.com/
- Elizabeth Young http://www.thegardengate.blogspot.com/
- Linda Hoye http://lindahoye.com/
“Perhapsing” Cleopatra: Ideas for Speculating About My Grandmother’s Life
I have just finished reading “Cleopatra: A Life” by Stacy Schiff and her style has given me some ideas about writing about my grandmother’s life.
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The content of their lives could not have differed more. Cleopatra, born in 69 B.C., a queen at 18, ruler of Egypt for 22 years, lover of two of the most famous men in history, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, she amassed wealth beyond imagination.
My grandmother, Marya Huckan Zarecka, an illiterate Ukrainian peasant woman born in 1880 in Repuzhintsy, a small village in Bukovina, daughter of a mayor, was married off to a poor and unstable husband and sent to homestead in the wilds of Canada. Both women were mothers, the only similarity. About both, little was passed down apart from stories and myth.
Using detailed research and a lot of speculation, Schiff tells a brilliant story about Cleopatra’s life. Her book could have been titled: “Perhapsing Cleopatra”. She provides a master lesson in imagining and detailing a life where few facts survived.
My grandmother lived a quiet life, out-shadowed by her disruptive husband. She kept a low profile to avoid his wrath and encouraged her children to do likewise. Not many stories about her were passed down, and if they were, consisted of vague remarks like “ oh, she was wonderful”, but with few meaty details.
I realized after reading "Cleopatra A Life" that I did in fact possess enough information about my grandmother from photos, interviews with my mother and other siblings and cousins, and my grandfather’s hospital records to tell her story using the same techniques that Stacy Schiff used to bring Cleopatra to life. I went back to Schiff’s book and looked for phrases and words she used to recreate colourful, textured scenes and speculate about feelings and motives.
Besides the word perhaps, some other words and phrases used to fill out her story were: maybe, suppose, wonder, imagine, we don’t know if, what if, what she didn’t know, possibly, might have/could have/must have, perchance, suggests, no doubt she…, it seems as if…, she had no choice but to…, these might have been the possibilities, it is likely/unlikely, there is no reason to assume/we can safely assume, it would have been…, we have no proof that…, and so on.
Just as Stacy Schiff reconstructed Cleopatra’s life, I can now tell my Baba’s story by using conjecture and guesses to assess shrewdly her probable and possible motives and hypothesize what she was thinking and feeling decades ago.
(For tips on speculating, see Lisa Knopp's Brevity craft essay: "Perhapsing": The Use of Speculation in Creative Nonfiction.)
My grandmother, Marya Huckan Zarecka, an illiterate Ukrainian peasant woman born in 1880 in Repuzhintsy, a small village in Bukovina, daughter of a mayor, was married off to a poor and unstable husband and sent to homestead in the wilds of Canada. Both women were mothers, the only similarity. About both, little was passed down apart from stories and myth.
Using detailed research and a lot of speculation, Schiff tells a brilliant story about Cleopatra’s life. Her book could have been titled: “Perhapsing Cleopatra”. She provides a master lesson in imagining and detailing a life where few facts survived.
My grandmother lived a quiet life, out-shadowed by her disruptive husband. She kept a low profile to avoid his wrath and encouraged her children to do likewise. Not many stories about her were passed down, and if they were, consisted of vague remarks like “ oh, she was wonderful”, but with few meaty details.
I realized after reading "Cleopatra A Life" that I did in fact possess enough information about my grandmother from photos, interviews with my mother and other siblings and cousins, and my grandfather’s hospital records to tell her story using the same techniques that Stacy Schiff used to bring Cleopatra to life. I went back to Schiff’s book and looked for phrases and words she used to recreate colourful, textured scenes and speculate about feelings and motives.
Besides the word perhaps, some other words and phrases used to fill out her story were: maybe, suppose, wonder, imagine, we don’t know if, what if, what she didn’t know, possibly, might have/could have/must have, perchance, suggests, no doubt she…, it seems as if…, she had no choice but to…, these might have been the possibilities, it is likely/unlikely, there is no reason to assume/we can safely assume, it would have been…, we have no proof that…, and so on.
Just as Stacy Schiff reconstructed Cleopatra’s life, I can now tell my Baba’s story by using conjecture and guesses to assess shrewdly her probable and possible motives and hypothesize what she was thinking and feeling decades ago.
(For tips on speculating, see Lisa Knopp's Brevity craft essay: "Perhapsing": The Use of Speculation in Creative Nonfiction.)
Write your life—guest post by Marion Roach Smith
Here are some interesting tips on writing about your life from The Book Case on The Book Page Blog:
Write your life—guest post by Marion Roach Smith
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
Write your life—guest post by Marion Roach Smith
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
Authenticity: What’s Right For You?
As I listened to Kay Adams talk on NAMW’s Teleseminar a few weeks ago on Journey to the Self, I was reminded of this question a therapist once asked me. I puzzled over the question. The answer felt as elusive as a butterfly’s wing moving to the next flower. Over the years I’ve become more comfortable with the question "What's right for you, Ruth?" though the answers are still sometimes hard to find.
Kay’s talk on authenticity linked this question to my current writing. At the heart of memoir writing is the self, telling the story of our lives as we remember it, as we experienced it, as we prioritized the events in our memories, and as we emotionally felt it. Our authentic self with our own unique needs and core values is the voice we tap into when we are searching for the inner voice, the real ‘me’ coming up from the unconscious. The story told by this authentic inner voice is the truth, our ‘emotional truth’ that is always guiding us through the scenes and memories. Authenticity has to do with our core values and living in alignment with what is right for us says Kay.
My wise therapist many years ago, was really asking me to drop down into the real me, to get in touch with the core values that were being quashed. He was asking me to come home to myself and ask what is stopping me from living my authentic self. When we feel down, something isn’t right with our core values. We feel stuck, insecure or angry. We need to ask ourselves what core value is not being respected here? In our memoir writing, the voice of our story makes more sense when it comes from our authentic self and our authentic core values.
But how do we figure out what our core values are? And how do they differ from those of our family? This is what confused me about the question: "What’s right for you, Ruth? I hadn’t articulated my true values and distinguished them from those of my family of origin or from my husband’s and his family of origin. Caught in this tangled web, I was floundering.
Since I started my memoir I have writtten about my parents’ core values, but not mine. Before I go any further with my writing I need to do this exercise to see how my core values and my family's differ or mesh.
Kay’s talk on authenticity linked this question to my current writing. At the heart of memoir writing is the self, telling the story of our lives as we remember it, as we experienced it, as we prioritized the events in our memories, and as we emotionally felt it. Our authentic self with our own unique needs and core values is the voice we tap into when we are searching for the inner voice, the real ‘me’ coming up from the unconscious. The story told by this authentic inner voice is the truth, our ‘emotional truth’ that is always guiding us through the scenes and memories. Authenticity has to do with our core values and living in alignment with what is right for us says Kay.
My wise therapist many years ago, was really asking me to drop down into the real me, to get in touch with the core values that were being quashed. He was asking me to come home to myself and ask what is stopping me from living my authentic self. When we feel down, something isn’t right with our core values. We feel stuck, insecure or angry. We need to ask ourselves what core value is not being respected here? In our memoir writing, the voice of our story makes more sense when it comes from our authentic self and our authentic core values.
But how do we figure out what our core values are? And how do they differ from those of our family? This is what confused me about the question: "What’s right for you, Ruth? I hadn’t articulated my true values and distinguished them from those of my family of origin or from my husband’s and his family of origin. Caught in this tangled web, I was floundering.
Since I started my memoir I have writtten about my parents’ core values, but not mine. Before I go any further with my writing I need to do this exercise to see how my core values and my family's differ or mesh.
Utterances of an overcrowded mind: Dummies guide to publishing an ebook on Amazon Kin...
Here's an interesting post about Ebook publishing:
Utterances of an overcrowded mind: Dummies guide to publishing an ebook on Amazon Kin...: "In this blog post I'm going to try and demystify the ebook publishing process. I've been through it and lived to tell the tale. So here goes..."
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
Utterances of an overcrowded mind: Dummies guide to publishing an ebook on Amazon Kin...: "In this blog post I'm going to try and demystify the ebook publishing process. I've been through it and lived to tell the tale. So here goes..."
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
The Changing Book: pBook to eBook
Excellent summary of panel discussion last night about The Changing Book at Toronto Public Library. http://maryemcintyre.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/the-changing-book/ Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
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