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What’s Got You Stuck? Here are three challenges I hear most often at workshops and coaching consultations.

I have so much material I don’t know where to start.

I hate to write, how can I do this?

I don’t know how to organize this project.

These problems are not insurmountable! In fact, sorting them out is a fun way to help you get started making your project a reality. I’ll try to answer each of these concerns over the next couple weeks but let’s just take the first one today.

Where to start when you have so much material?

Pick a point in your life that you most enjoy revisiting or telling stories about. Is it your childhood? Travels? Your experiences raising your own family? Starting at a time ripe with good memories is a way to build positive momentum and can help shape the theme of your book. You will probably end up expanding your scope but many great memoirs and oral histories stay with a narrow focus.

You don’t have to write War and Peace to craft

 a personal history that delights you and your family.

So, here’s what to do today—grab your favorite cup of whatever, sit down with a notebook or your computer and just brainstorm. For this exercise I prefer the old pencil and paper method, there is something about it that helps stimulate your little gray cells. Recall your chosen starting point and write down everything you can think of that relates, even if it seems like a rabbit trail. In this case rabbit trails are good! Don’t worry about complete sentences or even thoughts; jot down words, phrases, events, impressions.

One thing that will help is incorporating each of your senses. Write down one idea that relates to this time in your life and covers each of the five senses. What is something you remember the feeling or texture of? Maybe it was your favorite quilt, or a new puppy, or the feel of a plank of wood. Sight—what visual memory stands out? A fishing pole? Your best friend? Taste—what food do you associate with this time in your life? Maybe it was a can of beans your dad opened when you were camping. Perhaps it was home-fried potatoes or Grandma’s pie. Anyway, you get the idea.

This mental landing place is the most important geography in your story. It will help you decide what to keep and what to save for another day, another story. It is the place you will begin from and will provide the framework for “the rest of the story” as Mr. Paul Harvey used to say.

Let me know how this worked for you—I’d love to hear your ideas!

Karen

Helping people shift from dreaming and talking about a project they’ve longed to do to holding a finished book gives me more joy than you could possibly know. That’s why I do what I do. Because I love watching my clients achieve the satisfaction of seeing their goals become reality.

Artist and author Amy Motto completed the draft for a wonderful children’s book, Puppies Need Pockets, almost 20 years ago. However, it had been sitting in her desk while life events, ill health and time moved on. She never forgot about it and longed to see it come to completion. We began visiting about the possibilities earlier this year and I’m delighted to say that this week we ordered final copies of this charming, fun book. The look on her face when she held the physical fulfillment of her dream was priceless! Two boxes of Puppies Need Pockets are on their way to her as you read this and the book will be available on Amazon within a few days. She is thrilled!

While I can’t promise that this happens for all of my clients as quickly as it happened for Amy, I have discovered that if you want to complete your book, memoir or life story project badly enough, it’s usually only a matter of time (and high level guidance) before you get there. Plus, the process of moving toward your goal can be lots of fun too!

So… do you know someone who has great memories or a life story they’d like to save while it’s fresh in their mind? Or maybe they have a book manuscript hiding in a desk drawer. Are they stuck and need help to get results and move that project forward? I have room for 5 Love Your Life-Story Breakthrough Sessions in my schedule in the next couple of weeks. There is no charge for these sessions but availability is limited to the first 5 people who contact me. I would be honored if you were to share this post with someone who struggles with how to get started, organize or even finish their life story project and wants to feel the incredible satisfaction of completing it. Or email or PM me if you could use some support yourself. I would love to help. Here’s to all of us having the satisfaction of completing that life goal!

Every person’s life story is a precious and unique gift.  What better place to encourage this than at your next family get together or reunion? No matter their age, their life deserves to be remembered and shared with others.

Whether the kids in your group are elementary age or mid-high and high school, having these on hand will be sure to help start the conversations as they mix among the in-laws, outlaws and other relatives looking for a story. Perhaps you can encourage them to be reporters for a day?

The easy to use workbooks are developed specifically to encourage inter-generational story telling. They encourage learning, fun and meaningful conversations and have been used in memoir classes for children and young adults. Even adults can implement these ideas with their family members young and old.

Help the younger folks in your family be aware of the people and events that have impacted their lives. Encourage them to see God’s direction in their life events, no matter how old they are. Inspiring families to share their stories and their histories fosters richness in their life experience. What a legacy to leave to the next generation!

Our online shop is under construction and will be ready for orders soon! In the meantime you can contact us directly.

Contact

karen@rememberingthetime.net

To order copies of both the elementary and the mid-high/high school workbooks for your next family event or class.

Yesterday was National Collector Car Appreciation Day. I just love vintage automobiles—the look and the stories behind them, not the work that goes into restoring them. If your budget, like mine, doesn’t allow for collecting vintage cars, today is National Mac and Cheese Day.

Knock yourself out!

It would be great to hear some of your automobile stories—whether it’s first cars, vintage cars or memorable automobiles you have known. Connect with me on FaceBook and post a photo of your favorite old car.

Following is an excerpt from The First 90 Years, Blaque Haston’s self-published memoir. We worked together to tell his story of growing up in the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl years. Here’s his automobile experience:

“We had no automobile or horses and wagon. We walked. We couldn’t buy a car until about two years later and that was a Model “T” Ford.

Then, my dad caught a freight train with a lot more destitute men for California. But he got off in Phoenix and got a job in Scottsdale in the orange and cotton farms. He found a job for about 10 cents a hour, but made enough to send for us. He had saved up less than $5.

After getting a little money from Dad, we three families, ours  and two other families who were our friends, got a model “T” truck and joined the “grapes of wrath” across  country.

We all piled on the truck, packed with just mattresses and clothes and headed to Arizona and California. I was six or seven years old. We stacked our mattresses on the truck and sat on top down Highway 66 and we got off in Scottsdale, Arizona.

We found an old abandoned station and there was no gas but it was just a place for us to stay that night. So, we stopped and spread our stuff out.

I remember it was hot on that long drive. We ate canned beans, we didn’t eat much of that, we didn’t eat much…We didn’t drive very fast; the trip was a week or more. The old model T was probably only doing 25-30 miles per hour, 40 at the very most. It was just the 4 of us kids, the rest of them were adults.

We stayed in Hughson in a tent for a little while until Dad went to work for that guy who had an old barn out there with some hay and straw and stuff in it. That’s where he kept some of his tools. He said we could move in there so we did and made everything makeshift. We stayed there and worked for him three or four summers. We were workin’ for him when the war (WWII) broke out….”

And that, ladies and gentlemen…is what we call grit!

Cemeteries have always fascinated me. No, that’s not weird–that’s history! Here’s a glimpse into the story of the old Kingston Cemetery dating from the silver mining days of Kingston, New Mexico near Hillsboro and not far from Las Cruces. I encourage you to take a stroll through here sometime and imagine all the lives and stories that went before.

This article originally appeared in the Desert Exposure Magazine (April 2012)

   History in Headstones: Kingston Cemetery

We have come to the Black Range to camp, a two day respite from the dailiness of life in the valley,  to reconnect.  It is a good trip.    I’ve never seen the mountains like this before.  We’ve had so much rain this summer and frequent “clouding in” this weekend.  Peaks and passes float isolated in the clouds.  Gray streamers weave their way through the mountain valleys and canyons like some elaborate ribbon dance.     I catch at old memories, grasping at some, pushing others away;  they tangle, separate and come together again, weaving in and out of the mist.   Descending the road to the old mining town of Kingston we catch glimpses of hidden places and side roads, beckoning like something half-remembered.

The Kingston Cemetery crouches comfortably in the foothills of the Black Range, graceful in its spareness.  No artificial flowers here, the people of these mountain families find beauty in the light and the granite and the hot smell of the juniper that has slowly grown here for lifetimes.  We start together as we enter the cemetery gate, wondering aloud at the lives we see marked here.   Most of the tombstones are being reclaimed, weathered by wind, sandstorms, mountain rain and the soft aging of decades that blurs the features, crumbles the granite to fine gravel under the trees in this harsh garden.  A different kind of beauty here, scored by the names of men and women and so many young ones who never reached those milestones.

We are fascinated by the etched dates marking their brief lives.   Stopping in gratitude at the graves of a World War Two lieutenant and a soldier from a generation before, the first great war that should have ended all others, we render thanks for service given.  We walk and ponder the hard lives of the people who ranched and mined, gardened and raised children, loved and got drunk sometimes and yelled and cried and died.  Wandering the serpentine paths among the graves, our eyes are first drawn to one, then another, till we gradually become separated, out of reach of each other’s voice for a time, lost in our own thoughts, then coming back together where the paths cross.   Asking, “Oh did you see that one, come here you’ve got to see, guess what I’ve found, you’ll never believe,  oh, look how long she lived.”  The comfortableness of a long marriage, able to go and explore and come back together, trusting that we will find each other again, calm in the separateness, rejoicing in the together.

I explore the far corners of the cemetery looking for the stories of those on the fringes.  Curiously, I find no markers out there, no headstones, no rock rings defining a resting place, no ornamental fence or even a beaten and weathered wood cross.  Could be this western town more tolerantly incorporated its citizens in their final resting places.  Or perhaps they are just forgotten by all but the mountains standing watch in the purple evening light.

There is one more tombstone I haven’t looked at yet.  I have purposely saved it for last, circling around it, wondering but delaying the knowing.  I have been this way since childhood; the anticipation is a great measure of the pleasure.  It is a lady’s;  at its base is a glass canning jar with a piece of wide-ruled notebook paper folded up inside.  It is written in crayon.   Neither the note or the glass have started to yellow.  The white granite tombstone reads “Wedgwood”  and  I spend the drive home wondering about her and watching the mountains in the rearview mirror.

Wherever the places you explore this summer, I hope they spark your imagination and make you wonder.

Karen

Ah, June—the month for weddings! Odds are you married in the summer or you know someone who did. This is a great time to visit with people you love about their beginnings. Read on for a few thoughts on marriage and some inspiring questions to draw out a story:

There is nothing nobler or more admirable

than when two people who see eye to eye

keep house as man and wife,

confounding their enemies

and delighting their friends.

                                              Homer

Print these out and start a conversation

1. When was the first time you saw your spouse?
2. What do you remember about your first conversation?
3. What was your impression of him/her when you first met?
4. Describe your dating and courtship days.
5. Recall any funny events during your courtship.
6. What is your favorite story about your dating time?
7. What about any misunderstandings?
8. How long did you know each other before you married?
9. Why did you decide to marry?
10. How did you know you were making the right decision?
11. What kinds of hopes and dreams did you have for your future?
12. What is your favorite story about your early married years?

Take these questions and sit with your spouse to reminisce and enjoy the story of your early beginnings as a couple. Or visit with older relatives to gain some perspective on long marriages and crafting a successful shared life.

Wise words:

Happy is the man who finds a true friend,

And far happier is he who finds that true

Friend in his wife

Franz Schubert

And a little bit of humor from a famous statesman:

My most brilliant achievement was my ability

 to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

Winston Churchill

May you have a long and enriching marriage. Take time to celebrate life and your shared history with your spouse.

Karen