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PHOTOJOURNALISM &
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Murmurs -- A
Place for Your Memoirs
You
don’t have to be someone famous to write a memoir. Written memoirs provide a
sense of direction to a family, giving them a compass point from which to
navigate.
It
seems important to humans to punctuate our lives. In fact, we’ve created a
ritual around it. On December 31 we put the final period on the sentence that
was the past and capitalize the next breath. We stay up late and make events to
remember, commemorating a single moment. We make resolutions for change in the
upcoming year. We play games of recollection: “What were you doing on New
Year’s Eve ten years ago? Twenty years, thirty, or more? Many people navigate
through life using compasses made of memories.
Memory
is a fickle thing though. Often the memory of an event grows in pleasure or pain
each time we recall it. Soon the memory
of that fantastic meal at the waterfront cafe on
As
we age, the images in our memories can become hazy. We see a name in an obituary
and struggle to remember the face that we know we should never have forgotten.
Looking through a stack of old photos we see faces of loved ones both here and
in the hereafter and their names escape us. How could we forget? Physicians
would give us scientific reasons: chemical balances in the brain, electrical
firing and misfiring, neurological malfunctions, and disease. But it’s part of
the aging process and we all go through it.
When
memories are pleasant we want to preserve them. Cameras and camcorders have
revolutionized this century. Americans spend millions of dollars each year on
image recording devices and accessories. We are a civilization that wants to
remember, to reflect, and to recognize the links we have with the past.
WHY WRITE A MEMOIR?
Leave a Written Legacy of Your Life Everyone
has stories that make their life interesting. While they may not be the stuff of
a Recently
I helped my daughter write and create a family heritage page for her “All
About Me Book” for school. Writing the facts about my mother’s family was
easy—I’ve grown up hearing about them from my mother and from my aunts and
uncles. But when I began writing about my father’s side, I felt incomplete. My
parents divorced when I was seven years old and my father was not an integral
figure in my life. He was an only child whose parents died shortly after I was
born. So when he died several years ago, all of his stories, his childhood
dreams, adult ambitions, and family heritage died with him. All I have left of
him are my own fading memories, along with a box full of nameless, dateless
photographs. As
my children get older I’ve become more aware of how important it is for them
to know where they’re from, in order to chart where they are going. That’s
one of the reasons to write your memoirs. Stories passed between relatives
around the kitchen table are good, but they can easily grow into legends larger
than life, or even worse, simply become forgotten. Your
memoirs can provide a sense of belonging in a society that is disintegrating.
When people, particularly children, hear stories about their parents as
children, they see their parents in a different light. Their parents become more
human—more like them. The Gift of a Memory
Of all the things that my father left me after his death, his journals
and photographs are most precious to me. The journals revealed things about him
that I never knew, as well as some things I would have rather not known.
Nevertheless, they are a tangible record of his experience on this sphere and
have more sentimental value than the material possessions he left behind.
Writing a memoir and presenting it to your
loved ones may be the most precious gift you could ever give them. A Record of Your Heritage
The
recent interest in family heritage and the ease of genealogical research through
the internet has produced reams of genealogical details. Families who document
their ancestors back several generations can construct a larger monument of
which children can be proud. But it’s the stories those ancestors leave behind
that give the genealogies value. Writing a memoir will give your descendants
more than just birth dates, anniversaries, and other cold facts. Dates culled
from computer files don’t give insights into a person’s motivation or
emotion. But you can do that in a memoir. Noteworthy Achievements Revisited Those
people who have had the opportunity to shine in the limelight for their fifteen
minutes may be able to write out a hundred pages about the experience. Yet, I
know ordinary people who have done extraordinary
things. Some know it and some don’t. The person who has achieved a level of
fame or public respect usually has a story that fascinates a large cross section
of society. Often that story merits publishing in some printed media, which will
reach thousands of interested readers. Who would be the best person to write the
story? A well-crafted first person account that takes readers into the
experience is often preferred over an after-the-fact third person report. Eyewitness
accounts to history are always respected. Did your grandmother see the
Hindenburg fly over her house on the way to its doom? Were you ever asked to
give up your seat on a bus because of your skin color? Are you a polio survivor?
These and other similar events may seem ordinary to you, but in the context of
history they are important compass points on our cultural map. Writing
as Therapy
Journaling
has become a respected means of self-expression. People have used writing as
therapy ever since written language was invented. The act of writing out one’s
problems, experiences, inner-struggles, and spiritual quests is recognized as a
legitimate form of therapy. Writing can provide a type of catharsis that heals
the soul and lightens the spirit. Memoir writing takes the journal a step
further.
GETTING
STARTED WITH YOUR MEMOIRS
All You Must Do Is
W-R-I-T-E:
W-illingness
R-esolution
I-nspiration
T-ruth
E-nthusiasm Willingness
The
first step in your memoir-writing journey is willingness.
You must be willing to work on the project. Devote a measure of your time to
plotting your course and taking specific steps along the way. Reading this
article is a step in your new adventure. Willingness
means picking up a pencil or sitting in front of a computer, even when you feel
overwhelmed, unfocused, incapable, or just plain too busy. Remember, we make
time for the things that are important to us. If
writing your life story is important to you, you must be willing to overcome the obstacles that come before you. You
must also be willing to confront the past. If you have memories that are too
painful for you to unpack from your emotional baggage, willingness
means opening it anyway and sorting out what you want to keep and what you want
to throw away. If you are writing for the benefit of others, you must determine
exactly what and how much you are willing
to reveal to anyone who might be affected by it. Remember, writing as therapy is
a long-respected form of self-reflection and leads to renewal. Resolution
A
person may be willing to tell their life journey, but if they are not resolved to write it down it will never make it onto the map. Oral
tradition kept the stories of ancient peoples alive for centuries, but we live
in the age of speech recognition computers and video recorders. Why should our
stories fade away when it’s so easy to record them in written or in electronic
recorded form? Resolution is the
commitment that a writer makes to complete the work, no matter how far it goes
or how long it takes. Remember that your life story is always a work in progress. Inspiration
Every
writer must be inspired to write. When
the inspiration wells up like a raging
fire, your story will billow like smoke from that fire and you will be consumed
by the passion of your work. Perhaps you’ve had an experience, which I refer
to as a “defining moment,” in your life that compels you to write your
story—that is your inspiration. Some
people want to write their stories so that they will have a tangible document to
hand down to their family—that is their inspiration.
Then there are those who have done something noteworthy, like climbed Truth
Truth
is the essence of a good autobiography. When writing your life story it’s
recommended that you stick to the facts you remember, rather than making up
stories to fill in the details or to make your life sound more exciting. If you
make up the events, facts, or relationships, then you are at risk of writing a
work of fiction rather than an autobiography.
Yet,
to deny certain facts and censoring your life story is not being completely truthful
either. Leaving out important or sensitive details is up to you, however. If
your memories are too painful to recall, or would hurt other people, then you
must make the judgment call before committing them to a permanent form. This is
a delicate issue, because such events may have influenced your journey, but
revealing them may not be the right thing to do. Enthusiasm
You
are the author of you own life story. No one can tell it with the detail and
clarity that you can. Your inspiration can propel you to write, but your enthusiasm
will keep you going. Once you begin writing your life story, you will become
excited about its progress. When you write from the heart, with willingness, resolution, inspiration, truth, and
enthusiasm,
your stories become more than just memories—they become memoirs. Chapter One from Write from the Heart, an inspirational guide with practical examples and beneficial exercises, is designed to help you turn your personal experiences into simple and interesting stories. Copyright © 2003 Carolyn Burns Bass. Chapter One from Write from the Heart was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2002 Writer's Digest Writing Competition. Carolyn Burns Bass is available to conduct memoir-writing workshops and seminars. Contact Carolyn@wordartsolutions.com for more information. To order a copy of Write from the Heart, contact solutions@wordartsolutions.com. If would like to submit a memoir to be published in Murmurs, click here to read the submission guidelines. |
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