Theo Pauline Nestor's Blog, page 7

Zeenat Arsiwalla’s 26-Minute Memoir

Hi Readers,

In 2009 I started a blog called 26-Minute Memoir and started publishing 26-Minute Memoirs–stories that describe the essence of your life written in 26 minutes–from students, friends, Facebook and blog followers. In my book Writing Is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (And a Guide to How You Can Too), I encourage readers to write their own 26-Minute Memoir and send them to me, and now they are sending me their 26-Minute Memoirs. Below you’ll find Zeenat Arsiwalla’s 26-Minute Memoir. Please feel free to write one of your own. You can find instructions and links to other 26-Minute Memoirs here: http://writingismydrink.com/26-minutes/.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Theo

26-Minute Memoir
By Zeenat Arsiwalla

I wonder if I’d ever begin writing if I hadn’t written that first poem in 6th grade, that got read in the teacher’s lounge.

We had been given a few words and were asked to write a poem making sure we used all those words. It was my first writing exercise, but I didn’t know this then. Instead I remember thinking of it as a challenge, as something my ten year old self could sink her teeth into. I though of it as a piece of homework I would actually enjoy. I don’t remember too much of the poem, but it involved sunshine and singing and happiness. I also remember that when the teacher, after grading the assignment, returned it back to us, I candidly asked her what she thought of it. The three-second exchange we had plays out in my thirty-year old brain as vividly as ever, when I call upon it from time to time.

I was a second-bencher (yes I was one of those kids), and I remember sitting through the entire English period, waiting for the poem assignment sheets to be distributed back to us. As a practice, graded assignments were given at the end of class, lest we get into comparisons or bickering, distracting us from the lesson of the day. When the bell finally rang marking the end of the period, Mrs Swaminathan quickly pulled out from her purse, a roll of sheets held with a thin rubber band and thunked it down on the bench in the first row.

“Distribute these”, she told one of the students and began hurriedly packing up.

When I got my poem, I quickly turned to the last page to read her comments. It read “Very Very good!” I was thrilled. But I guess the thrilling feeling that had lodged itself in the pit of my stomach wasn’t enough.

Mrs S had packed up her belongings and was out the door and in the midst of the chaos that ensues a ringing bell, in the midst of students shouting and chalkboards being erased and sheets being distributed, and Mrs S pulling together the pleats of her sari, and my bench partner telling me something that I was half-listening to, I yelled out “Ma’am did you like my poem?”

I didn’t know it then, but in that moment my destiny was about to be written. I had called upon her like a babe at sea, like someone who was floating away into the deep end of the ocean and had suddenly, magically found a floater and had suddenly, magically let out a yelp of joy at the thought of survival.

She turned around, least expecting this question. She smiled, might have even laughed. And then Mrs S, with her winning smile, adjusting her thick-rimmed glasses, shouted back, “Yes, yes. I read it out in the teacher’s lounge today to all the teachers.”  Saying this, she rushed away.

There was something about my poem being read in he teacher’s lounge that made me beam. My pretty little poem had been read to the teachers. It was worthy enough to be shared with the adults. No, it wasn’t just a poem that had been written on paper and graced with a “Very very good!” It had been read out loud. I didn’t know it then, but for years to come, blessed Mrs S, the blessed teachers in that blessed lounge, would be my lighthouse. I steer towards them in the darkest of times.

Shakuntala Rajagopal’s 26-Minute Memoir

Hi Readers,

In 2009 I started a blog called 26-Minute Memoir and started publishing 26-Minute Memoirs–stories that describe the essence of your life written in 26 minutes–from students, friends, Facebook and blog followers. In my book Writing Is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (And a Guide to How You Can Too), I encourage readers to write their own 26-Minute Memoir and send them to me, and now they are sending me their 26-Minute Memoirs. Below you’ll find Shakuntala Rajagopal’s 26-Minute Memoir. Please feel free to write one of your own. You can find instructions and links to other 26-Minute Memoirs here: http://writingismydrink.com/26-minutes/.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Theo

26-Minute Memoir
Shakuntala Rajagopal

The Matterhorn Ride, March 26, 2014

Forty-nine years and 10 months after my first ride on the Matterhorn Mountain at Disneyland, California, I took my second chance on the same ride.

After all, I am in Fantasyland.

What did I expect? I did not know what to expect 49 years ago, and was not sure how wild the ride would be today.

In May 1964, I was on the same ride with my better half, my dear Raj. At the time, twenty three years young, and in this country for just three months, we were naïve about roller coaster rides.

Now I am back here with my 13 year old grandson, sans grandpa.

As we waited to board, he bob-sleds I reached the conclusion that maybe I have chewed off more than I should. But, seeing how my grandson was taking the ride, my pride would not let me step down.  We loaded the bobsleds.

Off we went. Pitch black. I could not see anything in front of me, and could not make out the profiles of my daughter or her husband in the car ahead of me. A loud noise kept getting louder and louder. Then it hit me. The rumble that was getting louder was the rolling of the car I was in. I stopped breathing. Oops. Now we are out of the dark tunnel and barreling fast on a downhill track. My stomach felt in a knot and churned up into my chest. I heard screams: In few seconds I realized it was my voice screaming.

I had no time to acknowledge that I was scared. The cars were on a smooth surface and chugging along, giving a false sense of security before it sped uphill and dropped again. My eyes closed, I heard the screams again. Then, sunlight and the ride slowed, and rolled into the station.

I tumbled out, laughing hysterically. At 23, I did not know better. What was my excuse now?

At least I was not sitting home pining for my husband Raj who passed away three years ago. At least I was screaming alongside my 13 year old grandson, making memories to share with his progeny when I am gone.

I wish Raj was here to hear me, even if he did not share the ride with me. Oh, well. I am happy I can still remember the thrill I had on the same ride, holding his hands, all those years ago.

Wow!

I am a young 73 year old, now.

 ——————–

Shakuntala Rajagopal’s Blogs

http://shakudreaming.com

http://songofthemountains.wordpress.com

Seven Tips for Better Writing Groups

A rocking writing group can be the wind beneath your wings, your port in a storm, your Rock of Gibraltar, your Cheers where everybody knows your name, and every other cliché about feeling both safe and inspired. A strong writing group makes you feel like there’s a group of people out there who get you and even when you’re being rejected repeatedly everywhere else, your group believes in you and your worth and is a place where you can count on receiving reliable criticism.

And then there are writing groups here on Earth: Writing groups that devolve into wine tastings. As well as, writing groups that never devolve into wine tastings. Writing groups where one person bugs the hell out of the other writers and no one knows quite how to handle it. Writing groups that get derailed by side conversations.Writing groups that issue bone-crushing criticism, and writing groups that never do. And eventually, most of these writing groups fizzle out.

Here’s my advice on setting up a sustainable writing group:

1. Keep it smallish. Smaller groups fracture less easily and are more likely to possess a common set of goals and values. Also, smaller groups usually mean that you will be sharing your work more often. One of the best aspects of writing groups is the deadlines they offer. Why? Because for most of us, it’s the only way we can get any writing done. The math goes like this: Smaller group = more deadlines = more writing =better writing. And yet, you don’t want your group so small that it feels claustrophobic or like a disaster if someone’s away on vacation one week. You also need a few extra bodies because you will likely lose at least one person either actively (they huff off) or passively (they never write anything and/or hardly ever come and yet won’t quit the group). An ideal number of members would likely be between four and eight.

2. Establish the structure of the meetings ASAP. Do you want to build a social time into the meetings? Do you want it to be strictly business? How should work be distributed and what are the expectations for giving feedback? How often will you meet and where?  What are the goals of the individual members? Do you want to designate some of your meeting time for writing? Work toward a consensus on a format that will meet the needs of most of the group. It is especially important to be clear about how feedback will work. Otherwise, um, disaster and bitterness ensues.

3. Avoid bringing in new members and be very, very clear about the mission of the group when a new member is brought in.  Your number one goal should be to create a group that satisfies the needs of its initial members so that the need to bring in new members doesn’t come up. New members are often at a disadvantage and feel like the new kid at school in high-water pants for the rest of their time in the group. Also, new members tend to come saddled up with their own expectations that can clash with the group’s, and usually people are so “nice” that this clash doesn’t get dealt with in a direct manner and the group starts to fall apart.

4. Develop a common knowledge base. Writing classes often give birth to great writing groups because the members share a common way of talking about the writing and have read a number of the same books. This shared database can be very helpful in giving meaningful criticism to each other because you can point to examples of how other authors have handled similar difficulties. If your group has not taken a class together, it might be a good idea to start off by reading a few books on writing fiction and/or nonfiction together as well as examples of successful books in the group’s genre(s).

5. Have a rotating facilitator! This is so important that I used an exclamation mark. Most people are well socialized and so won’t say things like, “Shut up about your vacation house. We need to get back to work!” But if you grant someone with this role, they will (hopefully) cattle prod the group around at the needed times and be timekeepers. Facilitators could also be designated to be leaders in the discussion and take more risks in giving opinions as a teacher would do in a classroom setting. Of course, rotating is the keyword here, lest one person become resentful for the extra work or resented for their “upper hand.”

6. Consider scheduling in fun activities for the group. One way to solve the conflict between the group’s need to socialize and their need to get the work done is to schedule in times to get together that are strictly social. Maybe you get together for a potluck dinner or go to a reading or lecture and then out for drinks once every few months.

7. Put a date for a State of the Writing Group Nation Talk on the calendar. Make sure there’s a time every six months or so for members to check in with each other.

New Session of Memoir Essentials Webinar Starts October 5th!

Hi Readers,

I’m offering a new session of the popular Memoir Essentials Webinar this fall. Some readers on the east coast requested a time that didn’t start so late in the evening for them so this session will start at 4pm Pacific Time every Sunday in October. Please find all the details below.

Thanks,

Theo

Next Memoir Essentials Starts Sunday, October 5th

“What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened. For that, the power of a writing imagination is required. As V.S. Pritchett once said of the genre, ‘It’s all in the art. You get no credit for living.’”—Vivian Gornick, The Situation and the Story

Want to use the rest of your summer getting serious about your memoir?  Enroll in my Memoir Essentials course, a four-class webinar focused on the fundamentals of memoir writing that also offers generative writing tasks designed to take you deeper into your story. We will discuss the essential elements of memoir writing—how to create scenes that move your story forward, how to use summary and reflection effectively, how to narrow your topic, and how to structure your narrative. This class will also include numerous material-generating activities that will help you hone in on the story you need to tell and develop the voice in which to tell it.

Register here: (You will receive a confirmation email with instructions for entering the webinar after clicking the pink “Buy Now” link below and making your payment via Pay Pal or credit card. If you prefer to pay by check, email me at theonestorprods@gmail.com).

Enrollment in Memoir Essentials: (4) 1.5 hour-long classes that meet on October 5, 12, 19, and 26 at 4pm Pacific Time. Registration fee via Pay Pal:$149.

Course outline:

First meeting: Introduction to the memoir genre; understanding story structure and how to develop your memoir’s narrative arc, narrator transformation and the hero’s journey.


Second meeting: The three narrative modes of memoir: Scene, Summary, and Musing; the essentials of scene writing; the use of time in a memoir; how to write a scene that sizzles.


Third meeting: Developing the emotional preoccupation of your memoir; creating a narrator and a narrative readers care about; developing the universal elements of your story.
Fourth meeting:  Finding your voice as a writer; letting your personality show up on the page; obsessions; special memberships; creating a narrator who serves as your story’s “central consciousness.”

How does it work? During our meetings, I will be giving lectures on the various memoir topics listed in the course outline above and fielding questions from you on these topics. I will also be guiding you through in-class memoir writing exercises and giving you optional assignments to work on outside of class. Each week you’ll read assigned readings from our texts and short writing assignments.

The logistics: Shortly after you enroll, you’ll be sent a confirmation email with a link to the register on our class’ GoToWebinar page. You will attend our class meetings over the phone or online through GoToWebinar.com. As long as you can dial in, you’ll be able to hear the class discussion. If you are online, you’ll also be able to see me and the class blackboard. If you miss a class (or want to listen to it again), the recordings with audio and the class blackboard will be available for you to listen to at your convenience.

What if I miss a meeting? The day after the class meeting, you’ll receive a link to a recording of the meeting, which you can listen to at anytime.

What if I want to ask a question before I register? Email me at theonestorprods@gmail.com.

Can I pay by check or money order? Yes, email me at theonestorprods@gmail.com for instructions.

Theo Pauline Nestor

Who’s the instructor?  Theo Pauline Nestor is the author of Writing Is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (And a Guide to How You Can Too) (Simon & Schuster, 2013) and How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed: A Memoir of Starting Over (Crown, 2008), which was selected by Kirkus Reviews as a 2008 Top Pick for Reading Groups and as a Target “Breakout Book.” An award-winning instructor, Nestor has taught the memoir certificate course for the University of Washington’s Professional & Continuing Education program since 2006 and also teaches at Richard Hugo House in Seattle. Nestor also produces events for writers such as the Wild Mountain Memoir Retreat, Bird by Bird & Beyond, and the Black Mesa Writers’ Intensive, featuring talks by literary leaders such as Anne Lamott, Cheryl Strayed, Julia Cameron, and Natalie Goldberg. She lives in Seattle with her family and their cat, Rory. You can follow her on Facebook here and on Twitter @theopnestor. Read testimonials from coaching clients here.

When do we meet? Our class meetings will be four consecutive Wednesdays: October 5, 12, 19, and 26 from 4:30 to 6:00pm PDT.

How do I enroll? To enroll in the course, click on the “Buy Now” button for the course below to pay either through Pay Pal or with a credit card. After your payment has been received, you’ll receive a course confirmation with further instructions. If you prefer to pay by check or money order, email me at theonestorprods@gmail.com.

Can I get a refund?  Yes, until October 6th at 6pm Pacific Time (24 hours after our first meeting), your registration fee is 100 percent refundable. To get a refund, send a request for a refund to theonestorprods@gmail.com. After October 5th, the webinar registration fee becomes non-refundable.

The Secret to Finding Your Writer’s Voice

So how do you “find your voice” as a writer? You find it by spending more time writing and spending more of your writing time focused on the material you really need to be working on, what I like to call “your true material.” When we spend more time writing, we give ourselves the chance to develop our skills well enough so that our work can begin to match our vision for it. For some of us getting started can be the first stumbling block between us and our work. From Virginia Valian’s essay “Learning to Work,” I learned the trick of setting a timer for 15 minutes and telling myself 15 minutes was all I had to do, and most of you have a trick or two of your own for getting going, I’m sure. But many of us have had the experience of spending the time on the writing and yet feeling that we were simply “mailing it in.” We weren’t engaged with the material. We still weren’t where we knew we needed to be. We weren’t working with “our true material” or digging deeply enough into the material.

The focus of the Writing Is My Drink Webinar is on helping writers learn how they work best so they will work more often and with better results and on helping writers to zoom in on their true material. The next session starts tonight (September 4th) at 6pm. More details below! (P.S. If you sign up and find the class isn’t for you, you can have a full refund no-questions-asked by sending an email request by Midnight on 9/5/2014).

Thanks, as always, for reading my blog!

Theo

 

The Writing Is My Drink Webinar

The Writing Is My Drink Webinar focuses on finding your work’s (sometimes hidden) themes, discovering your aesthetic as a reader and a writer, and understanding what inspires you and learning how to tap into that inspiration so that your work is not just functionally sound but also representative of your vision and mission as a writer. We will also be discussing how to recognize and address the doubts that can stop us from writing. The webinar will offer many opportunities to do short in-class writing assignments and very short homework assignments designed to bring you into “your real writing,” the work that quietly and sometimes not-so-quietly nags at you until you do it.  By the way, I’m not a fan of writing exercises for the sake of writing exercises. The webinar’s activities are designed with the idea in mind that each participant should find at least a few that morph into larger pieces of writing that feel authentic and powerful to both the writer and readers.

The last half hour of each 1.5 hour long class session will be used for Q and A, in which students can ask me any question they like about writing.

Classes will be held on four Thursday evenings at 6pm to 7:30pm Pacific Time, starting September 4th (September 4, 11, 18, 25). The classes will be held via GotoWebinar.com, allowing you to both see and hear me as well as view my screen. All classes will be recorded, so if you miss a class, you’ll be able to listen to the audio portion of it at your convenience. You can attend the classes from anywhere you can call in or get online. All enrolled students also receive a 30-minute private coaching call with me.

After you’ve paid for the class using Pay Pal or credit card, you will receive a confirmation email from me and instructions for entering the first class on September 4th and setting up your included one-on-one coaching appointment. If you prefer to pay with check or money order, email me at theonestorprods@gmail.com and I will send you an invoice with a mailing address. Cost for the four classes and 30-minute coaching session: $145. Questions? Email me at theonestorprods@gmail.com.

Registration fees are 100 percent refundable until Midnight on September 5, 2014. So if after the first class meeting, you decide you don’t want to take the class, you can still get a full refund. After September 5, 2014, registration fees will not be refundable.

$145.00

Writing Is My Drink Webinar registration:(4) 1.5 hour-long classes and (1) 30-minute coaching call with Theo Pauline Nestor. Click on pink button to pay through Pay Pal or credit card. To pay by check, email me for instructions.

 

 

Instructor bio: Theo Pauline Nestor is the author of Writing Is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (And a Guide to How You Can Too) (Simon & Schuster, 2013) and How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed: A Memoir of Starting Over (Crown, 2008), which was selected by Kirkus Reviews as a 2008 Top Pick for Reading Groups and as a Target “Breakout Book.” An award-winning instructor, Nestor has taught the memoir certificate course for the University of Washington’s Professional & Continuing Education program since 2006 and also teaches at Richard Hugo House in Seattle. Nestor also produces events for writers such as the Wild Mountain Memoir Retreat, Bird by Bird & Beyond, and the Black Mesa Writers’ Intensive, featuring talks by literary leaders such as Anne Lamott, Cheryl Strayed, Julia Cameron, and Natalie Goldberg. She lives in Seattle with her family and their cat, Rory. You can follow her on Facebook here and on Twitter @theopnestor.

Karyn Spellman’s 26-Minute Memoir

Hi Readers,

In 2009 I started a blog called 26-Minute Memoir and started publishing 26-Minute Memoirs–stories that describe the essence of your life written in 26 minutes–from students, friends, Facebook and blog followers. In my book Writing Is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (And a Guide to How You Can Too), I encourage readers to write their own 26-Minute Memoir and send them to me, and they have! Below you’ll find Karyn Spellman’s 26-Minute Memoir. Please feel free to write one of your own. You can find instructions and links to other 26-Minute Memoirs here: http://writingismydrink.com/26-minutes/.

Theo

26-Minute Memoir
by Karyn Spellman

I have let the last 20 years of my life be defined by one man. We have been officially divorced now for six months. Separated for four and a half years. Not knowing what to do for years before that. And I have been trying for the sake of my kids to keep the peace with him, get along well with him, make the best of everything, but I just can’t anymore. He consumes everything. He will not change. I have changed, and he hates it.

I lost myself somewhere along the way, if I ever even knew myself at all. And I’ve found myself over the last six months building the life that I knew I should have. The life that I want my kids and I to have, only to find him reach his poisonous tentacles in and try to ruin that, too. I’ve realized something over the last few days that I’ve probably known all along but refused to acknowledge because I don’t know how I’m going to make it work. I’ve read a lot about narcissistic men and how women like me have to go what’s called “no contact.” I get that in theory, but we have three kids. And the kids can’t go “no contact” because they have to see him every other weekend. And they really do so much better without him, and I already know legally that I get absolutely nowhere—really, our justice system is not designed to do any justice at all for the family if someone in the family has money or the ability to charm therapists or lawyers. How do I do this? But I am doing an emotional cha-cha. One step forward, two steps back. I never seem to heal.

My daughter told me last night that she doesn’t want to see the family therapist anymore because she feels like the only issues that are unresolved are the ones with her father. I asked her if she felt like the therapist could still help with those. Her answer was very telling for an 11-year-old. She said that going with her father was pointless—he didn’t ever listen to what Dana had to say, and he wasn’t ever going to change. She felt like he was manipulative and just told Dana what she wanted to hear. She really has him nailed. I felt like she was telling me what I needed to hear.

I feel like I keep hoping he’ll change, that I can keep having faith and working with him and having patience and going to all of these different therapists and something will click. I have to stop hoping and wishing. I have spent 20 years hoping and wishing for a life that is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. I thought it would when I was 23, so I ignored my instincts and got engaged anyway and got married. Then I pushed down my doubts and stayed married and had three kids and worked through issue after issue and had faith in my marriage and changed myself.

Then I found myself one day being screamed at by my drunk husband, dragged down a hallway, then screamed at again in front of our kids, and nervously waiting with my kids behind a locked door for the police to arrive after he had threatened to kill himself, knowing we had guns in our house.

Enough is enough. The only changes that will ever happen will be the ones that I will make. My oldest son had his braces broken by this man just a month ago, and his tooth shoved back, and this same man says I’m being overdramatic in saying he assaulted our son because all he did was “squeeze” our son’s face too hard after our son told him to “f—k off.” Gosh, I wonder why our son told him that? All three kids said their dad attacked our son when the two were arguing, but our son just wants to let it go. I think he’s afraid of what his father will do next. So this man won’t be held accountable because our son won’t talk. I can’t blame him. I get it. I didn’t press charges either because I was so stunned and wanted to believe that it was an isolated incident. I just wanted him out of the house. And he was. And I never let him return.

But I paid the price of a divorce that took four years and well into the six figures. Now I have to learn to ignore him. And teach my kids to put up an emotional wall.

I’m 43. I spent my entire adult life with this man. I started my life with him when I graduated from college.

I just started graduate school this year.

My new life starts now.

Just Start Something. Anything.

Veggies grown by my friends, Daniel and Michael. File under: Things that start from tiny, tiny seeds (metaphor obvious and intended).

The 26-Minute Memoir Project started as a dream. I woke up from the dream and wrote for 26 minutes, trying to capture the essence of my life. That was five years ago–before I started the blog Writing Is My Drink and long before the blog evolved into the book. Today, readers around the globe send me their 26-Minute Memoirs. They like writing them! Readers like reading them!

I could have just gone back to sleep, pushing the idea aside–as I’ve done many, many times when an idea has come to me. But that time, I followed up on the idea.  I turned on the light. I started something not knowing where it would lead or even that it was, in fact, “something.”

So my advice to you? Just take a small step toward any creative project today. If you don’t like the thing later, you can stop taking those steps. But if you take that first small step, your project might grow in a way that you can’t anticipate today. But you can’t know this unless…………..unless you take that first step.

And believe me, I understand inertia and negativity and passivity and paralysis. I can delay getting started on activities I supposedly love for days and days. I can delay for weeks! But, then somehow prompted by a dream or desperation or a friend or some bit of magic or a song, I start. And after I start, I usually–not always–feel better. You know, like that Life’s Worth Living feeling. Just that.

We just have to keep getting started. We just have to.

Dana Laquidara’s 26-Minute Memoir

Hi Readers,

In 2009 I started a blog called 26-Minute Memoir and started publishing 26-Minute Memoirs–stories that describe the essence of your life written in 26 minutes–from students, friends, Facebook and blog followers. In my book Writing Is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (And a Guide to How You Can Too), I encourage readers to write their own 26-Minute Memoir and send them to me, and they have! Below you’ll find Dana Laquidara’s 26-Minute Memoir. Please feel free to write one of your own. You can find instructions and links to other 26-Minute Memoirs here: http://writingismydrink.com/26-minutes/.

 Theo

 

 

 

 Dana Laquidara’s 26-Minute Memoir

A MOTHER ERASED: 
My story of parent alienation
 
 
            It was a warm September day, but my body froze when I saw my mother’s bright red hair.  She leaned out of her black Ford Mustang and waved at me.  She still recognizes me, I thought.  I was only four years old when she walked out of our lives leaving my sister, our father and me behind to piece together a new life.  My father remarried a year later and we’ve called his second wife “Mom” ever since.
         My real mother, Lisa, became a family secret.  She was never talked about, except for sometimes late at night when my sister and I shared our memories.  We called her “You Know Who”, because we were afraid to speak her name.  We would sit in our beds in the dark and whisper about the past.  My sister remembered a big fight.  She said there was a lot of yelling and crying and then our mother was gone the next morning. 
            I remembered our mother returning on my fifth birthday to bring me a present.  We had our new mother by then and Lisa was not  welcome.  I wasn’t supposed to love her anymore. 
           Lisa parked her car and met me at the main entrance of the mall where I had been waiting.  We walked together through the mall, looking for a place to sit and talk.  We barely glanced at each other as we made small talk.  Here we were, mother and daughter, and yet we were strangers. 
          As we sat down, I looked at my mother curiously.  I wanted to absorb every detail of her appearance.  Her eyes were the same bluish-gray as mine.  When I was a young girl, I used to look in the mirror, staring into my own eyes, hoping to see the reflection of my mother.  I had only one photograph of her which I hid from my father, knowing he had discarded the others.  I was thankful to have found this one in an old bureau in our basement.  It proved to me that my mother was real.

     It felt like a dream to be seeing her again. I wondered how I would begin to ask all of the questions I had waited so long to ask.  Then Lisa just started talking, explaining everything the way she knew it.  After a while, she stopped fighting the tears.  I remained emotionless and distant as I listened to her story.  I would not be vulnerable again.  Not this time.
             Lisa had married my father at the age of eighteen, she began, because she was pregnant with my sister.  They moved into the upstairs apartment of my father’s parents’ house.  I was born eighteen months after my sister. 
            Lisa spoke of her tumultuous marriage with my father and how it had eroded her self-esteem.  I felt a surge of anguish enter my body that would take years to dispel.  The mental image I held of  my earliest years  darkened as my past became clearer. The grandmother who sent me cards I would never receive.
            Then Lisa told me about her affair with a man that promised to take her away from my father.  I remembered the man.  His name was Bob.  He was a big man with sandy brown hair and a ruddy complexion.  I remembered going sledding together.  Lisa told us that he was going to be our new daddy and that we were going to move far away with him.
            “Your father found a letter from Bob”, she continued, “and threw me out of the house late at night.  It was the middle of winter and I wasn’t even wearing shoes.  I couldn’t face my parents, so when a cop picked me up I had him drive me to where Bob lived.  I intended on coming back to get you girls, but your father had gotten temporary custody.  His lawyer called it abandonment.”
            I pictured my mother, hiding out with her lover, while my sister and I stayed at home with our raging father, not knowing if she’d be back.
            “After that I had visitations with you on Sundays”, she continued.  “You and your sister cried so much when you had to leave me.  Your father told me it was too hard on you both.  He told me over and over again that you were better off without me.  I began to believe him.  I didn’t fight for custody.  I didn’t have it in me to fight your father.  I just broke down. I was dying inside.” 
            My father wanted to start over.  What he didn’t realize was that part of me had died inside, too.  He thought he could replace my mother, sort of like a Christmas tree.  You remove it from your home after Christmas.  By the next year you’ve forgotten all about it and you get another one that you like just as much.  Only mothers aren’t like Christmas trees.  Once you lose your mother, your heart is not into finding another one.  What would I call my mother now, the one with the red hair? Or the grandmother that would send cards and gifts I never received. At four years old my life was changed forever.  I lost that little girl I once was.
             When Lisa was done talking, I stared at my glass, stirring the ice with my straw.  I was convinced that my mother really had loved me and somehow this felt more devastating.  The stranger I once called “Mommy” wasn’t “You Know Who” anymore.  She was a real human being who had suffered a huge loss of her own.  She was sitting across from me, breathing, talking, crying.   
       “I became the best behaved little girl because I sensed that was all the adults around me could tolerate,” I told my mother.  “When my own needs might have caused them any inconvenience or distress, I kept them to myself.  I don’t ever remember mentioning you to my father, let alone grieving you.  I went into a state of melancholy that others just accepted as my quiet nature.”  I surprised myself with my own honesty.  But I couldn’t allow Lisa to believe that her absence had not damaged my life.
         Lisa looked uneasy and I would later learn that she carried a guilt that was so unbearable, it didn’t allow her to comprehend my pain.  She needed to believe that I had been okay.
          She walked me back to my car.  After an awkward moment, she put her arms around me.  She felt small, her grip almost frail.  She was weak after all.  Too weak to fight for me.  Too weak to stand up to my father. 
            My parents had both failed me. My father for pushing my mother away so forcefully. My mother for collapsing under that force, for giving up.  But at least now my path was clearer. I knew what I needed to do. I had to accept there was no going back. To acknowledge my pain and grieve my losses.  And lastly, but most importantly, to forgive.

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Dana Laquidara’s blog can be founded at http://musingsimplicity.wordpress.com/author/memoirmusings/

 

New Section of Writing Is My Drink Webinar Starts Sept 4th!

This September I’ll be teaching the webinar based on the book Writing Is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (And a Guide to How You Can Too), and I’d love for you to join me. In Writing Is My Drink, I tell my story of coming into my voice as a writer because I believe that any story of a one person’s journey from Can’t to Can contains within it the story of pretty much everyone’s path from No to Yes. The circumstances may differ from person to person, but each of us who has felt both simultaneously compelled to express and daunted by the task has faced the same challenges, the same doubts, the same fears.

Similarly, there are common paths for finding the way out of doubt and into your voice. In the four-week Writing Is My Drink webinar, I will walk you through the process of discovering your own true material and momentum as a writer.This is not a technical class about how to write a memoir or a novel; this is a class about how to get past the fear and the doubt and get to what I call “your real writing,” the real work you know you need to do. No previous writing experience is required.

The webinar will focus on finding your work’s (sometimes hidden) themes, discovering your aesthetic as a reader and a writer, and understanding what inspires you and learning how to tap into that inspiration so that your work is not just functionally sound but also representative of your vision and mission as a writer. We will also be discussing how to recognize and address the doubts that can stop us from writing. The webinar will offer many opportunities to do short in-class writing assignments and very short homework assignments designed to bring you into “your real writing,” the work that quietly and sometimes not-so-quietly nags at you until you do it.  By the way, I’m not a fan of writing exercises for the sake of writing exercises. The webinar’s activities are designed with the idea in mind that each participant should find at least a few that morph into larger pieces of writing that feel authentic and powerful to both the writer and readers.

The last half hour of each 1.5 hour long class session will be used for Q and A, in which students can ask me any question they like about writing.

Classes will be held on four Thursday evenings at 6pm to 7:30pm Pacific Time, starting September 4th (September 4, 11, 18, 25). The classes will be held via GotoWebinar.com, allowing you to both see and hear me as well as view my screen. All classes will be recorded, so if you miss a class, you’ll be able to listen to the audio portion of it at your convenience. You can attend the classes from anywhere you can call in or get online. All enrolled students also receive a 30-minute private coaching call with me.

After you’ve paid for the class using Pay Pal or credit card, you will receive a confirmation email from me and instructions for entering the first class on September 4th and setting up your included one-on-one coaching appointment. If you prefer to pay with check or money order, email me at theonestorprods@gmail.com and I will send you an invoice with a mailing address. Cost for the four classes and 30-minute coaching session: $145. Questions? Email me at theonestorprods@gmail.com.

Registration fees are 100 percent refundable until September 5, 2014. So if after the first class meeting, you decide you don’t want to take the class, you can still get a full refund. After September 5, 2014, registration fees will not be refundable.

$145.00

Writing Is My Drink Webinar registration: (4) 1.5 hour-long classes and (1) 30-minute coaching call with Theo Pauline Nestor. Includes links to recordings of all class meetings and downloadable files of class Power Point presentations. Alumni of the Writing Is My Drink Webinar may repeat the webinar in the future free of charge.

 

Interested in real life Writing Is My Drink classes? Email me at theonestorprods@gmail.com. I’m planning on teaching one-day Writing Is My Drink intensives in various U.S. locations beginning this fall.

Instructor bio: Theo Pauline Nestor is the author of Writing Is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (And a Guide to How You Can Too) (Simon & Schuster, 2013) and How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed: A Memoir of Starting Over (Crown, 2008), which was selected by Kirkus Reviews as a 2008 Top Pick for Reading Groups and as a Target “Breakout Book.” An award-winning instructor, Nestor has taught the memoir certificate course for the University of Washington’s Professional & Continuing Education program since 2006 and also teaches at Richard Hugo House in Seattle. Nestor also produces events for writers such as the Wild Mountain Memoir Retreat, Bird by Bird & Beyond, and the Black Mesa Writers’ Intensive, featuring talks by literary leaders such as Anne Lamott, Cheryl Strayed, Julia Cameron, and Natalie Goldberg. She lives in Seattle with her family and their cat, Rory. You can follow her on Facebook here and on Twitter @theopnestor.

What have past participants said about the Writing Is My Drink Webinar?

 What did you like about the class?

The 5-8 minute writing assignments. They felt like the kick-starters I needed.   I also liked it when people shared — either their actual work or about their writing experiences.


Useful information and exercises. Many new and not directly from book so felt that participants received “added value”.


Doing the exercises and then when people shared afterward. The woman tonight who said she’d been on a career path she hadn’t chosen and was rewarded for things she didn’t care about–she was telling my story. And now she is pursuing something she does care about. Yes! That really got my juices flowing.


I’m really surprised by how much I enjoyed the exercises offered. They were so helpful in discovering content.


I loved the laid back feeling of it.   Theo is wonderful and creates a very warm, accepting environment.

Would you recommend the class to a friend?

Yes. Having someone help you find your voice–well, who wouldn’t want that. And Theo is the one to do it.


Yes! I have an artist friend who likes to read writing books because she finds the creative process to be similar to her own. I think she’d enjoy taking this one.


Yes, would recommend. Helped me get unstuck so would be helpful to others. Thank you!


Yes. It’s a wonderful way to tap into creativity and desire to write. I’m looking forward to the next class and plan to devote more of my off-class time to the assignments. Admittedly I was a slacker this go-round. I got thrown off when I couldn’t figure out my flaw/big topic, and couldn’t find my way in.


I would absolutely recommend it to a friend.   I have already. To everyone I know. It rocked, Theo. Thanks.


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, a Little Entitlement Can Be a Good Thing

Seventeen years ago today, I was waiting for a miserable summer to end so September would FINALLY arrive and I could FINALLY start the MFA program I couldn’t believe I had actually been accepted into.The program, I knew, would be the beginning of “becoming a writer,” and I knew that when school finally began, I would calm down. The ambition that buzzed perpetually inside me would subside a bit. I would be the salmon who’d made it upstream. That’s what I hoped. I also hoped I’d be lifted from the mire of grief I had woken up in every morning since my stepfather died six weeks earlier.

My stepfather was not just a person I loved beyond words; he was the person who made me feel like I was safe in the world. My dad possessed a stunning sense of entitlement that I found at once alarming, thrilling, and enviable.You wanted him on YOUR side. When he spoke, crowded rooms fell silent. He could pick up the phone and know what to say to get the CEO of a company or a certain government official on the line and listening.When he hung up, things happened: planes lifted off, money was refunded, apologies were issued, rules were bent. While he was alive, I somehow believed that if it came down to it, I could borrow his big blustery Irish sense of entitlement and power and use it to fight a battle of my own. Of course, this wasn’t true, but if you believe something is true, it might as well be. But now he and that belief were–POOF–gone, and the grief of losing this powerhouse of a person fueled my own need to find my own power in the world, to find a way to get my words attended to as his had been.

Even though I was in my mid-30s, back-to-school fantasies crowded my thoughts with images of cozy sweaters and falling leaves and school supplies as I waited for the heat of August to give way at last to the cool promise of September. I was convinced school would cure me. And I wasn’t completely wrong. Everything about being in the MFA program–the classes, my fellow students, the writing assignments that scared me witless–thrilled me and gave me the focus needed to distract me from the worst of my grief’s misery. My writing wasn’t half what I wanted it to be–my stories were watery imitations of the writers I admired and lacked something I couldn’t name (Me! They lacked me!)–but I felt like I was in the right place and in the right classes to learn what I needed to learn.

But, of course, the most enduring lessons are not usually listed on the syllabus, and our teachers often teach us more than they ever intended. And the lesson my first workshop teacher taught me that year wasn’t far off from the one my stepfather had been teaching for as long as I’d known him. This writer possessed such a breathtaking confidence in his work that I’ve sometimes referred to him as “the anti-Theo.” Tall, Ivy-educated, and from a family of intellectuals, he was raised to believe in the importance of his own thoughts and he did. If he found a stray idea compelling, he followed up on it and some of those ideas bloomed into books. Listening to him talk about his own writing, I quickly recognized that a certain degree of enthusiasm for your own thought process and a certain amount of belief in at least the possibility of shifting the world with your words and ideas were not only crucial to becoming a writer, their absence was, in fact, my major obstacle. Without this healthy sense of entitlement, my writing would always be lacking something: Me.

Sometime as autumn turned to winter that year, I consciously decided to copy some of my teacher’s boldness. I noticed the way he turned a casual observation into an essay and I started asking myself, “What do I see in my world?” I studied the way his obsessions became ideas and those ideas became beginnings and some of those beginnings became books, and I asked myself, “What are my obsessions?” I watched the way he prioritized his writing, how he didn’t question whether he had the time to write, he just wrote, and I started to take my own writing seriously. Sometimes, I swaggered a little.

I began to refer to my writing as “my work,” even if saying it, I felt like a liar, an imposter, and a thief. The keys might have been stolen, but the kingdom was quickly starting to look like home.

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You can find more stories about how taking the long way to writing can still get you there in my book Writing Is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (And a Guide to How You Can Too).

I’m teaching writers how to find their own voices and their true material in my Writing Is My Drink Webinar. The next session starts September 4th, back-to-school time! Hope to see you in there. Details and registration info here.