I love this quote: Stories are what show up on the page once you start hitting the keys. —LARRY MCMURTRY Isn't that the truth? Whether it's nonfiction or fiction, the stories we decide to write about won't happen unless we take that first step to get them written down. And when we do this it's like we're making our own little soup story. I think back to the day when this website was born. I'd been told by my mom for a while to write down my thoughts and share them. It's good for you. I didn't … [Read more...]
Day 138: Writer Panic Attacks
When something hits me and I have to write it down, I don't know that I'd called it a panic attack in the sense that I'm hyperventilating and having a hard time with things around me. It's more that in that moment, whatever feelings I have floating around inside me are like they are begging me to get them written down. That first year after Mari died, I had a lot of those moments. My grief could consume me and they fought to come out through the words I typed out into my computer or my journal. … [Read more...]
A Broken Heart is an Open Heart
Grief and bereavement is a long and difficult journey. Even if the loss is imminent and you think you are prepared, there is no adequate preparation in the end. The agony of losing a loved one, particularly a beloved child who should have long outlived you, is acute and sudden yet also seemingly never-ending. When I lost my niece a few years ago the intensity of the grief I felt overwhelmed me. Yet somehow, in the process of both recovering from my own sense of loss and helping my sister - who … [Read more...]
Day 124: Breaking Glass: Metaphor and Symbols
In life, it seems so many of try to come our grief and pain to someone else’s. Our tragedy to theirs. The thing is that even if the tragedies sound similar in nature, no two are the same. I remember going to a wake a few months after my daughter had passed. The may be long but here goes: My husband’s sister’s husband’s (David’s) grandfather had passed away. Both David’s grandmother and the grandfather had come to Mari’s wake. Basically his whole family came by to pay their respects. I … [Read more...]
Day 121: Life Rafts
Life rafts can come to mean so many different things to different people. For me, my life rafts come from my Heavenly Father. He knows when I’m about to drown. It’s in these moments He gives me a life raft, in other words, He carries me through whatever is happening in my life at that time. When Mari got sick and we started on our very long sixteen day journey that felt like the worst roller coast I’d ever been on, and I love roller coasters. It’s like I couldn’t wait for the terrible ride to … [Read more...]
Day 100: Writing as Therapy
Since I can remember I have kept a diary. I think I was in the fourth grade when Grandma Patton sent me a diary for Christmas as well as a pen. I could write whatever was on my mind. Whether it was that I hated my mom for something I probably got in trouble for or that she wouldn't let me do whatever I wanted. If I'd only known then what I know now. I promised myself I'd never be like my mom, yet the honest truth is all kids can't stand their parents as kids but so appreciate all they have done … [Read more...]
Day 77: Why Write?
I love this question. Why do I write? It's simple really. I do it because I've grown to love it and couldn't imagine my life without it now. I write when I'm sad. I write when I'm happy. I write when I have news to share. For me it has become an extension of who I am. I think, in a way, people who read what I write have a view into who I am as a person. I've become happier as a person. I think back to the day I started this site. I was so sad. Grief engulfed my body. I was missing my … [Read more...]
T is for Time
Mari's time may not have been long on this earth but the impression she made on those around her will last forever. When we think about a young child dying, the first thought that naturally comes to mind is they're too young too dye or they're time was too short or they aren't supposed to die before me. We are human and in our brains we can't wrap it around how not just a child, but any child for that matter, could die. Our hearts break any time we hear of one passing. Mari was no … [Read more...]
Day 69: Your Naked Prose
When we write it's intensely personal. You get giddy over the story ideas because they will cause more conflict you know your reader will love that they keep reading your story. I know this is how I've been the last month. Between writing what I'm doing now on my year-long journey, my first ever attempt at fiction, and most importantly Mari's book. These are what bring me pure joy to do. But the bottom line to all of this is you leave yourself exposed as you have put part of yourself into … [Read more...]
Day 63: Feast or Famine: Part 2
Have you ever sat down to your computer or your binder paper and suddenly you have nothing to write. In fact, this goes on for several days. Nothing is coming to you. This is what we writers hate to have happen: Writer's Block. Or the famine. For whatever reason, all of our ideas have dried up like a lake that goes through a severe drought and dries all up. We want to write. We've scheduled our time out and yet here we sit. This has happened with Mari's website for me. If you take a look … [Read more...]
