Write your philosophy

Posted on August 12, 2012 by moonbridgebooks

What’s your philosophy of life? The ruckus from the recent Chick-fil-a debate sure put life and religious philosophy in the limelight, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. There were many instances of emotions taking over reasoning, with not a lot of tolerance shown for dissenting opinions. In this age of polarization, at least here in the U.S., especially with presidential elections coming up, the atmosphere is nasty and even a little frightening to some.

Some people may think lifewriting is only for famous people or those who have led important or exciting lives, but it is not. It is to leave who you are and what you learned to future generations. It is not just remembering what happened in the past and writing it down, it is writing down who you are and what the past meant to you. You could just stick with facts and historic events, but your family will want to remember more than that—they want to remember you.

Who are you? What are the events that shaped your life? How did they affect you? These events are not just facts but opportunities for philosophical reasoning. Life philosophy, religious philosophy, even political philosophy. If you are religious, why are you and have you ever questioned it? How have your beliefs changed over time? Where did you get your life philosophy from and can you give examples of how you live it? How have our wars or the illegal immigrant situation affected your philosophies. If you dare get into political philosophy, you may need to edit with a butcher knife to avoid creating a gigantic tome.

Unless your writings are intended to be major essays about your belief systems, it is probably best to stick with inserting bits and pieces of your thoughts and philosophies as pertinent throughout the writing of your stories, although including an essay or two among a series of vignettes (mini stories) is fine. Lifewritings I recently edited included what I’d almost call letters to children about what shaped their mother and life advice she wanted to pass on from her experiences.

In my own mother’s Japanese memoir, Cherry Blossoms in Twilight, some readers commented on wanting to know more about what my mother thought and felt, especially since the memories are about poverty and war. Unfortunately, when you’re in your seventies and long and far removed from those old days, you don’t always remember way back when. Also, the Japanese are known for their stoicism, their gaman, which means to accept it and do your best. But the philosophies that did get into the book are perhaps all the more powerful because they are rare. “Don’t hate the enemy, they are only doing their job.”

Peace, love and understanding

“Together”

 

 

Posted in capturing memories, lifewriting | Tagged | 4 Comments

Memories of Life in the Country

Posted on August 8, 2012 by moonbridgebooks

Last weekend my college girl and I took off for the countryside of west Tennessee to see her grandparents, her last chance for a long time. As soon as we had unpacked the car, I sat down at the kitchen table with my mother-in-law to help get tomatoes ready to can. Sticking my fingers into soft, warm fruits whose skins had come off easily after a quick boil, I pulled out the white cores, my cotton apron spattered with red juice.

I watched my mom-in-law puree the tomatoes, cook the watery redness in a huge pot, then ladle into sterilized jars that went into a boiling water bath for a final cook. As they cooled on the old porcelain-topped table, the lids sucked in with the sound of popping corn, sealing in the goodness that would make delicious chili and vegetable soup on cold days.

The next day my young cousin went out in the heat of the day with no gloves to cut okra from tall, prickly plants that would ooze slime and scrape hands and arms raw, but she didn’t seem to be bothered. A big bag would go home with me to save for gumbo or be turned into frozen breaded okra.

Okra

After a heavenly all-vegetable supper of fried okra and eggplant, homemade creamed corn, butter beans, cornbread and succulent right-off-the-vine tomatoes, my daughter and I and mom-in-law went out to the fields to pick out two long rows of green beans. Molly the black dog sniffed her way through the garden, her tail flagging her presence.

Bush beans have a way of hiding down in the depths, like buried treasure, and thank goodness there were no spiders buried with them, just a toad. My arms got a rash, but I picked away and proudly watched my daughter go at it while wearing a sundress and mere flipflops against the tall grassy weeds among the rows. Cicadas screaming from the trees made the air seem hotter.

Purple-hull peas

My in-laws are lucky to have a daughter and her family nearby who help with their huge garden. I think not too many kids these days would be willing to sweat it out in hot fields cutting beastly okra pods and stooping to gather peas and hidden beans every other day. While our family doesn’t get down there often during harvesting season, my girls and I have helped and I love that they learn how food grows and what labor it is to gather it in. I believe they have a healthy respect for migrant workers.

On the last day I spent a bit of time on the shaded back porch listening to the cicadas and dreaming over a wide meadow. Then it was time to pack the car full of fresh vegetables and head back to the city. I was leaving good memories behind, but I had some poems, some notes on canning and freezing, and some more food stories from my mom-in-law for the little book I’m writing about her. Yes, it was a very good visit.

Air shimmers with heat
rising with the cicadas
buzz-saw crescendo

The meadow calls me
out to play with grasshoppers
before the haying

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Have the guts to write, the smarts to edit

Posted on July 29, 2012 by moonbridgebooks

I finished editing a memoir this past week and celebrated. Celebrated my job being done, but also celebrated the writer, a woman whose native language is not English. Astonishing to me, her spelling was near perfect, better than Spellcheck, which, as you should know, doesn’t account for usage in its basic version. (Spellcheck thinks blue is fine when the word should be blew.)

I was very impressed by this woman who wanted to write about her life lessons, mainly for her children, but I know her friends will enjoy them, too. Even I did, and I am a stranger. She had the guts to set aside any fears of inadequacy and write. And she had the smarts to hire an editor. I told her not to worry about all the redlines, and that even the best writers need editors. Even editors need editors!

Before hiring an editor, it is wise and cost-effective to do as much editing as you can on your own. I advise you to turn on more options for Spellcheck. For the newer versions of Word, you can click on the File tab at the top left of your page, then click on Options, which might be under Help. Under the Proofing tab you can click on all sorts of options: check contextual spelling, mark grammar errors, check readability. You can also have it flag repeated words, which is a good idea, especially for people with habit words they like to use all the time.

You may also choose Auto Format options under the Proofing tab. Particularly useful are to replace straight quotes (“) with smart quotes (“) and replace double hyphens (hyphen hyphen) with what’s called an em dash, which is proper in books and looks like this:  He bolted—did he know it was me? (Note no blank spaces around the dash.) If you don’t like the looks of an em dash, you can type space-hyphen-space followed by a word to create a shorter dash (the n dash), which looks like this:  He bolted – did he know it was me? Keep in mind all the professionally done books use the em dash.

Whatever you do to make the editor’s job easier should reflect on the cost of the job, so it’s in your best interest to at least try to tidy things up before emailing to an editor. It is also advisable to get beta readers, which are test readers who enjoy reading your genre and who won’t be afraid to tell you what they think—nicely, of course! And if they can help you with spelling, grammar, and punctuation, all the better.

For tips on formatting your MS Word document for Amazon’s CreateSpace or subsidy publishers like Lulu.com, see my Resources page on this website to find the Design & Layout article. To format professionally, you’ll need to find someone who uses a publishing software program such as Adobe InDesign.

Posted in writing | Tagged | 8 Comments