Writing Your Life Story Part 1: Introduction to Writing

 

Driving Home © 2009 Bo Mackison

Have you thought about writing your life story?

“Nope, way too hard,” you think.

That is exactly what I thought, too, until my 88-year-old mother unintentionally gave me the nudge I needed.

My mother has always been quite secretive about her life, never one to share stories.

On a recent visit, she mentioned running into an old friend. I didn’t recognize the man’s name. Finally, my mother divulged that he had been an old beau whom she had known for years before she met and married my father. I remarked that I knew little from that time of her life and she announced that she could list all of the boyfriends she had ever dated. As she started reciting names and memories, I grabbed a nearby notebook and jotted down her list. In ten minutes I learned more about her late adolescence and early adulthood than I had learned in the previous five decades. And it was effortless.

Later I prompted her on other topics. “What trips did you take before you married?” “Who are the five most famous people you’ve met in your life?” Each time I asked a question, she responded with a list full of quirky details. By the end of the weekend, I had several pages of stories featuring my mother.

I also had the opportunity to try the listing method for retrieving my own memories.

My younger daughter worked at a movie theater for many years, and she had unlimited access to movies. One evening, as she was going to another show, her third that week, I remarked I’d seen perhaps a half-dozen movies before high school graduation.

“Really? You only went to six movies as a kid?” She was shocked by the thought. “What did you see?”

It only took me a minute to recall the movie titles. They were highlights of a childhood when movies were a huge treat. Amanda sat down in amazement and asked me about my movie experiences. As she listened, her eyes widened in surprise at the differences between the movie experiences in the 1960s versus today.

After I recalled my memories about movies seen in my youth, I wrote a list and added details.

Here is an example from the list “Movies I Saw in A Theater as a Kid”

Movie Memories © 2010 Bo Mackison

. . . when my friends and I were just sixteen, and beginning to accrue driving privileges, the movie Romeo and Juliet was released with much hype. To our dismay, it was not playing at the local movie theater. No, it was at the off-limits drive-in theater on the edge of town! I had never been to a drive-in movie and doubted I’d get permission to go.

But my girlfriends and I were determined to see this movie. Perhaps it helped that Romeo and Juliet was a Shakespearean classic. Perhaps it helped that I planned to go with five other girls crammed into one father’s trusted Oldsmobile. And I’m sure it helped that my friend’s parents agreed to also attend the show and park their car next to ours.  They kept a watchful eye on us the entire evening. Jan’s dad brought his pipe, her mother brought her knitting, and I don’t think they looked towards the big screen even once . . .

I was surprised at the memories I thought I’d long forgotten. Not only was list making an effective aid for recalling details, it was easy and fun, too.

You can use the same technique to jump-start your writing. List making leads to memory making.

Here is how to start:

  • Think of a topic. Use the movie prompt or one of your own. It is easier to write if you initially give yourself guidelines. For example, instead of listing all of your favorite books, list five books you read as high school requirements. Instead of writing about a summer vacation, list the highlights of your first weekend trip to the big city. Remember, it is easy to expand a narrow topic if you are so inclined, but not nearly as easy to pick a huge topic and find the thread of the beginning.
  • Once you have a list of a few items, fill in the details. The list acts as a prompt for retrieving memories you didn’t know you remembered.
  • Be alert for ideas for new lists. Record them in a notebook as they come to you. Topics may come from family conversations, newspaper or magazine articles, radio or television programs, or your daily activities.
  • Don’t over-think this project. Keep several small notebooks or index cards in your home, car, and purse. As you recall details, jot down key words.

Are you thinking of reasons why you can’t write your life story?

Here are three things that may help you get started:

  • You are creative. Though you may fear you are not creative enough to write your memoir, you are the only person who can write about your life from your point of view.
  • You are writing for yourself. Maybe you will share it with family members or friends, maybe you won’t, but the person you are ultimately writing your memoir for is yourself.
  • Writing is a way to explore and connect with your past, perhaps even resolve issues. Your writing is what you make it. The simple act of putting down the words of your story, or doing the coming memoir projects, provides you with an opportunity to make meaning in your life.
  • This can be a big project, or as small as you wish. You do not have to write chronologically. You do not have to record every experience, every detail. Write bits and pieces, collect them in one place, and you will have a start to writing memoir. Write your life story in whatever way works for you. It is your memoir project.

In this series, I offer a dozen writing techniques and creative projects to encourage you on your memoir journey.

Writing Your Life Story is a multimedia project that will inspire you to create/write/photograph your memoir in fun, easy, and interesting bits. I hope you’ll be inspired to try the various projects. We will be writing unique exercises to flesh out your memories, shoot a few photography projects (with any camera – cell phone camera, point and shoot, digital SLR is fine) and explore other multimedia ideas in the quest to “collect your memoir”.

There are writing prompts, simple photography projects, ideas for inventive interviews, creative research techniques, suggestions on how to physically contain your memoir stash, and much more. Twice a week I will post a new memoir project. Imagine how quickly your memoir will grow, a bit at a time.

I invite you to join me in this multimedia memoir project. After all . . . if you don’t write your life story, who will?

Next: Part 2, Search Engine as Muse

You Are the Light

Copper Light

Copper Light © 2014 Bo Mackison

“Whatever you are physically…male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy–all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. All those other things, they are the glass that contains the lamp, but you are the light inside.” ~ Cassandra Clare

On a visit to  White Sands National Monument in southern New Mexico, I photographed a lot of white sand landscapes. I also photographed the architectural details in the Visitor Center complex, a set of adobe buildings built in the 1930s.

I was fascinated by the adobe windows and  the copper lighting fixtures. And I was doubly thrilled to photograph the window and the light with several glass snowflakes sparkling in the shadow and the light.

Loved the light — the light from the window combined with the light from the vintage copper fixture. It was a happy moment, the snowflakes, the glitter, the delicate shadows.

6th Annual Photo Alphabet – The Finale – Universe to Zip A Dee Doo Dah

U is for the Universe.

Kitt Peak

See the Universe @ 2013 Bo Mackison

No place better to view the distant Universe than an observatory on the peak of a dark mountain.

We arrived at the Kitt Peak National Observatories in southern Arizona in mid afternoon, and stood amidst the dozens of observatories, home to a variety of telescopes. Scientists from all over the globe come here to study the Universe and beyond. My daughter, who was visiting from Wisconsin, and I were eager to participate in the Night Observing Program.

Huddled together in the dark confines of a small observatory, our group of fifteen took turns peering into a powerful telescope. We viewed Jupiter and her moons, double stars, the rings of Saturn. It was a thrilling experience, especially the realization that we could see the rings of Saturn with our eyes, using only optical instruments.

It was an amazing visual connection.

It was a cold night on top of the 10,000+ foot peak in February. We didn’t linger outside, rather we settled in a warm classroom and listened to a short program by a visiting astronomer. I still haven’t forgotten his closing words. After describing the evolution of the solar system and showing us stunning photographs of the heavens, he simply said:

“You are all stardust. You are all bits of star light.”

~~~~~

V is for Vines.

Rusty Red

The View @ 2008 Bo Mackison

This photograph of a rusty barn, covered with bare climbing vines, was one of my early favorites.

It was also my first published photograph, printed in an award-winning magazine, Wisconsin People and Ideas. It was my first inkling that others found my photographs interesting.

The composition and subject were simple – an open window, the view partially obscured by a tangle of vines, a tin roof with rusty patina, a hint of shingles and red paint, a lightning rod to ward off danger, the bare winter branches.

A study of lines and mood, a feel of wabi-sabi. A hint of things to come, the hallmark of many of my later photographs.

It remains one of my favorites, still.

~~~~~

W is for Words and Wisdom Cards.

IMG_4512-Edit

Words © 2013 Bo Mackison

In March of this year, I created my first Desert Wisdom Card.

The card’s theme was PLAY and I included a photo of a bunch of pottery jackrabbits playing musical instruments. Every time I looked this photograph, I smiled, it was that kind of photo. I wanted to share that feeling, so I posted the photo and musings about play on my blog.

By the end of June, my first Desert Wisdom Card Set, 24 cards in all, was complete.

During the summer, I experimented with many ways to create an art edition of the Desert Cards. At a friend’s invitation, I attended a book structures workshop taught by Jackie Hefty at her Whispering Woodlands Studio, just west of Madison. I was enchanted by Jackie’s hand-crafted books, many composed with letterpress printing.

When we toured her studio, I discovered her letterpress printer — it was love at first sight!

IMG_4517-Edit

Imagination – Perseverance ©2013 Bo Mackison

When I told Jackie I wanted to print my wisdom cards, she offered to mentor me in the ways of the letterpress. I learned to set type on a composing stick, tie type, set type on the letterpress bed, and clean and work a letterpress. I printed the first set of cards, one page at a time. It was a  Zen experience. Simple yet precise, rhythmic, slow art.

I took photos to document the process, and photographed two lines of type which I had tied together. (When I set the words on the press, I separated the words and printed two words on a single sheet of paper.

Unintentionally, I had bundled the words “imagination” and “perseverance” together.

I loved the serendipity of that combination, reflecting on the journey of the Wisdom Cards — from a vision in my imagination to their physical creation, a path which required a lot of perseverance along the way.

Since publication, I’ve been honored to send 20 of the 26 sets of the hand created cards to new owners.

Recently, I printed a second series of Desert Cards.

This set of 16 cards, all new words, new photographs, can be used as companion cards to the original set, or as a set on their own. They will be available in early 2014.

The Wisdom Cards set me in motion a new path.

Inspired by the desert and her wisdom, I am currently planning new ways of combining those passions with my love of photography and wordsmithing. Complete details coming in January. (It’s going to be a very busy time in the desert.)

~~~~~

X is for eXploration.

Creative Cairn

Explore @ 2012 Bo Mackison

“The seeker embarks on a journey to find what he wants and discovers, along the way, what he needs.”
~ Wally Lamb

It was all about my constant yearning to explore.

My desire to walk the crooked path, inch along the mountain ledge, cross the desert arroyo, discover the hidden in the foggy forest, has led me to many places of discovery. Places that I fall in love with, places that continue to teach me valuable lessons, places that open my mind, my heart, my spirit.

~~~

Y is for Yucca.

Yucca

Yucca Shadow @ 2013 Bo Mackison

“It is … through the world of the imagination which takes us beyond the restrictions of provable fact, that we touch the hem of truth.”
~ Madeleine L’Engle

Yucca is my reminder.

There are sharp points along the way. There are shadows mingled with sunlight. There is beauty in the common. There is life in the desert.

~~~

Z is for Zip A Dee Doo Dah.

Canopy Hike - Swinging

Zip Line @ 2011 Bo Mackison

There are times to honor with celebration – celebrate with a song and a leap and a zip a dee doo dah!

Celebrate changes. Celebrate who I am today.

How have I changed from the person I was a year ago?

Am I more courageous? Am I open to new and exciting opportunities?  Yes, I am.

Did I learn how to gently grow my business while keeping it within my comfort zone, within my do-ablility?  Yes, I did.

Am I capable, am I strong? Yes. Yes, I am.

Not perfectly. Not without many falters and missteps. But I am calling progress what it is — PROGRESS. I am owning not only my failures, but also my successes.

It is s a time for celebration. As the time approaches to say farewell to 2013, I choose to leap upon the zip line, with a cheer for the new year,

“Zip a Dee Doo Dah!”

~~~

Thus ends my annual photo alphabet for 2013.

Thank you.

I am ever so grateful to have the privilege and gift of time to reflect over the past year, and bring these photographs and words together in an end of the year tribute. Grateful for you, my readers. Grateful for the coming of the New Year.

Farewell, 2013. Welcome, 2014.

May the coming year be one of much wisdom, delight, and blessings for all.


Happy New Year! 

~ Bo

6th Annual Photo Alphabet – Quilt to Trees

Q is for Quilt.

Crazy Quilt ©2013 Bo Mackison

Crazy Quilt ©2013 Bo Mackison

This quilt was sewn my great-grandmother and her sister in the 1890s.

There is a good deal of feminine ancestral energy in this quilt. Unlike many crazy quilts of this age, this quilt was sewn using scraps of velvets, satins, and other more decorative fabrics.

Two of the older sisters in the family, and their husbands, owned the millinery shop in town. The four younger sisters had access to all kinds of fabrics, not just the more common muslin and woolen cloth.

This quilt is decorated with embroidered flowers, animals, mini landscapes of hillsides, trees, and lakes. Some of the pieces are painted — more flowers, ferns, intricate baskets, rabbits, storks.

This is my inspiration quilt, a quilt that encourages creativity.

In a time when farm families were large, and all of the family members put in long hours of work, my great-grandmother and her sisters spent their free evening time sewing quilts. They sewed not only the practical, utilitarian quilts, but each also worked on their crazy quilts, their art quilts.

~~~

R is for Red Tail Hawks.

Soaring

Soaring © 2013 Bo Mackison

The red-tailed hawk is a messenger bird, the catalyst, stimulating hope and new ideas. It reflects a need to be open to the new or shows you ways that you may help teach others to be open to the new. It teaches the balance necessary to discover your true purpose of life.
~ Ted Andrews in Animal Speak

I first noticed the constant presence of red-tailed hawks last spring, sipping my mid-morning coffee while standing at the edge of my back arroyo.

A soaring hawk would circle, round and round, over the arroyo, and I would admire it as it swooped, caught the thermals, glided, swooped again. Later that same week, I set up a temporary writing space at a picnic table in the Tucson Mountains, overlooking Brown Mountain, a mountain side of saguaro cacti. Again, a single red-tailed hawk did its swoop, glide, swoop as I write, and watched, in the desert.

Over the next months, I saw these hawks constantly. They are a common bird, the most common of hawks, and I enjoyed watching them in their aerial performances or as they perched on a pole or in a tree.

It was not until I began my 2,000 mile drive across the country, though, that I began noticing the hawks in more atypical circumstances.

My first day of travel, when I had not yet developed my traveling routine, a noticed the shadow of a large bird on the highway surface.

It hovered a few car lengths in front of me. The bird followed the road quite a distance, then flew off. I caught a glimpse of a red-tailed hawk from my window. Several hours later another hawk appeared, flew in a low circle near the road ahead of me, then disappeared.

Over and over, I would see red tail hawks. I felt as if hawk energy was accompanying me on my northeast journey. I saw red tails in the Badlands. I saw them along the interstate through South Dakota and Iowa. As I crossed a bridge over the Mississippi River, finally heading into Wisconsin, a red tail hawk dove in a head down swoop from the edge of a limestone bluff, then skimmed the river.

After crossing half the country in the company of red tails, I researched hawks in Ted Andrews book, Animal Speak, The Spiritual and Magical Powers of Creatures Great and Small.

The entry for the red-tailed hawk totem spoke of energy and vision.

It spoke of the need to seek beauty and harmony. It spoke of the need for balance and the expression of a fully creative life. It spoke of being open to new experiences.

What an inspiring message as I journey into new territory!

~~~

S is for Seeded Earth.

Seeded Earth

Seeded Earth © 2009 Bo Mackison

Seeded Earth.

The little blog that started everything. A little blog of photographs, with much of its focus on photographs and descriptions of living things that grow from the earth. I have added to the blog as the years have passed, built a small business on the foundation of the contents of the blog, yet one of my main focuses continues to be on nature and her many gifts.

~~~

T is for Trees.

Redwood Abstract

Redwood Abstract © 2013 Bo Mackison

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” ~ Pablo Picasso

Trees.

Compelled to stop, I am unable to walk past this tree without pausing, walking through the brambles and understory until I stand next to this giant. Rest my hand on its bark. That’s all. Just rest my hand upon it, and connect my pulse with its pulse. Sap beat. Heart beat.

I think. I wait. I breathe. I peer into the uppermost branches.

My feet are grounded on the earth, the tree is grounded in the earth. I run my finger through along the ridges and the valleys of the wood. I discern messages in its trunk lines. I listen the woodpecker’s drumming. I stand in tree shadow, and the breeze swirls.

I am filled. I walk on.

~~~

Prior post, Part IV: Metaphors to Place.

Next post, the Finale: Universe to Zip a Dee Doo Dah.

6th Annual Photo Alphabet – Metaphors to Place

M is for Metaphors.

Looking at the Past

Mission Past © 2013 Bo Mackison

Much is happening in the coming year. For the past year, I’ve been defining myself and my work, considering who my “perfect people” are – those who most connect with my work – and what I might offer of value.

And so I offer my first online workshop.

Rearview Mirror

Rearview Mirror © 2013 Bo Mackison

Photography and Metaphor: A Springboard into Self-Expression and Exploration will take place in February 2014.

We will focus on making photographs to use as metaphors. Then we’ll use our “photo metaphors” as creative springboards into contemplative writing and other expressive arts projects.

Details and registration information will be announced in early January.

~~~

N is for National Parks.

Grand Canyon 7:26 PM

Grand Canyon 7:26 PM © 2012 Bo Mackison

I have a deep and lengthy love affair with the National Parks and Monuments.

I visited many National Parks on family vacations in the 1960s. Sherpa and I spent our honeymoon at a national park. When our children were of a long distance traveling age, we assembled our family of five and took three-week long, cross-country trips, exploring and camping at National Parks and Monuments whenever we could. Sherpa and I still travel to National Park destinations. And when I travel alone, once again, I map my travels so I can visit the National Parks.

At the end of each year, I note the parks I’ve visited in the past 12 months. They are easy to recall, because I record each visit in a National Park Passport. Whenever I visit a park, I stamp my book. It’s a ritual I’ve been doing since 1997, and I’m currently stamping my third passport book.

Parks I visited in 2013.

On day trips or weekend camping trips in Arizona:

Saguaro NP, Organ Pipe Cactus NM, Chiricahua NM, Coronado NM, and Tumacacori NHP.

While traveling on my Circle Tour of Arizona in April, long distance practice for my solo cross-country trip:

Casa Grande Ruins NM, Montezuma Castle NM, Tonto NM, and Tuzigoot NM.

While on my cross-country trek from the Southwest to the Midwest:

Petrified Forest NP, Mesa Verde NP, Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP, Scotts Bluff NM, Agate Fossil Beds NM, Mount Rushmore NM, Wind Cave NP, Jewel Cave NM, Badlands NP.  No wonder it took me so long to get home, zigzagging to visit out-of-the-way parks!

When traveling with family:

Lassen Volcanic NP, Redwoods NP (California)

Twenty in all. Wow!

~~~

O is for Oceans.

Inlet

Olympia © 2013 Bo Mackison

Some of my most memorable times of this year I spent standing on ocean shores, mesmerized with the infinite waves. I never tired of studying the constant, yet ever-changing waves.

Staring out into the ocean triggers my imagination.

There is nothing but the relentless pounding surf, and yet an entire world exists in its depths. Even though my feet are solidly upon the sandy or rocky shore, I feel a resonance with the deep beyond, a connection I can only imagine.

Relentless. Changing. Hidden depth. And a connection, strong and intangible.

 ~~~

P is for Place.

Light Puzzle

Light Puzzle © 2013 Bo Mackison

I am intensely devoted to place.

Place is the setting I settle into, deeply, with reverence, with attention. A place of nature, history, culture. Urban, rural, wilderness. A visit in solitude, with a friend, or be one in a crowd of people.

I see the sacred in all places.

There are rare times when I want only to be one with the place, experience it with only with my senses, unencumbered by camera or journal. But I feel most in synch with place when, after I have absorbed the space in quiet, I then reinforce my memory with my photography or journal practice.

 

Territorial Architecture in Tubac

Place © 2013 Bo Mackison

One of my joys, when I contemplate a place, is to take a set of deliberate photographs.

This may seem at odds with taking inspired, intuitive, capture-the-moment shots. I don’t believe so. I take those kinds of instinctive photographs also. My deliberate photographs of place purposely expose a larger view of place, capturing it in different moods.

To collect a set of place photos, I take photographs that may include: a panoramic view, a landscape, perhaps a portrait or an intimate landscape (a photo of a subject in the context of the landscape), and a close up photo.

Place photos can capture moods — such as the first photo of layers of leaves captured in sunlight. They can capture the feel of a place in its architecture and surrounding details.

When I combine photographs with a few words, I create a photo-journal of place – a contemplative portrait documented in my art.

~~~

Prior post: Invitation to Labyrinth

Next post: Quilt to Trees