Her Stories Writing Workshop – Week One

Week One completed, just under the wire! Her Stories Writing Workshop

Exhale.

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” – Stephen King

I had a specific story in mind when signing up for this workshop. AND THEN WOOSH – deflated when I read the following…

“Personal essays are short pieces. Sometimes very short, often between 750 and 1500 words.”

Yikes. Um, U-Turn.

Double Yikes? We had to choose a personal essay out of a small list which will serve as our mentor piece for the workshop. As I read the selections I thought “I’m WAY IN OVER MY HEAD WHAT AM I DOING?” Oy. I’m a silly little blog writer, not a writer, writer who writes.

The essay I selected – “Breasts: The Odd Couple” by Una LaMarche, I was drawn to her unique story and her voice – and anyone who invokes Danny DeVito in their writing is someone I want to spend more time knowing.

WHEN DO YOU WRITE THE BEST?

Oh my, when do I write best? I’m all over the place. I’m decidedly not a morning person – but afternoon or into the wee hours of the morning are more my style. I don’t really have any discipline or routine – AND THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE.

I write “in my head” ALL THE TIME. Which turns into lists and blurbs and blog posts and and and. The time is now to get serious and focused.

Next step was to come up with moments – free write a list of moments from life. I, of course, ended up with 27 because – 27! Surprisingly, narrowing down the selection of moments to 4-5 wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, at least for the purposes of this particular writing workshop.

• Law School – Expectations vs. Reality
• Music Man HS – Music Man SCA
• Dad – Ventilator – ICU
• First Date HWMMS – Hat Trick

Honestly, choosing these four options was easy. Coming up with just one? A little harder.  Until I went through the questions below to help craft each narrative.

• Big emotion?
• Willing to share/be vulnerable?
• Compelled to write?
• Series of images & moments?
• Moment of Change?

At this point there was only one choice that stood out and that was based on the fact that I was 100% no hesitation willing to be vulnerable and share and felt compelled to tell this story at this time. All the other options had a maybe…………not, yetish vibe.

Can you guess which one I chose?

 

Dad – Ventilator – ICU 

• Big emotion – life/death
• Willing to share/be vulnerable? 100% (I think this says it all.)
• Compelled to write? Yes. Especially w/ pandemic – health issues.
• Series of images & moments?
  • Gma Smith – lingering illnesses, drawing pictures ICU, playing with her breathing exercise tool, best friend.
  • Smoked, covered face with sweater.
  • On ventilator – existed for a few days – until she passed. Was babysitting when heard news, didn’t cry. May 1989.
  • Could not legally “pull the plug” had no advance directives
  • Terry Shrivo case – political – news – activist Jenny.
  • Dad – turning down life insurance, sitting at kitchen table with salesman staying he wouldn’t have a physical.
  • Noticing giant lump under his armpit – reading Death Be Not Proud in HS – making correlation of cancer.
  • Waking up finding the EMT/ambulance in living room – dad passed out (or is this the memory of mom estpic pregnancy – need to confirm with Mom/Tim, in my head I’m seeing mom on couch…June 1989.
  • Liver/Hepatitis/Alcoholic but…Cancer – not wanting to go to Roswell, refusing additional treatment – likely knew for a long time he was sick and dying.
  • Smell of hospital bed – smelling that years later when opening a medicated Kleenex box. was not in ICU – was going to Darien Lake with Aunt Lu and stopped by, saw his extremely swollen legs and knew he was going to die, soon. Brother had no idea.
  • Aunt Carroll moving to MD – standing in hallway by stairs saying “I know I will see you soon….”
  • ICU – ventilator – showing him school clothes, telling us to turn the station when Cher was dancing on TV – “If I could Turn Back Time” -(and how timely that damn song really was….) having his trembling hands try to write words to communicate with us – hardly able to write out “I love you.” (Oh god, I’m ready to break into tears.)
  • The tubes, him fighting and pulling them out, not wanting to be connected. The constant machine sound.
  • Night before first day of school – mom telling us he passed away – sitting on the plaid couch – Tim and I each on “our side”  – the TV show My Three Dads playing in the background.
  • Yellow roses at funeral –
  • Never, ever ever wanting to be hooked up to a machine.
  • COVID – breathing – scared – triggered all these memories.
• Moment of Change  – How I want to die, not afraid of dying.

NOW – even crazier – I’m in the middle of writing this out – although it was the 3rd one on my list, writing out the moments was something I wanted to do last, so I’m working through – feeling all the feels – writing about GMA (I’m sitting at the –hospital working and writing currently, it has been silent and not busy – and then I hear over the loudspeaker – right after I wrote —-

• On ventilator – existed for a few days – until she passed. Was babysitting when heard news, didn’t cry. May 1989.

A CALL OVER THE LOUDSPEAKER FROM THE ER GOES OUT FOR RESPIRATORY.

– ARE YOU KIDDING? Also, I’m listening. Also, WOW. 

Holy synchronicity. – Not gonna lie, these moments scare the hell out of me. Powerful. I’m becoming more and more used to them and accepting them but yikes.

I guess I really am supposed to be writing this story at this time. It wasn’t the one I signed up for, but it obviously is the one.