Thoughts from the Compost

Sharing History: Learn How to Use Your Own Past

Kim — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:25:43 +0000

You can take a gallop back in time, to the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and discover how you participated in and contributed to the events and trends of those times. Yes, if you were 7 or 77, what you did, thought, felt, and witnessed mattered – to history! Anchor your memoir in time with historical context, adding depth and color to help your future readers understand “where you’re coming from.”

In my book Making History I’ve divided history up into categories that make it easy to explore. The categories are:

Economics & Politics (money and power colors everything)
The Social Fabric (race, gender, morality – so much has changed)
International Scene (we’re all in this together)
Technology & Science (remember BEFORE the internet?)
Crimes & Disasters (bad stuff can make good stories) Arts & Entertainment (what do you sing in the shower?)
Lifestyles (Food, Fashion, Sports & Games, etc.)
The Weird and Trivial (language changes, Scandals, Pets & Animals, the Paranormal, etc)

If you don’t want to read the whole book (which has a lot of good stuff in it, like stories and a simple and fun 5-step system for writing memoirs, plus other goodies), you can buy e-book downloads here with extensive detailed timelines (from 1930 thru 1989) in each category, plus lists of penetrating questions and suggested topics to get you thinking and remembering. Click here to get e-book downloads.

Explore the many, many stories of our fascinating pasts – and how we ALL make up history.

Compost: Goody Beagle on the Couch

Kim — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:21:34 +0000

Goody Beagle here. I love my couch. It’s my bestest place. My human thinks it’s hers, but it isn’t. It’s mine. And I love it.

So what if beagle hair gets in the creases? It’s not my fault I have hair. If she wanted a couch without hair, she should have bought a leather couch. But I’m glad she didn’t.

Now cat hair, that’s a different story.

Haiku Friday: Evil

Kim — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:19:50 +0000

Here’s my haiku for today, on the topic of Evil:

it really matters
if Potter bests Voldemort
evil must not win

It’s Haiku Friday again. For the past twenty years or so, it has been my practice to write one haiku every day. Every Friday I share a haiku here, about whatever topic I happen to choose. I invite you to write a haiku on this topic too, and share it with me and the readers of this blog. Just write it in the Comments below. The only rules are: 1) your haiku must be about the named topic; 2) you must follow the 5-7-5 syllable format; 3) no obscenities or hate (I will delete those). That’s it.

At the end of each month I’ll gather up the haikus in the “Haiku Comments” that meet the criteria and pick one at random in a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing one of my e-books: your choice of Haiku for the Seasons I, or Haiku for the Seasons II.

Writing: I am Not Mozart

Kim — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:21:24 +0000

The rumor about Mozart is that he could simply sit down and write perfect music without ever having to amend, change, fix, tweak, or rewrite. Music so beautiful it sounded like the angels wrote it flowed out of his leaky fountain pen, his fingers propelled by God.

I don’t know if I really believe these rumors about Mozart. I would bet a lot of money that he rewrote and edited, just like everyone else. But even if it is true of Mozart – I am not Mozart. Nor is anyone else I know. As I write, I know that I will think of ways to make my writing more compelling, that I’ll go back and streamline, chop, highlight, fix sloppy or inexact wording, you name it. I will have to edit.

When I write for myself, I don’t let anyone else read my “stuff” until I’ve done some self-editing. But one of the challenges of ghostwriting is that I have to share interim rough drafts with my clients, so they know how things are progressing. And because my clients are not professional writers, they often have a totally unrealistic idea of what a professional writer does.

People who aren’t professional writers may think that professional writers are Mozarts. They think we can make magic words zip right off our fingers, without having to revise, edit, revise, edit, revise . . .

But actually this is the exact opposite of what does happen. Professional writers know that the first (or the second or third) version will not be the final one. The revisions and edits are what makes them a professional.

Just a reminder, in case one of my clients is reading this . . . I am not Mozart.

Compost: A Dead Ghost Comes Alive

Kim — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:15:27 +0000

I was delighted when a British Twitter friend of mine sent me the link below, to a story in the UK Guardian. There is a new film out, starring Gerard Depardieu, about – guess! – a ghostwriter! Did you know there’s a theory that Alexandre Dumas, the author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, used a ghostwriter named Auguste Maquet to write his famous stories for him? I did not know this, and I don’t know if it’s true, either. Some scholars claim Maquet was simply a researcher, nothing more. But a ghostwriter getting some fame at last, even 150 years later – as a ghostwriter myself, this makes me sneakily happy.

When I was in high school, I discovered The Count of Monte Cristo and fell in love with Edmond Dantes, the hero of the story. I’m still very fond of him. As for the three musketeers, they were a bit macho for my taste, but they had some exciting adventures that made the blood race.

I don’t really care if Dumas or his ghost wrote those books. Both of them are dead now, but the stories he (or they) wrote are still alive. And that’s the important thing, isn’t it?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/09/maquet-dumas-ghostwriter-feud

Haiku Friday: Early Spring

Kim — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:17:43 +0000

Here’s my haiku for today, on the topic of Early Spring:

daffodils giggle
forsythia laughs out loud
pussy willows pop

Sharing History: Women in Space

Kim — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:13:08 +0000

My teleclass, “Playing Your Part on the World Stage”, which is based on my book “Making History: how to remember, record, interpret and share the events of your life,” explores how each of us contributes to “big” history. (By the way, I’ll be teaching this 6-week teleclass series again this spring, starting March 18th, through www.namw.org.) I love teaching this class because I hear such great stories, and they spark memories of my own. Here is a story about the space program from the 1950s to the 1980s:

The Space program continued into the seventies and eighties, with significant achievements such as the first space station Skylab, stunning photos of possible life on Mars and the rings of Saturn, and many more, ensuring that humans would continue looking into the skies. Sally Ride became the first American woman astronaut and a heroine to many American girls and women.

One of my students, “Victoria,” had dreamed of being an astronaut in the mid-1950s, when she was a teenager. But girls didn’t become astronauts then, and Victoria became a teacher instead. She forgot her adolescent fantasy until one evening in 1983 as she was watching a TV program about Sally Ride with her granddaughter. “I want to go to Space, Grandma,” said her granddaughter, giving Victoria a bittersweet thrill as she realized that what had been impossible for her had become possible for her granddaughter.

If you’d care to share a story about this topic, please leave a comment here. At the end of each month I’ll gather up the Sharing History comments and pick one at random from a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing my e-book: your choice of a Making History Workbook.

Compost: Goody Beagle on Letting Go

Kim — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:12:39 +0000

Bella Puggle had puppies not too long ago. Her nipples drag on the ground. But the puppies are gone now, out on their own somewhere. Contrary to what humans imagine, Bella is not sad about this. She is not even the tiniest bit upset. She is, in fact, thrilled. She has her freedom back. It’s not like she wasn’t a good mom – she says she was, and I believe her. But her attitude now is “been there, done that, time to move on.” Humans don’t seem to understand that there is a time to let go.

There’s my bit of wisdom for the day.

Love, Goody Beagle

Haiku Friday: Wisdom

Kim — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:22:29 +0000

Here’s my haiku for today, on the topic of Wisdom:

sometimes it is wise
not to see how far it is
across great waters

Writing: Eliciting Details

Kim — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:17:23 +0000

Another excerpt from my new program Living as a Ghost.

I like doing interviews for books I’m ghostwriting because some people say such surprising things – especially if you tell them to be a blabbermouth and to just say anything that pops into their heads. I tell my clients not to worry about wasting my time. Interviews can go off in unforeseen directions, and some of the most colorful passages in books come from off-the cuff remarks or the spontaneous “oh that reminds me of a story…”

Nevertheless, I can’t just ask general, open-ended questions like “What was that like?” or “Describe your grandmother.” Because most people are not blabbermouths and they sometimes suffer from brain freeze. Then I will usually get answers like “It was nice,” or “She was sweet.”

I must ask specific questions designed to elicit details. For instance, if I’m writing a memoir, I don’t ask the question “What were you doing in 1985?” (Could you answer that question?) Let’s say my client is from Florida. I might ask him this question instead – “Do you remember the Florida citrus crop failure in 1985?” Even if he doesn’t remember the citrus crop disaster, he might have something to share about food prices in his lifetime, crop distribution or the grocery-store system in America, or even draw a comparison with what’s happening with food prices today. Or it might bring up marginally related memories, such as Anita Bryant, who was the Florida OJ spokesperson at the time, and her militant anti-gay crusade. In other words I might get other stories.

When you ask specific questions, you will get specific answers. Details are what make a book come alive.