Writing the Life Within
Part Two
By Francine Brevetti
Part Two — Introduction to the How
Generating material and memories
In our last lesson, we discussed why someone might be motivated to write his or her life story or that of a family member. We discussed the importance of leaving a legacy for your descendants.
We also suggested that you might want to
· Make a statement about your life because your worldview and values have been so different from your parents’;
· Review your life to understand how you got to this point in your life;
· Research and do more study about the era that you grew up in or your parents grew up in;
· Heal difficult phases of your past and learn to accept them.
We also explored a technique for prompting and invoking memories and associations tucked away in your brain that you don’t normally recall. One was to review meditatively all the sensory material of a certain incident, time and place.
Now here’s another way to evoke material that will help in ways you cannot foresee.
Mind Mapping
Mind mapping will help you revive your memories and associations, rather like planting mushrooms and watching them grow. A mind map is a diagram used to create more information by encouraging associations from your memory or imagination.
It will help you organize all your material and research as well.
https://www.mindmapart.com/health-mind-map-jane-genovese/
Don’t let this ornate example intimidate you. I use a pencil for my chicken-scratching, but I reap enormous benefit, nonetheless.
Go online and search “mind map diagrams” you will see the enormous variety people have created. Here’s one: https://www.mindmapping.com. Avoid the many sites that offer mind mapping software for corporate planning.
A mind map is created by writing a single word or term in the center of a blank piece of paper. This is the theme or topic you want to elaborate on. Draw a circle around this word or idea and then draw branches from the center noting any associations, ideas, words, and concepts that you are reminded of.
Each branch may sprout new ideas, just as the branches above labeled “exercise, diet, stress and sleep” have generated new ideas/memories/associations, new avenues for content.
You are probably now wondering, “But I want to learn how to write and you are teaching me how to structure my document before I’ve written it.”
That’s right. Mind mapping will help you do both — it will help you bring forth the associations you need to write a meaningful memoir and it will intuitively lead to a structure that works for your project.
You might look up the man who refined the concept and the practice of mind mapping, Tony Buzan, https://www.tonybuzan.com.
Another source comes from the book Writing the Natural Way by Dr. Gabriele Lusser Rico. Instead of using the term mind mapping, she called it clustering.
(Note, if you search for the term clustering you may come up with some hits to mathematical sites which are not relevant to us.)
I’m going to cite a selection from her book. Just relax; don’t take notes.
To create a cluster, you begin with a nucleus, a word, circled on a fresh page.
Now you simply let go and begin to flow with any current of connections that come into your head. Write these down rapidly, each in its own circle, radiating outward from the center in any direction they want to go. Connect each new word or phrase with a line to the preceding circle. When something new and different strikes you, begin again at the central nucleus and radiate outward until those associations are exhausted.
As you cluster you may experience a sense of randomness or, if you are somewhat skeptical, an uneasy sense that it isn’t leading anywhere. That is your logical sign mind (her term for the left brain) wanting to get into the act to let you know how foolish you are being by not setting thoughts down in logical sequences. Trust this process, though. We all cluster mentally throughout our lives without knowing it; we simply never made these clusters visible on paper.
Since you’re not responsible for any particular order of ideas or any special information, your initial anxiety will soon disappear, and in its place will be a certain playfulness. Continue to cluster, drawing lines and even arrows to associations that seem to go together, but don’t dwell on what goes where. Let each association find its own place. If you momentarily run out of associations, doodle a bit by filling in arrows or making lines darker. This relaxed receptivity to ideas usually generates another spurt of associations until at some point you experience a sudden sense of what you are going to write about. At that point, simply stop clustering and begin writing. It’s as easy as that.
I suggest you spend time practicing this technique until you enjoy it. Enjoy it. Eventually, you will use this automatically when you are planning.
Your mind maps can propagate ideas for your whole book, a chapter, or just a certain section of the chapter.
People ask me how to transition from the mind map/cluster to writing sentences and paragraphs.
When you have mapped out your concepts this way, you feel a certain contented CLUNK in your gut/brain or heart. This is a sign that you have downloaded your thoughts to your brain’s and heart’s satisfaction.
Then you can stand back and decide in what order to write the elements you have indicated in the mind map; that is when you can write an outline and set what topic comes first? Which is a subsection of that topic?
Now, of course, you don’t HAVE TO mind map or cluster to generate your material.
This exercise is merely meant to put you in a relaxed and playful mood, the mood you would best be in any way to write. Have fun.
If you are still wondering, how to start, create a string of words and let that line pull you along. More on this anon.
What Is the Best Support You Need for Writing?
Consider the best circumstances and environment you need to write with ease and confidence.
What time of day is it? Where is the best place where you will not be disturbed?
Not that silence is strictly necessary. You may work best with music in the background. A friend did her writing in hotel lobbies and she loved the clack-clack of people walking by. That would drive me bonkers.
Can you make it a ritual to do at the same time every day?
And most of all, do you need support? Do you need a buddy, an accountability partner?
I suggest someone with whom you make an agreement to connect regularly, once a week, for instance, to report what you have produced in the previous week and what your goals are for the coming week.
It’s most helpful if you find someone who needs your support in a similar way.
But no scolding or shame when you don’t reach last week’s goals. Like a GPS system, just recalibrate for next week.
For a note of levity, let me remind you that the famous movie impresario of the last century Samuel Goldwyn said, “I don’t think anyone should write their autobiography until after they’re dead.”
It sounds silly, but he does make a point, doesn’t he?
At what point are you finished with your memoir or that of your mother or family history? The answer to that is, anywhere you want.
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs,” Stephen King
