Welcome to my guest blog fest

For the next three and a half weeks I’m going to turn Choices over to the voices of other wonderful and experienced writers. I’ve asked twelve people whom I’ve either met personally or online to tell you about their lives, their writing, and their marketing experiences.

I feel so fortunate that they have agreed to be my guests and participate in this blog fest. I hope you will keep coming back to read more and more as the days go by. You’ll find the information interesting and very helpful.

Here’s my guest blog fest lineup in order of appearance:

August 24: Susan Weidener

An author, editor and former journalist with The Philadelphia Inquirer, Susan leads writing workshops and started the Women's Writing Circle, www.susanweidener.com a support and critique group for writers in suburban Philadelphia. 

August 26: Deborah Kalan

Deborah has been writing about real life since she was in the fifth grade and received a diary with lock and key for her 10th birthday. Even at that young age she found that people in ordinary situations made for intriguing writing. 

Deborah also writes poetry and fiction and finds the short short story to be one of her favorite genres.

August 28: Victoria Noe

Victoria has been a writer most of her life, but didn’t admit it until 2009. Besides her Friend Grief series, her freelance articles have appeared in Chicago Tribune and Windy City Times. She also reviews books on BroadwayWorld.com.

August 30: Ace Antonio Hall

Ace’s true labor of love is writing Zombie horror and character-driven plots featuring female protagonists. He continues to write short stories and build on the world of Sylva Slasher. Plus he loves women with gray hair.

September 3: Meryl Hartstein

Meryl is a published author, strategic life and relationship coach, celebrity confidence expert, guest speaker, and founder of “Bounce Back Women” a non-for profit organization. Her anthology in development is Bounce Back Women, comprised of stories from celebrities, Olympians and other powerful women about how they overcame adversity.

September 5: Chanel Brenner

Chanel is a writer living in Los Angeles with her husband and their five-year-old son. She is the winner of the First Annual Write Place At the Write Time poetry contest, judged by Ellen Bass, for her poem, “July 28^th, 2012.” I met Chanel at a poetry workshop in May led by Richard Jones.

September 7: Eleanor Vincent

Eleanor’s memoir, Swimming with Maya: A Mother’s Story, traces the life and death of her 19-year-old daughter and the subsequent donation of Maya’s organs and tissues. Published by Dream of Things, Swimming with Maya portrays a mother’s struggle to recover after a devastating loss and shows how the bonds between donors and recipients can have a positive impact on grief recovery.

September 9: Jerry Waxler Part 1 and September 15: Jerry Waxler Part 2

Jerry traces the emergence of the Memoir Revolution through his own journey from rebellion and chaos in the 60s; from mysticism to computers in the 70s; and from receiving talk therapy to providing it in the 80s and 90s.

September 11: Sherrey Meyer

Sherrey had always dreamed of writing something other than pleadings and legal documents, anything else!  Once she retired she couldn’t stay away from the computer, and so she began to write. We hope to read her memoir very soon.

September 13: Linda Joy Myers

Linda Joy, president of the National Association of Memoir Writers, began NAMW to support other memoir writers in their quest to find their story, to find healing and hope through story. Her memoir, Don't Call Me Mother, is a must read.

September 17: Karen Levy

Born in Israel, Karen spent most of her childhood traveling between her native land and the United States. Commuting between these two countries and having a keen eye for detail have afforded Karen the knowledge necessary to recount the immigrant experience in a very candid style.

September 19: Kathy Pooler

Kathy is a writer and a retired Family Nurse Practitioner who is working on a memoir about how the power of hope through her faith in God has helped her to transform, heal and transcend life’s obstacles and disappointments: divorce, single parenting, loving and letting go of an alcoholic son, cancer and heart failure to live a life of joy and contentment.

Thank you all for being here. I'm blown away by all that I've read.

Please welcome Sherrey Meyer

I am thrilled to have Sherrey Meyer here as my guest today. She echoes my thoughts about the benefits of writing to heal, and provides Dr. Pennebaker's proof that it is so. Yes, for me writing is a way to put my pain on the page. It is a soothing balm. What do you think?

Benefits of Writing Your Story by Sherrey Meyer

In 2001, when my mother died, the story of our lives together had traversed many years and battled many storms.  Yet at the end, something unusual and unexpected happened.  I tucked that memory away knowing it was possibly the core for a memoir.  When I retired in 2006, I remembered how often I had said, “When I have time, I want to write a book.”

Little did I know when I began accumulating my memories on the computer and sorting through family photos the benefit writing this story would give.  Never had it occurred to me that writing could be a restorative, healing process.

With each word typed, I felt changes taking place.  The invisible scars created by years of verbal and emotional abuse seemed to loosen.  Old hurts seemed to soften despite the painful process of remembering.

I am not here to tell you that writing memoir is easy.  It isn’t.  Writing your own story may dredge up painful memories.  Alternatively, writing your story will likely be cathartic.

Stop and think about the pain felt due to a bad burn.  The immediate remedies may not bring much comfort, but soon each application of salve is more soothing.  Writing out painful memories can be like a balm to your soul.

Writing soothes and heals by extracting those memories from your inner being and on the computer or paper.  No longer do those bad memories live in you.  You have moved them to another place and time outside yourself.  Again, this doesn’t mean the pain will stop completely or quickly.  I still have moments when something reminds me of a painful incident.  Now, however, I go and jot it down somewhere.

For me, I also found a letter writing exercise to be immensely helpful.  As part of my memoir, I have written letters to my mother.  In cases of abuse of any type involving a child, the child has no voice.  To express oneself in these circumstances to the adult inflicting the abuse generally only begs further abuses.  In my life, it was verbal and emotional abuse on the part of my mother and speaking to it only made her angrier at my attempt to stop her abuse.

Writing letters has given my inner child and the child abused a voice.  The letters have allowed me to express feelings I suppressed along the way during my childhood, youth, young adult and even middle years before my mother died.  For an example of these letters, you can find them here.

Now, I am not an expert on this topic.  When I came to the realization that writing was truly helping to heal painful memories and hurts, I began reading about the subject.  I discovered James W. Pennebaker who is an expert on this topic.

Dr. Pennebaker, a professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin and author of several books, including Opening Up and Writing to Heal, is a pioneer in the study of using expressive writing as a route to healing. 

Dr. Pennebaker’s research has shown that short periods of writing benefit those facing terminal illness, victims of violent crimes, and even the first-year college student transitioning into a new life style.  Following are some of Dr. Pennebaker’s exercises and a quote:

Using Dr. Pennebaker’s books, exercises and research results can help the writer struggling with difficult and/or painful memories to work through those to some level of healing.

Personally, I have found Dr. Pennebaker’s methods extremely useful and highly recommend reading more about his work here and here. 

The more I write my story the stronger the benefit becomes.  My memories become less painful, the hurts less real than before.  I cannot say that I will ever forget completely the difficulties of my early life, but I do know that I am more equipped to deal with any recurring memories for having gone through the exercise of writing.

Perhaps you are toying with the idea of writing but aren’t sure about such an attempt.  Consider practicing journaling first.  What better place to right your innermost thoughts and feelings than in a journal.  Then, if you do decide you want to write that book, your journal provides the perfect resource for your writing.

Another consideration is enrolling in a writing class or workshop where you can write your feelings as part of assignments or exercises.  Many community colleges and community centers offer writing classes at no charge or for minimal fees.  Anything to start writing to see if it is the mechanism by which you can begin to heal from your hurt and pain.

Not everything I’ve mentioned works for everybody.  You have to find your niche.  That being said, however, I do highly recommend visiting the sites above for more information on Dr. Pennebaker’s research and his writings.

In addition to Dr. Pennebaker’s books, here is a short list of other books available on writing to heal:

• Writing as a Way of Healing by Louise DeSalvo
• Writing to Heal the Soul by Susan Zimmerman
• Memoir Revolution by Jerry Waxler
• The Power of Memoir by Linda Joy Myers
• Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg and Judith Guest

Here’s your takeaway for today.  Some benefits of writing your story may be:

• Improved health, emotionally and/or physically.
• Improved immune system.
• Improved working memory.
• Improved social connections.
• Ability to check your situation.
• Manageability of situation improves.

All these benefits are available to you in exchange for the written word.

Sherrey, thank you so much for these wise words and wonderful resources. And I so look forward to reading your memoir soon. In the meantime, please read her blogs: Healing by Writing and Found Between the Covers. Sherrey is very prolific and generous with her writing advice and book review.

Sherrey's Bio

A retired legal secretary, Sherrey Meyer grew tired of drafting and revising pleadings and legal documents.  She had always dreamed of writing something else, anything else!  Once she retired she couldn’t stay away from the computer, and so she began to write. Among her projects is a memoir of her “life with mama,” an intriguing Southern tale of matriarchal power and control displayed in verbal and emotional abuse.  Sherrey is married and lives with husband Bob in Milwaukie, OR. 

You can reach Sherrey on her websites:  Healing by Writing and Found Between the Covers or via email at salice78@comcast.net