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Sunday Series: S.A. Snyder on Why I Write

In this Sunday Series, you’ll meet writers new and seasoned as they share what inspires them to put #PenToPaper. This week, welcome S.A. Snyder, memoirist and live storyteller who shares how writing is like breathing.

Photo by Pablo Orcaray on Unsplash

You may have heard the expression, “If you have to ask the question, you won’t understand the answer.” In my case, I don’t even understand the question sometimes. Why do I write? For me, it’s not a choice in the same way breathing is not a choice, which is why the question is difficult to answer. Because I have to lacks reason. So after deeper scrutiny, the following is what I came up with.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve written stories in my head. They arrived like boisterous friends, wanting to be seen and heard, unstoppable. I started keeping a journal in third grade, which really took off when Rumble, my pet mouse, died of old age in the palm of my hand. I was inconsolable. Through journaling about my grief, I discovered the remarkable power of transformation. I could now cope with and better understand troubling and perplexing experiences through writing about them.

I come from a long line of control freaks. Being the youngest in a five-pack of siblings, however, didn’t leave me much chance to control while growing up. Elder siblings were always bossing me around. Not only was transformation possible through writing, creating stories also gave me the power to govern the narrative; to make sure the underdog came out on top.

In college I studied forestry and wildlife biology, leading to work as a field biologist. Yet stories kept begging to be written, not just fiction but stories of place and people in it. I returned to school for a master’s in journalism. Marrying my two passions—writing and nature—I wrote about the environment, wildlife, and outdoor recreation. I also wrote a lot of tips-and-tricks material, called “service journalism” back then. Today we call it life hacking.

As I got older, my boisterous friends continued to visit with enthusiasm, turning their faces toward knowledge-sharing, showing up as lessons learned, wisdom gained. Now I blog about self-care and retreats. My memoir took twenty years to finish and publish, though, because I kept telling myself no one cared about wisdom I learned. Even an agent said, “You’re an outstanding writer, but no one wants to read a spiritual journeying memoir by an unknown. Call me when you have something I can sell.” A year after that harsh rejection, Eat, Pray, Love hit the shelves. Who had ever heard of Elizabeth Gilbert before? I gave up for a while, and then my soul, fueled somewhat by resentment, pushed me to write through multiple drafts of my memoir. Doing so gave me the courage to express deeply personal things, which I’ve always had difficulty talking about let alone putting on paper. Writing my story also taught me to ignore others’ judgments about whether I have an audience. I’m confident my stories will find the people who need them.

I used to compare myself a lot with others, but not so much now that I’m closer to sixty than fifty. Writing is one aspect I still play the comparison game with. Am I as good as her?Will my books ever sell as much as his? When I’m blocked or feeling low in self-confidence, or when it becomes hard—because writing is so damn hard sometimes—I wonder whether I should give it up and be satisfied with my day job. No. It would be useless to try quitting writing, because if you hold your breath long enough, you just pass out then you automatically start breathing again.

A couple of years ago I got hooked on live personal-experience storytelling. It helps me hone my writing craft and provides instant feedback. When I hear the audience gasp or laugh, see them tear up, I know I’m hitting my mark. Now others breathe my stories, too.

S.A. SNYDER has been a professional writer and editor since 1991, including newspaper columnist and reporter, technical writer, writing instructor, communications manager and consultant, blogger, and book author. She lives in Virginia, where she participates in oral storytelling and writes a blog (www.LunaRiverVoices.com) about retreating and self-care, among other random topics. She is the author of three nonfiction books and numerous newspaper and magazine articles. Her latest book, The Value of Your Soul: Rumi Verse for Life’s Annoying Moments, due in September 2020, is a spinoff of her memoir, Plant Trees, Carry Sheep: A Woman’s Spiritual Journey Among the Sufis of Scotland.

Her travel guide, Scenic Driving Montana, showcases her home state and was first published in 1995. The 4th edition will be published in 2021.

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Sunday Series: Kari O’Driscoll on Why I Write

In this Sunday Series, you’ll meet writers new and seasoned as they share what inspires them to put #PenToPaper. This week, welcome Kari O’Driscoll, who sees writing as “a form of alchemy.” 

Photo by Kei Scampa from Pexels

These days, asking me why I write is like asking me why I breathe. It has become such a part of who I am, such a daily practice, that I am often ‘writing’ in my head as I experience the world – walking my dogs, preparing a meal, talking on the phone to a friend. Ultimately, writing is a form of alchemy for me, a way to find or make meaning out of something that is seemingly without any, or that is complicated and tangled and often overwhelming.

One of my odd talents is a skill for unraveling knotted necklaces. My kids both learned, early on, that if they had a chain they wanted to wear that was hopelessly twisted and matted, they could bring it to me and I’d set to work. No matter how little patience I had with anything else going on, there was something about slowly picking at the strands and knots that put me in a zen state.

I don’t know if it was the certain knowledge that there was a solution if I just kept at it, or if the consequences seemed so innocuous if I didn’t manage to undo the mess, but somehow I could settle in to a peaceful, methodical rhythm and restore it to its desired state. That’s what writing does for my head and my heart and my spirit – allows me to come to a place where I know there is meaning if I trust and if I focus and spend time looking at something from all angles, turning it over and over again in my mind but not forcing it, picking at one strand and then another to see what happens, gently loosening one loop from another.

As a kid, I believed life happened to me. The combination of traumatic events, authoritarian parents, and being a certain age meant that I felt as though I had no control over the things I experienced, no matter how much I tried to make meaning of them. Talking to adults never seemed to help; either they couldn’t explain things in a way that made sense to my youthful brain or they were impatient with the questions and refused to engage. For decades, I accepted that there were things that I would never be able to make sense of, and I resigned myself to studying the things I could, like math and science, and ducked to avoid the others. But in my late 30s, I began writing as a way to release some of the constant chatter in my brain. If I couldn’t untangle the knots, at least I could get them out of my head and on to paper so I didn’t have to hold them all inside any longer. And that’s when I discovered the magic of transformation.

Our bodies aren’t designed to hold emotion. But when we let our brains grab on to emotional responses – especially the big ones like fear and anger – and wrap stories around them, they become stuck. The more we tell ourselves those stories in our own heads, the bigger the knot gets and the heavier it is to carry. But when I write those things down – even if it’s a jumble of words – scared, sad, overwhelmed, why, angry, painful, broken, willitalwaysbelikethis, whatiswrongwithme, idontknowhowmuchlongericandothis, listening to her cry is breaking my heart, helpless, birds singing outside, the cat came to head-butt me just now – the knots start to come undone. And if I walk after writing or I talk to a friend, they release and relax even more. And if I string together more observations and more messy piles of words and feelings and observations, the patterns begin to reveal themselves and my heart and my head and my spirit find peace. Alchemy. Transforming fear to wonder. Rage to realization. Confusion to harmony.

Writing is the vehicle that takes me there as long as I surrender to it, as long as I trust that I will eventually get to a place of understanding and acceptance, as long as I sit down quietly and begin unraveling the knots.

KARI O’DRISCOLL is a writer and mother of two living in the Pacific NW. She is the author of One Teenager at a Time: Developing Self-Awareness and Critical Thinking in Adolescence, and the recently released memoir, Truth Has a Different Shape. Her other work has been featured in anthologies on parenting, reproductive rights, and cancer as well as appearing online in outlets such as Ms. Magazine and Healthline. She is the founder of The SELF Project, a comprehensive social-emotional health site for teens and parents and educators of teens.

You can find links to her work at  kariodriscollwriter.com. 

*Hidden Timber Books is hosting Kari O’Driscoll as part of their Small Press Author Reading Series on Saturday, May 9th, at 11am Pacific (1pm Central). She’ll be reading from her new memoir, Truth Has a Different Shape. This event is FREE. Register HERE.

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Q&A with Liz Scott, Author of This Never Happened

We came from no one and we were attached to no one. I could make that sound like a bad thing but I have worn my rootlessness like a custom-made, one-of-a-kind, jewel-encrusted cloak adorned with shiny medals that read “grandparent-less,” “aunt-less,” “uncle-less,” “cousin-less.” I say I have a gypsy soul. I like the sound of that, all wild and romantic. But a gypsy probably does not crave to fill in all the blank spaces.

~ from This Never Happened

Years after I left home, I began to see my life as a puzzle with missing pieces. So I started asking questions. I read my mother’s journals after she died. I filled the pages of my own journals. I spent one November staying up late every night and, by the light of the computer screen, poured out word after word in an effort to write a novel, which turned out to be a cathartic release of fragments from my own story. I am still writing from bits of memory and experience–I have plenty to work with–and am recognizing patterns, making connections, filling in the gaps.

But what does a writer do when memories feel like grains of sand, small and slippery, and fragments are full of holes more than they are solid forms?

Liz Scott faces this question in her new memoir, This Never Happened (University of Hell Press, 2019). Growing up in a family where her parents kept their past hidden and vague, Scott turns to photos and letters to try and bridge one experience to another, to search for answers and for truth.

Deborah Reed (The Days When Birds Come Back) calls Scott’s book an “honest look at what it means to have compassion, however flawed, for the people who hurt us, and for whom we can never truly know or understand.” This Never Happened is a compelling and unique memoir that reads as a collection of tiny essays and leaves a lasting imprint.

I’m thrilled to host Liz Scott to talk about her memoir and about writing. Plus, there’s a giveaway! Enter by Tuesday, January 28th, to win a copy of This Never Happened, one of my favorite reads in the last few months. Now, welcome Liz!

Christi Craig (CC): Your memoir is a collection of very short chapters, with a few longer ones mixed in and some reading in just one sentence. This structure mirrors the way we sometimes process memories we question or difficult experiences we hesitate to revisit—in bits and pieces. Did that structure unfold naturally as you began writing or was it a decision made in revisions?

Liz Scott (LS): I’m so glad you felt that the form mirrored the way memory works. I did not write this book in a linear way or, indeed, in the way the chapters ultimately were arranged. Something would come to me—a memory, an image, a feeling I wanted to explore—and I would write that piece.

It wasn’t until I was done that I began the process of ordering the chapters. And I totally agree that memory comes in unpredictable, not-very-orderly ways. I do not think that’s limited to difficult or confusing memories though. In my experience, a memory can be triggered by so many different things and sometimes seemingly out of nowhere.

CC: Several passages in your book stand out to me, this one in particular,

“I’ve come to believe that all of this—the facts about your ancestors, the truth about your family story, the reliable connections—are what create ballast in life.”

So much of writing is about examining and understanding ourselves and the world around us. How did putting your story to the page change you as a writer or provide more balance in your life?

LS: The impact on me as a writer is easier to answer: in my book I talk about how for most of my life I’ve had an almost phobic reaction to the idea of being a writer. I had spent my early life wanting NOT to be my mother. She was a writer and had an excessive need to be famous as a writer. So I came to writing tentatively and with not much confidence. It’s still hard for me to claim the identity of ‘writer’ but creating something that a publisher wanted and people are buying has given me so much more confidence.

I think the impact on me personally is more cogent though. I’ve had years of my own therapy and as a psychologist have thought deeply about family dynamics and how our emotional lives work. I didn’t even start writing this book until I was in my late 60s so I had a more than average understanding of my own psychology. I did not embark on a project intended to be cathartic or therapeutic. Imagine my surprise when I finished and realized that in writing my book I had indeed been changed. And it has to do with this idea of ballast.

As I talk about in the book, given the strange and particular features of my family, I grew up feeling quite untethered, kind of floating from one thing to the next without ballast. When I wrote the last chapter, I realized I felt more connected to all my relatives and ancestors, none of whom I had ever met. I saw myself in that long line, the chain of people whose DNA I share and I felt much more anchored than I’d ever felt before.

CC: In your essay, “Why We Need Memoirs,” you say, “My old writing teacher always stressed the importance of fully digesting material—events from one’s life, difficult experiences, etc.—in order to tell a good story….” Distance, I would add, makes it possible to tell that story in the first place. Was there ever a time in writing your book when you took a necessary break, and if so, how did you find the time/energy/courage to return to the work?

LS: I agree. Without that distance—especially with memoir—you run the risk of writing what sounds more like a diary. That kind of undigested material can lack perspective and frankly be cloying. As I said, I had considerable distance from my childhood given how old I was when I started writing and also had a significant degree of psychological distance given my personal work and my profession. Also, I did not start writing until after both of my parents had died which is another kind of distance I think.

In terms of necessary breaks, oh yes! But for me I think it has to do more with the fact that I have a very short attention span. I do all my writing in coffee shops and find that I can sit and write for maybe an hour at a time before I want to move on to something else. It has less to do with time/energy/courage than my tendency to flit from one thing to the next. I will say though that since I was determined to be as open and honest and unflinching as possible, I put a post-it note on my laptop that said, “Be Brave”. So anytime there was a choice to demure, I marshalled my courage. Personally, I did not see the point in writing this book without being as baldly honest as possible.

CC: What are you reading these days?

LS: I always move between a couple of books at a time—that short attention span thing. I just started Trust Exercise by Susan Choi which won last year’s National Book Award. I’m also reading All This Could be Yours by Jami Attenberg. And I torture myself by obsessively consuming the New York Times, Washington Post and about a zillion political blogs.

CC: What do you hope 2020 holds for you as a writer?

LS: I just published an essay in The Big Smoke called Post-Partum Publication. It’s about this interesting, particular and often challenging time in the months after a book launch. In it I talk about what I would call the active life of a book—the writing, the work to find a publisher, the launch, the readings and publicity. My book felt so alive during all of those phases and I was so emotionally attached to all parts of the process that I did not have much brain space to start another project. I have had the germ of an idea way far back in my brain and now that I feel the particular aliveness of a new book slipping away, I just might be able to start in on it. Maybe. Hopefully. Please.

Liz Scott has been a practicing psychologist for over 40 years. She has had numerous short stories published in literary journals and her memoir, This Never Happened, was recently released. Originally from New York City, she currently lives and works in Portland, Oregon. 

DON’T FORGET: Enter the book giveaway by Tuesday, January 28th,
for a chance to win a copy of Liz Scott’s memoir!