In 1988 my first book was published: Don’t: A Woman’s Word, a memoir of my childhood experience of sexual abuse. It became for a brief few months, a sensation in Canada, primarily because of an interview I did with broadcaster Peter Gzowski which was aired on CBC, the national radio network.

My memoir has never been out of print in Canada and is taught in a range of university programs across the country. I have had reports of it being used as a text in Women’s Studies, family law, social work, nursing, Canadian literature, and once saw it listed for a course on medical ethics. It is a resource for therapists working with adult survivors of child abuse trauma. The book was published in England, Ireland and the US, translated into German, Dutch and French.

I toured Canada with the book for the better part of two years, giving readings, interviews, speaking at conferences and at community events for adult survivors from coast to coast. In 1990 I also toured in Europe and Ireland for 7 weeks. It was a heady and also grueling experience.

In 1996 I was a writer in residence in rural Saskatchewan for a year, again doing readings, meeting with local writers, teaching workshops in primary and high schools as well as adult workshops.

1998 was a pivotal year for me as I was finally able (with a great deal of help and support) to realize a long held dream to move to the Maritimes. Here I found work as a ‘transition coach’ working with older adults and for me the best part of the job was hearing the stories of each person I worked with.

Our stories need to be heard. It was (and still is) amazing to me how transformative being heard was. The first time I read from my manuscript, I did so in a near whisper, so certain I would be dismissed (as I always had been) and not believed. I worried that I’d be met with indignation and wasn’t at all prepared for the compassion and caring I received instead. When one of that first small group of listeners asked me if I could speak up I said no, and kept on reading in a barely audible voice, the best I could do at the time.

Our stories have power, first in our own lives, but also in the lives of our readers and listeners who are moved by the words and witness to the telling.

Over the years my books have continued to sell in very small numbers and most stores no longer had copies in stock. I wanted to do something about that. With help (once again) I was able to purchase the rights to both Don’t and Beyond Don’t with the goal of making them more readily available. To that end both titles are now Kindle ebooks and available at Amazon.com. You can read ebooks even if you don’t own a Kindle by simply downloading the free Kindle app to your computer or other device.

If you are interested in buying a signed collector’s copy of Don’t: A Woman’s Word please contact me.

I have for a long while enjoyed a serious case of pen lust. I am known to spend  too much time searching pen sites for the next pen, and then make extensive wish lists as I drool on the computer keyboard. So not pretty.

Contrary to what some folks say: a pen is a pen is a pen–not all pens are created equal. And not every hand responds well to the cheap disposable widgets most people will call a pen.

When you write longhand, something I strongly recommend you do when journal writing, doing writing exercises or writing your first draft, you need a proper pen for your hand and writing style.

Nothing is as frustrating as the wrong tool for the task. What may be my idea of a great pen may feel clunky and awkward to you. The wrong pen, a nasty pen, a pen that feels like you are scraping paint off the walls with it will stop your writing cold. A pen that works well for a right handed person may be horrid for the left hander.

So, do yourself a favour, find the right pen for your hand and preferred writing style (and paper!). Your perfect pen is out there somewhere, and the quest for it is great fun. Here’s my favourite on-line pen emporium, Boutique du Stylo.

One of the most challenging things you will encounter as you write your personal stories is the need to tell the truth. Most of us live our lives with so-called acceptable versions of the truth, truths stripped of as much pain as possible, truth that is at best faint, at its worst no where near the truth.

I’m not writing here about facts, what I want to bring to your attention is the need for emotional truth. Your unique, personal, emotional truth.  What events and circumstances really felt like, what their true impact on your life is or was.

Too often we think it is easier to dismiss emotional truth, afterall, we’re adults, let’s just get on with it, or over it or ignore it.

There’s a significant cost to papering over the emotional truth of one’s life. We learn to live half-lives, lives where we are so desperate to avoid being alone with ourselves that we get into all manner of scrapes, behaviours and situations, just to make certain we are never, for any extended time, in our own company.

It takes self-reflection and honesty to come to know and accept who we really are, to know the truth of our lives, all the warts and foibles, and all the joys. You can’t do this when the only time you spend alone is in the shower.

We need to make a commitment to discover the truth of our lives, and that commitment requires time for self-reflection, time spent alone.

The benefits of taking the time to get to know who you really are, are significant. You will live with less fear and more integrity. You will be stronger. Best of all you will be happier and more able to welcome joy into your life.

That’s worth quite a bit, don’t you think?

So get that notebook and pen out, book yourself a nice block of alone time and start your self-reflection and the journey to your true self. I’m sure you’ll be amazed.

Everyone who writes or wants to write needs to carry a notebook and pen. It doesn’t matter whether you write notes to yourself, grocery lists or ideas–you need a notebook with you at all times. Ideas can be flighty, if you don’t capture them when they land, they’ll be gone, too often for good.

You don’t need an 8.5 x 11 inch notebook, unless you carry a  big bag or backpack and feel you’d prefer one that size. What you need is something small. I like the small Moleskine notebooks because they fit into a purse or pocket. There’s enough space for notes or a few minutes of writing time in a cafe. I always have it with me and get a bit antsy when I’m near to filling up the pages and haven’t connected with a new one yet.

What goes into a notebook? If I’m in a cafe and overhear something interesting, that goes into the notebook. Sometimes I’ll do a character sketch based on an overheard conversation or interaction. If I see a book I want to read in a bookstore but don’t have the cash to purchase it, the title and author go into the notebook. Suggestions from friends for movies to see, books to read, places to visit, people to talk to–all of that lands in the notebook. When I’m working on something, I often move to a cafe for a couple of hours to get a different perspective (and treats), so will write notes and thoughts in my notebook. Recipes go into the notebook–often a bit too cryptic to be useful, but I usually write the source of the recipe so I can track it down if I want to.

Anything I want to remember, think about, my observations and questions, anything at all can land in the notebook.

When working on a memoir project, you won’t be working only during your designated writing time. All sorts of pieces of memory, impressions, thoughts, feelings and a million questions will drift by, no matter where you are or what you are going. Get them on the page of your notebook as soon as you can (please, not while driving!).

Your notebook is the primary resource and tool for your project, so don’t, ever, leave home without it.

To write, you need so very little.

You need an honest heart. And some paper.

- Heather Sellers, Page After Page

Writing, as too few of us seem to remember (I include myself in this), is first of all a practice. Something we need to do every day, like brushing our teeth. Without practice, writing tends to be awkward, lifeless and dull. And full of holes.

Writing daily is more than a limbering up of the writing brain, it is also an extended apprenticeship with words. Just as we can not be masters of any other skill worth cultivating on the first two tries, we can’t expect ourselves to write amazing, clear or heartfelt prose on the first couple of attempts.

We need to learn how we string words together, what works in terms of sentence structure for what we are trying to say. The only sure way to get to that is to practice.

Practice in most anything tends to become a chore after a bit. That’s just the nature of practice. The important thing is to keep going and the chore becomes transformed into something you look forward to most days.

Learning to say what you really mean, the truth of your life, will require you to practice writing. The practice I suggest follows Julia Cameron’s morning pages concept. Every day, three nice long notebook pages (no cheating and using a 3×5 index card size notebook!) on anything at all, your day, the weather, frustration, grocery lists or to do lists, anything at all just as long as you fill three pages every day.

Something interesting happens when you do this. It gets easier. You discover you have a lot to say about many things, not just the memoir ideas you are entertaining these days. You begin to work out some of your memoir ideas, more ideas come along. Your writing becomes richer, your stories more alive.

For me, the daily practice of writing means I am keeping my promises to myself, and that makes many more creative projects possible.

The older I get the more important balance becomes. I have less room for over-indulgence in things that aren’t good for me simply because my body takes longer to recover from any badness. It’s a fact of life, but in many ways also a relief.

It is relatively easy to notice when my body isn’t happy because I’ve over-done sugar or carbs, haven’t had enough water or have been glued to the computer for too many hours.  I have a headache, feel groggy and fogged in, am stiff from sitting too long in the same position. But what about emotional and spiritual balance? How do I recognize what’s going on there and do something about that?

I’ve learned that when I can’t sleep well or long enough, when I’m restless and on the run doing busy work that doesn’t need doing, fussing, fretting and generally out of sorts–something has upset my inner balance. Yes, sometimes it is only poor food choices, but I rarely make those if the rest of life approaches proper or reasonable balance.

Balance of course is not static, a do-it-once, and it’s set for the year. You might be able to ‘balance’ your stereo’s treble and base settings like that, or even your cheque book (once a year? is she nuts?) but your body and spirit need daily love.

I am a writer. When I don’t write, everything in my world is out of balance: food, exercise, work, sleep, emotions, everything. I’m not talking about taking time away from writing to cook, or visit with a friend. What I mean here is a time of stuckness, block, and fear that prevents me from writing or even thinking about writing.

Yet it often takes forever for the penny to drop, for the light bulb to go on, for me to ‘get it’. I’ll wander around in circles, complain a lot, get very little done in any area of my life, and yet I still don’t tweak to the fact that I’m not writing and that’s the problem.

Eventually I’ll corner myself and there’s nothing for it but to look at what’s really going on. Ah, I’m not writing, not even practice writing. Hmm. Maybe I should try practice writing, you know just scribble stuff that doesn’t matter. I’ve got nothing to lose at this point, so why not just show up at the page.

Sigh. Why does it take me so long to figure this out? If I figured it out sooner, life would maybe come back to something approaching balance. Yes, but then I’d have to face my fear and stuckness and truly, I don’t want to go there. This is a game I play, but it, like any bad indulgence is beginning to cause too much wear and tear on the system.

Practice writing for me starts here: three pages a day, every morning, first thing.  Just writing, whatever comes from my pen (longhand writing is important here).  This is Julia Cameron’s morning pages work, from The Artist’s Way. Whenever I truly engage with morning pages, stuff happens. Good stuff.

And balance slowly unfolds again in my life. Once again I have a writing life I can be happy about.

Why not try it yourself and see what I mean.

What do you notice? It may take a month or more to notice anything, but do let me know….

I have an inner troll. Some writers call this critter an inner critic, but that’s too tame a concept for what I have to contend with.  My troll has an amazing repetoire of kindness, things like ‘that sucks’, ‘who do you think you are?’ ‘there’s no way anybody will read that’, and my favourite of its many sweetnesses, ‘god you’re stupid’. As I said, more troll than inner critic.

An inner critic might be useful on occasion, suggesting that you check your facts, your ideas, your writing style and make it all better. Not so the troll in my head. It just slings nasties.

Of course to have an inner troll you have to have a life where it can get a good toe hold, a life that has its share of low self esteem and the occasional personal disaster. The troll needs something to work with or it wouldn’t get the buy in I so clearly give it. Apparently I’m the troll’s pet, for it has lots to work with.

The troll needs to be at least distracted in order for me to get any work done. Its constant nattering and ‘kind’ reminders of my inadequacies otherwise paralyze me and all that the day brings instead of work accomplished is a frenetic approach/avoidance dance, which while it might count as aerobic exercise, doesn’t add up to tasks completed. I’ve not yet found anything that will distract the troll, its focus never seems to waver at all.

How does one go about troll herding and containment? Ah yes, if I could come up with a definitive answer to that question, no doubt millions of bits of pretty paper money would come my way.

Perhaps troll herding is the wrong image. What I may really need rather than any sort of engagement with the troll is to find good healthy ways to ignore it. Why, given that I have by my 6th decade, a certain list of accomplishments to my credit, do I persist in giving any attention to the troll? Ah yes, that’s easy, because like any other mortal, I have my portion of insecurities, and they are louder and more in my face when I sit down to write.

Some things I write, anything to do with personal history, seem to make those insecurities flare and the troll is only too happy to fan the flames. Nothing is harder to accept than a gleeful troll doing its happy dance. So not pretty.  If it starts roasting marshmallows, I’m out of here!

Alright then, I need to figure out how to ignore or maybe accept the troll. There are a number of ways I could do that. I could chant affirmations, but for me that seems to give the troll too much good material to sling back at me as the opposite. Case in point: if I affirm that I am an accomplished writer (note, not good–oh no, never do I say THAT) then the troll comes back with: ‘you’ve accomplished zilch, two books, 5 manuscripts, nada, nothing, and all of that worthless’.  Ah, the kindness of my troll knows no bounds.

So, what if I learn to accept the troll as a fact of my life, perhaps see it as a balance so there is less risk I over-inflate my wee ego and get all arrogant and weird. Okay, that’s a possibility I haven’t given much air time yet. I could try that. I’ll let you know how it goes.

How do you manage your inner critic or troll?