My last post was about brainstorming with my writer pal Marcy on a novel idea involving dementia and Alzheimer’s.  Much of what is going into the book is based on my experience with my mother and my father-in-law who are both suffering from this kind of memory loss.  Every phone call I have with them or chat with my mother-in-law or my sister, who also keeps contact with our mom, is a source of inspiration and information. But it is also disheartening because it will only get worse.

I tell myself that as painful as it is to watch and keep up with the changes they are going through, it is part of life, part of loving someone and part of the truth that must be in what I write. What we experience is our greatest source of originality and authenticity.

I know this book is going to tax me and pull hard at my heart, for every wall my character must climb will echo a difficulty my mother is going through. I have long since given up having those chats with my mom that always left us laughing. For many years I would unload my disappointments through the receiver of my phone, and my mother would be on the other end listening.  But it was never a sad event for I would find myself giggling over those troubles because she brought that out in me.  They were fodder for humor instead of tears or anger when I shared them with her.

But I cannot do that any more. She cannot hold onto the same conversation for more than a couple of minutes. Sometimes she thinks she is talking to my daughter or worse me back when I was in high school.  It is much harder to make her giggle and much harder for me to find the humor in the troubles that come with the changes she is going through.  Nowadays, she is sharing with me her difficulties, and I am the one hoping to bring humor rather than sorrow to her experience.

What life experiences feed your writing and give you hope that you will find peace in the effort?

#creativity
#Alzheimer’s

The post Creativity: Using your own experiences to authenticate your writing first appeared on L. Darby Gibbs ~ Author.

50+ years of experience

I’ve been gathering experience for 50+ years

1. I have already been told numerous times I was wrong and proved that I was right.
2. I have been wrong before and survived and I will again
3. I have paid my bills, and when I didn’t, I learned to pay them the next time.
4. I found out I don’t have to answer any questions I don’t want to.
5. I have learned how to ask questions so people want to answer them (they don’t always, but they want to).
6. I refuse to sit in the corner and cry about it.  But I know some times a good cry works wonders.
7. I know what my body does when it is terrified.
8. I know what my body does when it is tired.
9. I know what my body does when it hasn’t slept for three days. (My husband and I laughed our heads off about nothing funny, but it was a blast) Not recommended more than once a year.
10. I know that how I react is not necessarily how another person will act.
11. Now I decide what I am going to do about it and do it.
12. I wrote a book.
13. And then I wrote three more.
14. I published a book, and then I published three more.
15. So I am writing another book.
16. I plan to publish it.
17. Creativity is in the mind, of the mind, doesn’t always mind, but mind you, it never really leaves.
18. There are days I don’t want to write.
19. There are not many days I don’t want to write.
20. I love my parents despite and in spite of all they did, tried to do and never got around to doing.
21. I am a parent, and I think she’s going to love me in spite of and despite of all of it.
22. I married the right man, and he agrees.
23. What I really know, really experienced and really care about can be a great help with writing about the things I didn’t know until I looked it up, didn’t experience but have an idea about, and don’t care much about but can see how someone would.
24. I know that crying is not proof that someone is hurt 
25. I know that not crying is not proof that someone does not care.
26. I know that silence is not agreement, and taking a stand is far more reliable.
27. I know my opinion needs to matter to me more than it matters to anyone else.
28. I have learned that opinion is not fact.
29. I know that some believe opinion is enough to hang a hat on.
30. I rarely wear a hat.  Don’t have the head for it.
31. I can wait a long time, I already have.
32. I will not wait long for things not worth waiting for or things that should not be allowed to wait.
33. I have learned that criticism can hurt, but even that sort can be learned from.
34. I have learned to give criticism that teaches.
35. Nothing is forever except ideas.
36. Escapism is not a bad thing.  Writers depend on it. Readers need it well done.
37. Every day I need to seek out knowledge.
38. As often as possible I need to share knowledge.
39. I know how to say I am sorry and mean it. 
40. I have learned that some of the closest friends a person can have shed, and their only flaw is the amount of hair that can accumulated in the corners.  Dogs, kindness in the warm, occasionally wet-nosed package, that renews itself every morning and sometimes numerous times in the course of the day if you step outside enough times and make a big deal every time you come back in.
41. I have been an infant, a toddler, a pre-teen, a teenager, a lover, a newlywed, a pregnant woman, a new mother.  I remind my daughter I am old enough to be a grandmother, but I am not ready, nor is she ready to make me one.
42. I have struggled with self-consciousness and reached a point of mostly not caring what people think about me.
43. I have found meditation has numerous benefits
44. I have struggled with achieving a pregnancy, giving up, gone a decade believing and accepting that it was not possible.
45. I have lost a pregnancy, and helped a friend deal with losing her own pregnancy.
46. I went preterm and held out for a full term delivery.
47. I have had a child remind me to pay attention. And I listened. I held her sitting in the crook of my arm.  She placed two chubby hands on either side of my face, turned me to share an eye-to-eye look, and she said, “Momma?” with the firmness of a drill sergeant. 
48. I know how to hide the fact that I am a shy person. (Head up, chin up, eye steady)
49. I know how to say no and mean it.
50. I found out why mothers are never shy when a child is involved.
51. I learned how to give orders so students do what I say (but don’t ask me to explain how it works).
52. I have made friends and lost friends and will forget neither.
53. I have been lied to and lied, and carried the burden of both.
54. I have fallen in love and worked hard not to climb out because holding onto love is not an easy thing.
55. I know how it is to lose a parent to cancer.
56. I know how it is to lose a parent to unexpected death.
57. I know how it is to lose a parent to dementia.
58. I have petted the family dog and felt her life flow out and cried for the loss. And I have explained to my daughter why she will not be coming back.
59. I know how it is to watch my sister lose a child to a brain tumor.
60. I know how it is to witness a miracle of survival.
61. I have lived on the East Coast, the West Coast, the Northwest and South Coast.
62. I have hiked the beginning of the Narragansett Trail and the end of Oregon Trail.  Missed the middle.
63. I know the reality of not doing something now.  Do it now or it will never happen.
64. I have graduated high school.
65. I have graduated college, three times, different degrees.

I figure I still have plenty to learn, and all of it will be useful to me as a writer and a person.

The post There are advantages to being a 50something writer first appeared on L. Darby Gibbs ~ Author.