Writing and Loss

I'm thinking about how writing influences memory and feelings of loss while reading Virginia Woolf's , Moments of Beingg but wonder how could I write without the creative connection I feel with my mother? In some way she is my muse. I feel her even when I'm writing about another subject. I think I write about  and with her to keep her close but in truth, I'm compelled to write about her. Is your experience writing about loved ones and loss an effort to contain the memory or are you like me? Do you write to remain connected? Since Virginia Woolf committed suicide, I think the losses she experienced were not resolved. I might be presumptuous to assume I know her in any way but that's how reading influences many of us. We feel we know the writer- especially if she writes autobiographically.

Virginia Woolf

Loss upon loss
Fears the greater loss
Still.

Imagine Virginia Woolf at thirteen. She lives in a busy household that centers around her mother, her mother who is forty...her mother who takes care of seven children-no eight because there’s one yet at home… a child not spoken of… a child who will disappear soon…a child who is called an idiot-child by Virginia as was the custom of the day. Imagine her mother is married to a man, her second husband, who is fifteen years older, a writer, and demanding. Imagine Virginia at thirteen in this busy house of guests and happenings… the same Virginia we all know through her writing… the Virginia who loses her mother on May 5, the same day of my mother’s death. Imagine Virginia at thirteen. She carries the presence of her mother (as I do) while her mother is long gone. She wrote in Moments of Being:

“I could hear her voice, see her, and imagine what she would do or say as I went about my day’s doings. She was one of the invisible presences who after all play so important a part in every life.’’ (80)
And as Virginia pours out her heart-words both troubled and turbulent in To the Lighthouse, a work of fiction that’s autobiography, she becomes empty and unbound to this once compelling presence of her mother. She asks, “Why, because I describe her and my feeling for her in that book, should my vision of her and my feeling for her become so much dimmer and weaker?” (81).  

And while writing again about her mother, 

she worries that she will erase her completely.

Columbine surrounding the bust of Virginia Woolf, sculpted by Stephen Tomlin.
Photograph by Pamela A. McMorrow

A selection from this post originally appeared in Oasis Writing Link.

Writing a Book is Not a Walk in the Park

Before you decide that getting a book deal or writing a book is your golden ticket to whatever, I invite you to read this in The New York Observer. Don't get me wrong. I am tremendously grateful for the opportunity. It has been my dream to be a published author since I was...I don't know..ten years old? Now that I am actually in the process of having a book published, I realize that dream and reality are quite different.

So you want to be a published author? Are you willing to commit your life to it? Are you willing to put your children, husband, social life and everything else on the back burner for it? Are you willing to sit at your computer for LONG hours writing endlessly with very little social contact?

The reason I love blogging is that it's so interactive. I write something, you write something and we have this nice, little exchange. There's none of that with book writing, apart from the feedback you receive from you editor. I had to laugh when I read the article above. So much of what the author described was true for me. Whatever subject you choose to write on, be prepared to be stuck with that subject for one, two or even ten years in some cases. By the end of it, regardless of how much you LOVE your topic, I guarantee you'll be saying, "I'm so sick of writing about this I could SCREAM!" or "This is SO BAD, who on earth is going to read it?!"

I became consumed with the idea of writing this particular book years ago. I imagined I would write it during a few lovely weeks at my family's lake house. I'd sit out on the picnic table in the sun, birds would chirp around me as I lovingly put down my life in words.

Boy was that dream shattered quickly. First of all, you need to decide how you want your book published. I chose traditional publishing, even though I was warned numerous times that it was a tough road to publication. Everyone has to decide what's best for them. I followed my intuition on this one and stuck the tough road out. Second, if you choose this road, forget the book. If you are going to publish any work of nonfiction, you need a proposal. Mine was around 95 pages and included my book concept, a marketing plan, sample chapters, production details, a section on the competition and a section on how the book would be promoted. I knew nothing about this when I started. I had to find it all out online and through books as I bumped along the road to publishing. I spent the good part of a year just writing the proposal. I hadn't even gotten to the book yet. Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write by Elizabeth Lyon became my bible. In the early stages, I hired a writing coach in Seattle at The Writer's Workshop who gave constructive feedback on my proposal and, more than anything, helped me stay on task by holding me to deadlines.

My husband, the former monk turned yoga teacher, played an important role in this process, too. He was my sounding board, my life coach and my cheerleader. His calming nature and belief in what I was doing really helped me get through it. He'd sit for hours listening to me read back what I had written. During a private yoga session with a client who already had two books under her belt, he got word of a freelance editor in Seattle who used to be an acquisitions editor at a major publishing house. While we were out staining our fence one hot, summer afternoon, he said, "You really should call that woman." So I did and I'm so glad I did.

It helped to work with a freelance editor who had been on the other side of publishing. I learned so much from her. She helped me refine my proposal. The thing is, working with a freelance editor is not cheap and there are no guarantees. You could spend a great deal of money on advice, coaching and editing and still not have a book deal in the end.

As many before me have probably mentioned, a lot of it has to do with timing. But more than timing, you need serious commitment. If you are really committed to your project, you are willing to take whatever time and whatever measures are needed to see it become a book. You need to believe in what you are writing about and it helps if you have a reason for writing it or an author's purpose. In my case, I'm writing my story because I believe I have something important to share that will help others realize their own purpose or potential.

On occasion, my husband has entered my writing room and found me, head on the keyboard, completely burned out from writing. In most cases, I haven't showered, eaten, nor seen the light of day. He's had to wing it for meals and housekeeping has completely gone by the wayside. But he never complains. Instead, he comes over to the computer, kisses me and says, "I'm proud of you, you are doing a great job," or he gently lets me know that perhaps I should turn off the computer and come to bed.

After several years, and through what I call "some mysterious workings of the universe," I not only received agent representation, but I also a got a book deal. Some of my friends believe it happened a little too easily for me, but what they can't see is that I put in a lot of legwork. I believed, with every ounce of my being, that it would become a book. I never veered once from this goal. I put every single ounce of myself into it. It was not a walk in the park. In fact, while writing my story, I had to relive quite a bit of pain and I often wondered why I was putting myself through it all again.

I've finally finished writing the book, 287 some pages of it. Yet it is not REALLY finished until it's sandwiched between two covers or until I can walk into Barnes and Noble and hold a copy of it in my hands.

No, it was definitely NOT a walk in the park, but neither is life. And, truthfully, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Note: Lessons from the Monk I Married is due out in bookstores across North America in spring 2012.

This was reposted from my blog: Lessons from the Monk I Married

365 Lessons-Lesson 303: No Pain, No Gain

My husband Yoon has adopted the English expression "no pain, no gain." His other favorites are "location, location, location," "bundle of joy" and "awesome." He uses words and expressions until he finds new ones. Sometimes, in his yoga class, he says "no pain, no gain." That might sound very against the way of yoga. After all, in yoga you are suppose to tune into your own body and go at your own pace. It's meant to be a journey from within. But when he says these words, I don't think he means for his students to push their limits or suffer a charley horse in class. I think he means something entirely different.

When he says these words I feel love in his voice. I don't feel like he's a drill sergeant up there shouting out commands. When he says these words, it's out of compassion for what each student might individually be experiencing. So much gets released during a yoga session with Yoon. There's a lot of contraction and expansion happening in the class. As we work different groups of muscles, things come out. Every experience we have ever had in life is imprinted on the body. The mind and body are so connected. In meditation, I have often felt a pain somewhere in my body along with a memory. As soon as I witnessed the unpleasant sensation in my body instead of reacting to it, the pain passed away along with the memory. The body says a lot about a person's state. You can't hide how you are feeling, it's written all over you.

So, "no pain, no gain" in Yoon's class means that when we go in and work from within, sometimes we might feel pain or memories. If we stay in our body and work from within, being gentle and kind to ourselves, that which we feel as pain will come to pass, but it might not be a pleasant experience as it is happening.

I'm working on a difficult chapter in my memoir. For those of you who don't know, I have a book contract. My book is called Lessons from the Monk I Married and it will be published by Seal Press/Perseus Books in March 2012. By the first week of December, I have to turn in half the book to my editor in Berkeley, California. It's very different from this blog even though it has the same title. It's about my 14-year journey with my husband, a former Korean Buddhist monk.

The chapter I'm working on was a very painful period in my life. I have found, while writing this book, that my body remembers the experience and as I'm writing it, I go back to that time. Chapter Five has been so painful and slow for me because that's how it was in real life. I read the chapter to my husband and asked him what he thought. He said, "Oh...it's intense. I seriously feel pain."

So I wonder why I am choosing to re-live this experience and my experiences in this memoir. Why am I going through the pain again? It was so hard to go through the first time. I barely made it through and now I'm re-living it again. Why?

Well, it's in the book. I guess you'll have to buy it to get the scoop. No, in all honesty I'm writing it to share my experience. I gained so much through this journey I've been on, but I had to go through some seriously difficult times. I had to follow my heart even though I felt like I might die.

It was a process. Life is a process. We all experience and go through things. What I have found is that its true. No pain, no gain. If you really want to experience life to its fullest, you can't remain stagnant and hide from your fears. Hiding or running from what scares you or what is painful only increases the fear or pain. You have to face life head on. Once you do you will realize that everything comes to pass. That it all changes. Instead of feeling restrictive or holding pain in your body out of fear, when you face life and accept the reality of life as it is, you will find that life becomes more fluid, that you don't feel as much pain, that you are stronger than you think. By facing your life, you become confident. It takes practice, but step by step, it will become so natural. Soon you realize that what you feared or what was painful for you was mostly created by you. By facing yourself and loving yourself as you are through both your fear and your pain, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Also posted on my blog Lessons from the Monk I Married where I have been writing 365 Lessons for 2010.