Episode 13: One Writer’s Journey - On Memoir, Belle Italia and Food for Soul.......
Welcome to Episode #13 and One Writer’s Journey - On the beauty of writing and reading Memoir and a homage to Belle Italia.
Firstly so much is happening right now with the impact of the Coronavirus outbreak on many peoples lives, certain countries and international travel in general. I am here holding space for Italy and everywhere else for that matter. I think Australia is just getting its toes wet as Italy goes into lockdown mode. It is a really tricky time....And this virus is very real and not likely going away any time soon as I share this.......
On a personal note, we arrived in Milan exactly a year ago for our girls first trip abroad so I feel heartbroken for the travelers who may or may not go onto their travels at the moment. Obviously check Government websites, be mindful and plan accordingly. I do not know the real answers here. In the meantime send love to Italy and I write this as Australia begins to batten down the hatches, a thousand prayers on a global level....
Now onto this share.....there is indeed a lot to share for this particular podcast. I have been contemplating the subject of writing and memoir for a few months back when I suggested this topic on writing would be the next podcast and I believe I mentioned that on air. In the meantime, here in Australia not so far from where I live, fires, loss of life, smoke from fires problems, school holidays, roads to the coast shut for nearly a month, fear and worry and loss of animals, peoples lives and much loved homes.....
Some time after this the drought broke locally and now it is raining again and our spirits have been resurrected. Yes, this is the noise in the podcast too. For some people out of town on farms they were running out of water to drink and dams were completely dried up. I admit I am fortunate to rely on town water from our local council and have a few tanks for the garden so that helps with the worry. Water restrictions are in place, and the tomatoes never really got going until very recently with all of the smoke haze and up and down weather cycles......Strange times were with us over the Australian summer. A lot has been on our minds to say the least and that is unlikely to change now........
(The vegetable plot in the back paddock before the rain arrived)
School eventually went back and things have slowly gotten back to normal for most of us fortunate ones. Always after school holidays it takes me a while to get the creative juices flowing and then I decided to start a new project I will share more about in the following podcasts. Although I will mention in case you are interested I have been thinking about cooking from a cookbook and blogging and writing about it for about a year now, as a little project and lesson in cookery. I guess in truth ‘Julie and Julia’ style like the book and film by Nora Ephron (one of my writing heroes).....
In the end I decided to make the book ‘Bread Is Gold: Extraordinary Meals with Ordinary Ingredients’ by Massimo Bottura and Friends the one. You can visit the blog page - Cooking with Massimo and Friends for the big share....The short story of this is that this book is one of the most important books of our times (in my humble opinion).
I took the white cover off as not to damage it with all my cooking adventures!
All proceeds and royalties from the sales of ‘Bread is Gold’ go to the Foundation ‘Food for Soul’ a non profit organisation that Bottura and his Life and Business partner Lara Gilmore founded. I share this story on the blog and will go into more detail in future podcasts, coming in the next few weeks.
However, the book is about a lot of things, it is about the epidemic of food waste we tolerate and sustain, sustainable living as a food model, and social responsibility as a practice. Bottura and Gilmore’s restaurant Osteria Francescana in Modena Italy moves the restaurants food waste to a soup kitchen not far away where people in need are supported by the community around them and fed a nourishing meal.
Visit www.foodforsoul.it . Check them out on Instagram and face book and definitely watch the Netflix documentary ‘Theater of Life’ about this project....
On my way!! Home grown tomatoes and shallots, and a bag full of lemons I was given…
I love making the most of what is on hand
Memoir and Thoughts on Writing
I once heard Seth Godin say if you can speak out loud then you can write. Since it is just words following words turning into sentences anyway.
Why is it we think writing is so hard or tricky?
My own writing journey begun about thirty years ago when I was given a diary to write in for my 11th birthday. Over the years writing in my journal gave me solace and peace. Often it was an act of bravery helping me understand my own inner life and my place in the world. Still I write journals pretty much for the same reason when I need to.
I have always loved reading about writing and thinking about it. Sitting in a cafe with a journal and a black felt tip pen and perhaps a book to read is one of my favourite ‘me time’ things to do. Over the years I have discovered some great tools and techniques that is for sure, but none more useful then just writing in a journal as a daily practice. For some reason this simple act can be the perfect foundation for more words and more ideas to follow.
I have written two memoirs in the past fifteen years. My first one ‘Woman on the Verge - The Subject is Herself’ a creative art journal and the second one ‘In the Shadow of a Cypress: An Italian Adventure’. Always I am attracted to women writing about their lives and examining the world around them. I find the relationship to ourselves a most interesting subject and full of possibilities. I think underneath my love of women writers who write a memoir autobiographical style of book is the sense of feeling less alone in the world. There is a nourishment of spirit and a feeling of belonging that I take, that it wasn't just me feeling that I guess. I love what Martha Beck said on The Beautiful Writers Podcast, that writing helped her tolerate her life.
Just a couple of books I have loved over the years, dishevelled books are always a
good sign if you ask me……
When I was about twenty hanging out at the mall, a true book-lover back then I found myself at a table of discounted books. The book ‘Wild Mind: Living the Writers Life’ by Natalie Goldberg for $2, it was like the discovery of gold for me. A book on writing and the personal experience of the author. A book that gave me permission to just do what I love and write.
I fell in love immediately. This cemented it for me, I made time every day before work. I would catch the early train and sit in a cafe, have a cappuccino and write whatever came to mind and whatever I noticed around me. I had quite a boring job at the time and was studying on the side so this little detour on the way to work made my day an enchanted one.
I had already discovered the book ‘The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron in my early twenties. I was trying to work out my direction in life as life was tricky in many ways, I loved writing the infamous ‘morning pages’....I was a convert. I knew getting up twenty minutes earlier worked magic for me. It still does, I don't start my day without half an hour, usually an espresso coffee and a pot of herbal tea and read or write something.
I don't care what else is happening around me, I kiss a child before she jumps on the bus, I make a protein smoothie for another one but I sit down until I have had my morning table time. In other words I make time. Mornings are always better for me, and this little act of creativity super charges my day. Whatever else happens is manageable. I hang out the clothes, I walk to school, I go to work etc.
My little place to write, create art or just be / Michelle Johnston
There are a few secrets and tricks to writing if you need to know or if you haven't discovered them yet.
1. Reading and listening to great books is definitely near the top of the list. The author Stephen King said it best in his book and memoir on writing, these days, there is no reason you cannot get book time, on your commute, in your car, walking and exercising, while cooking your dinner..... There are endless ways to listen to books. I have been a member of audible on and off for many years and listen to books endlessly. So this is an easy option on your way to writing. It is important to understand a writers voice and how they construct the page, there is much to learn and absorb by reading great writers. Go back to Hemingway or Virginia Woolf. Collaborate with your writing mentors on the page or on a hike in the woods.....And study the genres you plan to write in...
2. Pay Attention......A writer always takes notice of everything going on around them, the colours people are wearing, the flowers on the table, the words, the season, the food they were served, all is fodder for the page. Details in other words. One must pay attention to the minuscule and the mighty, take note and learn how to write or type fast. My years of writing diaries has been great for that, the only problem now is my writing is only legible to me. My journals are a mess, but I can read fast and write fast if I need to..…..This makes a huge difference when needing to get some details down.
3. The art of memoir in my opinion is about deep listening and deep watching. One must take notice of everything. The truth is you have to observe it all and take notes. You must be diligent because you will forget.
What people say verbally and what people say with their body language are important factors to convey character and personality. A place too is a character in a story. Learn about the place, delve deeper, knowledge and experience helps to write about the world around you.
4. Emotional charge. Say no more, but just in case you need to know more, any time you write about something that is personal there is a lot of energy around the story. Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth. Set it on fire, off you go.
Natalie Goldberg always said, ‘go for the jugular’ and another great writer and story teller Anne Lamott said “shitty first drafts” were key. If you can trust this you are on your way.........
5. No more excuses........ Time is the least of your problems.
We all have time funny enough. We get more a minute later, an hour later, the next day. Understanding our resistance to utilising our time is important on a artists journey. Having a mindset of time scarcity has to be reckoned with in any creative project or writers life. Get into the flow, and you will win the frustration of time scarcity. It is just a myth and there to make you a little mental basically. Trust me I know all about it.
For example: It is easy for me to go and clean the kitchen. I make the time to create a happy workspace for when I return and make the next meal, then why can I not choose to allocate fifteen minutes or thirty minutes the way I do to domesticity or by watching a time sapping television program. In other words we have to trick ourselves to turn up at the page, ignore something you do naturally without thinking about it, come back to it later. It can be done I promise you....
Second example: Glennen Doyle would get up at 4.30 in the morning and write for an hour everyday in the middle of the breakdown of her marriage. I believe she sat in her cupboard. My guess is the book and writing was likely the lifeline that held her together as she moved forward with her life. Author of ‘Love Warrior’.
Third Example: My book ‘Woman on the Verge’ was my life raft while I navigated motherhood, creativity and moving to another city. Making art pages and writing was my hour of play and living creatively. At the time when my girls would have their day nap I did not do any chores around the house. I made my book. I wrote, read books that inspired me. I gave myself permission to make the pages. When I went out walking with babe in the pram looking out to vineyards and mountains. I dreamt up new ideas and new pages, it was such a beautiful time for me, a time when my inner life was on fire in a good way.
6. Take your time....there is no rush, let it evolve....After many years of dabbling in writing and publishing, the best thing you can do is just allow it to change and grow. Come back to it a month later, a year later, write the “shitty first draft” and the ninth and edit it some more, you will change, the writing will change, what matters at first often doesn't matter later. Delete and continue, allow time to be the superpower in your writing. Don't worry about publishing, editors, the future readers just write it down, get the words on the page.......don't let resistance jam up your flow.
7. And before I forget you don't need to write for money. Remember this…
Thinking that success on that level or getting published is the ivory tower, it is just something that might happen along the way. It is the doing of the writing, the turning up at the page, the cultivating space and time for yourself that energises your life. If money comes from it, great. But, if it doesn't find other ways to make a dollar. Sometimes having money involved can cause the inner critic to lose the plot anyway.
I love and can fully testify to the fact that the “psychological reward” of the creativity is the gift over the monetary reward. Money is nice don't get me wrong, I love money, its just that it is not the road to fulfilment.
The great maxim of ‘When this happens’ in our life can never be tamed nor fulfilled. As human beings we are so creative we think up new ways immediately and set up new challenges the second one is completed barely acknowledging how far we have already traveled.
Read ‘Turning Pro’ by Steven Pressfield about doubt and resistance. He made the point about the psychological reward over money.
See notes about therapy or notes on Italy below!
Cafe hopping in Rome, a pen and diary to write in, a cappuccino and we are good to go / Michelle Johnston
The other thing that can help your writing is walking, meditating and having a walking or exercise practice that helps keep you grounded and moving in a happy direction. Oxygen and fresh air helps too, a spiritual practice keeps the drama at by. Drama is just an exercise in procrastination anyway. Ask yourself, what gets in the way of your writing? Eliminate a few distractions, or hire a baby sitter for an hour, make it happen....
So there you are, just you and your ideas, let them hum in your life and on the page, take notes on your phone in your lunch break, do whatever it takes to get the words on the page whether you are interested in memoir or writing fiction. I love memoir because I love the ordinary details of daily life, like when Virginia Woolf wrote Mrs Dalloway and shared a day in the life of a woman and the ‘passage of time’ (Carol Duffy)
Taking myself to Italy a bunch of years ago was such a balm for my spirit, it gave me license to live the life I wanted to live. I gave myself permission to get right out of my own way and write as much as I could outside of the experience of traveling by myself. There was so much to capture and translate into words, but you can do this anywhere really, not that you have to leave your country, it is possible to go to the next suburb and experience a moment.
At the time was I was sort of in a holding pattern, needing to get out of my comfort zone and routines. I had been spending a fair amount of time at home in mother land, years and years had passed. I needed to see something beautiful and awe inspiring. I got it in bucket loads on that journey, it was either that or therapy. I trusted myself. And that is the thing I take from that experience…. The journey continued to give me energy and happiness for the months and the years that followed. I lived it again and again on the page and even reading it out loud on the podcast, so much joy for the taking. I am thrilled I have been able to share it with you…..
Our first day in Padua/Padova in the beautiful Veneto / Olivia Johnston
I love what Natalie Goldberg wrote in her book ‘Old Friend From Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir’ on page 265...
“It’s a holy thing to be a writer. It is why you want to write your memoir: to remember all of it. The good and the bad. To trust your experience, to have confidence that your moments and the moments of others on this earth mattered, not to be forgotten, wiped out with the new decree, the better plan.
It is a great thing you are doing whatever it is you are remembering. You are saying that life - and its passing - have true value”.
NATALIE GOLDBERG
P.s All of her books are brilliant, go search I dare you.