Tag Archives: writing

Works for Me Wednesday: Thank You Notes

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When I was growing up, my mom was adamant about thank you notes. In fact, her whole family was. One great uncle literally stopped sending me Christmas gifts for a few years because I had not written him a thank you note for one. True facts. So I’ve written quite a number of thank you notes in my day, and I usually keep it short and sweet and to the formula.

But recently, Andy and I got a thank you note from the wife of one of his coworkers, for whom we had bought a baby gift. It was so well-written and personal that it blew me, the long-time thank you note writer, away. If we extrapolate out what she wrote, it’s a good reminder of the important elements to include in a thank you.

The first paragraph was specific to the gifts we had given. It’s always polite to let the person know you’re really writing a note for them and not just a generic thank you to everyone who gave you something.

Then she included a tiny bit of detail about how they’re doing regarding the baby’s upcoming due date. Both of these sections were infused with a lighthearted humorous tone that made it fun to read, and hopefully fun to write, as well!

(If you received a Christmas or birthday gift, this section could include how you celebrated the holiday or what the next thing you’re looking forward to is, i.e. “I enjoyed having friends over and watching Dr. Who on my birthday. Someone made me the best cake I’ve ever had!” or “Now that Christmas is over, I can’t wait to get back to school and start working on my senior Honors thesis.”)

Finally, she wrapped up with a personal mention that she hoped we were well and looked forward to seeing us at the company’s holiday party (at which we sat together last year), if not before.

She signed it, “With gratitude!” which was a heartfelt ending to a succinct note covering just the inside of a 3×5 folded card.

I would like to say I write thank you notes pretty similarly, but it was a great reminder to receive a note that hit all of the high points. To convey my thanks for a gift or trip, this format works for me.

I’m linking up to Works for Me Wednesday at WeAreThatFamily.com!
works for me wednesday at we are that family

Book Review: Bird by Bird

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I finally finished Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, which I started, oh, months ago. I had a really hard time getting through it, which surprised me. I love Anne Lamott. I think she is witty and I love her irreverent reverence. I absolutely devoured her memoirs on faith. But this one. This one was difficult.

Here’s my first thought: even though I have made the bold claim that I am a writer, as I said in that months-ago post, I had trouble believing that this book was for me. More specifically, I felt like many of Lamott’s suggestions were geared toward writing fiction, which I don’t do, and honestly have no desire to do.

Another thought is that I enjoyed each individual chapter as a stand-alone essay, but reading them all together was too much. They didn’t really connect to each other. There was no sort of cohesive narrative arch. I think had I read any individual one in, say, a college class, I would have been blown away. It was just reading them all in aggregate that swamped me.

But as always, I managed to glean wisdom from Lamott (4 Kindle pages of highlights, to be exact). Here are the two passages that I think are most relevant to my writing on this blog (which is the main writing I do right now):

Life is like a recycling center, where all the concerns and dramas of humankind get recycled back and forth across the universe. But what you have to offer is your own sensibility, maybe your own sense of humor or insider pathos or meaning. All of us can sing the same song, and there will be four billion different renditions. Some people will sing it spontaneously, with a lot of soulful riffs, while others are going to practice until they could sing it at the Met. Either way, everything we need in order to tell our stories in a reasonable and exciting way already exsists in each of us.

What this reminds me is that, every time I feel like I don’t have anything to add to the blogosphere, every time I think there are a million other people writing the same things I am–I am wrong. Because no one else is me. And Me is worth writing.

And here’s the other nugget:

If something inside you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don’t worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act–truth is always subversive.

Taking a stand on things is hard for me. It seems to have become harder as I’ve gotten older. Sure, I have opinions, and on every day things like what to have for dinner I have absolutely zero problem expressing them. But when it comes to politics, and religion, and economics, I clam up. I’m scared to express myself for fear of being shot down, exposed as ignorant, or discredited. But I’ve enjoyed the banter that has stemmed from my more decisive posts here, and Lamott’s directive here encourages me to keep trying. My voice may not be that of an expert joining the conversation, but as she told me above, it is still mine, and I have a right and obligation to use it.

I may revisit Lamott’s book as I keep writing, in bits and pieces as the mood strikes me, but I would have a hard time recommending it as a whole. Maybe keep it by the computer and flip through when you’re feeling stuck, or keep it near the bed to open when you can’t sleep. Definitely don’t count it out, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself slogging through. I’m glad I finished it, though, and it’s given me some things to ponder.

Bonus review: I LOVE Anne Lamott on Twitter. Her wit is well-suited to 140 characters. Be forewarned, she is unapologetically liberal, so don’t get your feelings hurt if you’re on the flip side of that coin. But she sure does have some gems.

Who Do You Think You Are?

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I’ve decided I’m not very good with titles. I don’t mean blog post titles, although those are hard enough in their own right. No, I mean titles that we put on ourselves, or what we call ourselves.

When I was growing up, I was a swimmer. I had no problem calling myself that, but even though I practiced 2 hours a day, lifted weights and ran, traveled for meets on the weekends, and sacrificed a lot of lazy summer days in favor of training, I never thought of myself as an athlete. I didn’t swim for my school, so it wasn’t blatantly obvious that I was athletic. And plus, I thought of athletes as members of a team, people with good hand/eye coordination who wore their uniforms to school once a week. But I realize in retrospect that I was AN ATHLETE.

Recently the title of “writer” has been coming up for me. At our last church, we asked “get to know you” type questions at the beginning of our young adult Bible study every week. I remember one week the question was, “When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?” My answer was, “I always wanted to be a writer, but now I don’t really think that’s where my life is going.” Our minister, who had probably read some blog posts of mine, said, “Laura, you ARE a writer.” But I brushed it off. Writers were people who woke up in the morning and slaved away at the keyboard, people who wanted to published. I was not a writer.

I’m reading Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I love Anne Lamott and every word that comes out of her pen, but some lingering voice in the back of my head keeps telling me, “This book isn’t for you. This book is for writers. You’re not a writer.”

But recently, as I was sending an email to a local internet publication in response to their call for contributing writers, it hit me: I AM a writer. I may not hone my craft like some do. I may not agonize over words. I may not have any desire to be published. But because I write, I am a writer, just like because I swam, I was an athlete. It makes sense in my head; I don’t know why I have so much trouble embracing titles like that. But I’m trying this one out: I am a writer. I am a writer. I am a writer.

What are you? Do you struggle with titles?

making time

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As I’ve written before, blogging (including reading other blogs) is truly what I’d call one of my hobbies. I look forward to sitting down and flipping through my Google Reader feed, and I really miss it if I go a few days without it! That might sound some crazy to some folks, but I figure those of you reading this post can probably relate. Given all of that, visiting the blogosphere usually just naturally happens, but lately I’ve been struggling to fit it in (as you may have noticed from the lack of posts here).

I always read advice in women’s magazines and such that says you have to make time for you, even to the point of scheduling it or writing it on your to-do list. They’re usually talking about exercise, or date nights with your husband, or dinner with your girlfriends, but I think right now for me it needs to include my blog life! I’ve had a couple of abnormal weeks and weekends, so I feel like I’ve been doing well to stay on top of my domestic duties, my exercise, and my sleep, but this little corner of the Internet has ended up being neglected.

I keep a running to-do list, so I’ve added an entry that says “sort through starred Reader items-pin/do” to remind that I have posts stored away that need action. I also think Unpunctuated Life here needs some love. I updated the books page recently, but I haven’t changed much else of the static content since I launched last summer. I could use some new pictures and, who knows?!, maybe a new layout and color scheme! And of course, I need to get back in a groove of scheduling posts and keeping a list of ideas that are floating around in my head so that when I do sit down to write I don’t come up blank. (P.S. If you have any suggestions of content you’d like to see or appearance that would catch your eye I am more than open to hearing them!)

This was a pretty meta-blogging blog post, but the concept is applicable elsewhere for sure. What do you do when you find yourself in a rut? How do you make time for the things you enjoy but that aren’t necessarily necessary?