Chapter 16 is a doozy; Fletcher tackles writing from the heart. "This is important," he says. "I believe that you can find energy as a writer by approaching borders -- the edge of language, the limbus of your history, the outermost limit of your fears. The most difficult subjects. Your notebook gives you a way to move closer to that border, or even cross it. Writing at the border has its therapeutic benefits, no doubt, but it can also spark your deepest, truest writing." (p 88)
One of the very first publications that I was involved in as a scrapbooker was called Imperfect Lives: Scrapping the Reality of Your Everyday. This idea of scrapbooking everything -- the good, the bad, and the ugle -- rather than a sterilized June Cleaver version of your life is something that I think is really essential to capturing the truth of your life for posterity. This is the same addressed in Fletcher's book, and he's quick to point out both the pros and cons of really telling it like it is.
"...it's not always easy to admit the truth, let alone write it...From early childhood we are socialized to be so damned polite. This training produces grownups who rarely forget to say thank you or keep our mouths closed while chewing food, but who find it almost impossible to be totally candid, even when we're writing for our own eyes only...Rereading my notebooks I come upon page after page of writing that is superficial, worthless, dishonest...These are the places where I fail myself: the real stuff of my life never gets written down." (p 88)
Take a look through your scrapbooks or your online gallery. Be honest with yourself. Is this the case with your layouts? Are they full of generic sentiment?
"There are several possible explanations for why we so often pull punches when we write. Notebook scribbling is private writing, but many people fear the consequences of being exposed should a husband, daughter, or mother violate this privacy. The result is stilted, wary, buttoned-up writing...But there's another reason. When we write something, the words take on their own life. Stare back at us. Become real. Once we have written about a painful incident or disturbing realization it becomes much harder to make it vanish." (p 88)
Fletcher sums everything up with this thought-provoking question: "Sure it's hard to write from the honest part of your heart. But if you can't tell the truth in your notebook -- at least some of the time -- where can you tell it? And if your notebook doesn't reflect the marrow of your inner life, what good is it?" (p 91)
Here's just one layout from our storyteller Valorie that I think perfectly illustrates Fletcher's point.
We encourage you to share your stories with us in our gallery {stories} and your thought with us in our forum {tales}. Take time to stop by our shop, too, and pick up this week's Book Fair kit, plus tons of great items marked down 45%, just in time for {inter}National Scrapbooking Day.
write on,
{storyteller} aud
