Ep163: How Writing Heals with Guest Becky Ellis

Writer Craft Podcast

Announcements:

• 2024 Writer Craft Writing Retreat and Workshop registration open; https://valerieihsan.com/retreat (Day Passes $400) I've got four spaces left. I have decided that because of the Costa Rica move next year, I will NOT be having a retreat in 2025. So, if you've been on the fence, NOW is the time to make the decision to purchase a ticket for this month.
• Part of my Burnout Recovery Series on Patreon now includes the addition of The Artist's Way. I'll be hosting a "Creative Cluster" via Zoom, starting Aug 8, (tomorrow!) Thursday, 10am-noon Pacific. It's a 12 week program only for my patrons, so go over and pick out any of the tiers. You'd need to attend live for how the sharing and caring is done, and there will not be replays. Instead, for those that can't attend live, I'll be posting in the Patron Community about my growth and inviting you to share yours in the comments. What's your experience with The Artist's Way?
• Three Story Method: Writing How-To Books out now.
• Focus and Finish: Goal-Setting and Strategic Planning for Writers (First in Series; out now.)
• Black Springs Saga Book 1 out now (it's the prequel) 99 cents (Accidental Stranger Book 2 preorder this coming week)
• SWWC and Write in the Harbor (Erick teaching.) (Valerie will be at Write on the Sound in Gig Harbor, WA this year, too! And also speaking at Alaska Writers Guild conference in Anchorage in October.)
• Host of Ghost Story Weekend for Wordcrafters. (Erick)

Author Update:

Erick:

• Valerie:
• getting ready for the retreat
• Working with my Burnout Recovery plan; Updates through my Patreon page.

• I'm reading: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman and Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Huang Bo-Reum.
• Just finished:
• A Certain Kind of Starlight by Heather Webber.

• Thunder Song by Sasha taqŵšeblu LaPointe
• The Entire Sky by Joe Wilkins

Erick:

Becky is reading: Annie Ernaux's "A Woman's Story" and "A Man's Place"

Notes:

Main Topic starts at: 11:42

Becky Ellis is a Timberwolf Pup. The

daughter of a highly decorated

World War II combat sergeant, she

is a veteran of a war fought at home. She earned a BA

in English Literature at UC Berkeley and has over

twenty years of experience in the publishing industry.

She teaches writing in Portland, Oregon, where she

lives, plays, and has raised three daughters. Little

Avalanches is her debut memoir. https://instagram.com/beckyellisauthor

Won Rubery Book Award 2024.

1. Did you yoga or write first? Yoga came first. Part of the process of getting into my body. Writers live in our heads. Yoga kept me body aware. Start feel yourself. Accesses to feel your feelings. Access internal world in more embodied way. Bad Acting = Facial Expressions. Get on the Body. Get off the face. Exercise: close eyes and feel everything.

2. How did writing impact your healing? Transformational impact as a person. Understanding my father, saw them separate from me. See myself for the first time. Writing from the child's perspective. A lot of inner-child work. Consciously explore my own reasons for doing what. Study of the self = memoir. Putting your characters IN the story. Concrete sensory details. Have access to that place.

3. Talk a little about the fears memoirists have around writing about their family. Any tips or guidelines? And how does that feed into breaking cycles of silence and secret-keeping?

So important to get the stories on the page. Be a Just God on the page. Give everyone their reasons for doing what they did. Take a step back, and ask Why they did it. Shifts out of victimhood. People want to be seen and felt. Everyone was totally fine with it. Take time to figure out why they did it.

4. Your media kit mentions Trauma Bounce (bouncing back from the trauma). What should we be on the lookout for when writing and getting retriggered? Spent half the time crying. Strategies: therapy while writing, yoga, find safety where you can.

Exercise for memoirists: Highlight all the exposition. Get rid of all the the exposition and repetition. You can thread it back in afterwards.

5 How can wisdom come through action? Show it in the character arc, actions at end of story different than at the beginning.

So many objects in rough drafts. Use them for metaphor. Don't mine your life, mine your page.

Positive side to trauma. Try and try and try. "If you quit, you'll die." Train to survive. Feel so powerful in the end.

Writing to be in service to the reader. What are we in service to? The reader. What psychological practice can we share with the reader?

Structure of book to manipulating reader's emotions.

Find Us:

Valerie's Linktree: https://linktr.ee/valerieihsan

Erick's Linktree link: https://linktr.ee/erickmertzauthor