writing | Bertram's Blog

Spontaneous Stupidity or Vision Quest?

October 31, 2010 — Pat Bertram

There are so many stages to grief one gets dizzy trying to keep up with the changes. I’ve tried to embrace my grief during the past seven months, giving in to the emotion of each stage, but the stage I’m in now is one I will not tolerate — self-pity. Lucky for me, this new manifestation of grief shows up right in time for NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo (National Novel Writing Month and National Blog Posting Month, though considering the international aspects of both challenges, they should be called InNoWriMo and InBloPoMo). The nano challenge is to write 50,000 words during November. The nablo challenge is to post a bloggery every day during November, and I signed up for both of them. Yikes. At least I’ll keep myself so busy that I will have no time to feel sorry for myself.

The nano site says: “Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives.” By doing both NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo I’m inviting more than just a little spontaneous stupidity into my life, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m a very slow writer, so I’ll probably end up writing stream of consciousness, which is a cheat since it’s not exactly writing a novel, but I’m doing this more as a vision quest than a writing exercise. Grief digs deep into one’s psyche, dislodging buried feelings and thoughts — sort of like digging for fossils in a tar pit. I’m hoping that by forcing myself to write an insane number of words the loosened bits will surface, bringing me enlightenment. Or wisdom. Or . . . just about anything other than self-pity.

Nancy A. Niles, author of the upcoming thriller Vendetta, posted an article on the Second Wind Publishing Blog mentioning the three things necessary to maintain good mental health:

Challenges, or facing fears
Attitude
Support system

Well, this month I have the challenges, I have the attitude, and I’m privileged to have a wonderful online support system — people who will help keep me motivated.

I’ll let you know what happens. To be honest, you couldn’t stop me. There’s that small matter of having to fill thirty blog posts during the next thirty days . . .

Posted in blogging, culture, grief, internet, writing. Tags: dealing with loss, embracing grief, grief, NaBloPoMo, Nancy A. Niles, NaNoWriMo, self-pity, spontaneous stupidity, stages of grief, tar pit, Vendetta, vision quest. 7 Comments »

Is Hate a Stage of Grief?

October 12, 2010 — Pat Bertram

Is hate a stage of grief? If not, it should be. I don’t see how one can avoid it.

I’ve proved, to myself at least, that I can live without my life mate. It’s been twenty-eight weeks since he died, and in that time I’ve managed to get rid of his clothes and his car, clean out the accumulation of decades, move 1000 miles from our home, walk at least that many miles, eat, drink a lot of water, sleep (after a fashion), make new friends (mostly people who have also lost their mates, which gives us an instant bond of understanding). I smile now, and laugh. I can even look forward to the immediate future: I’ve planned an excursion (going to an art museum to see Mesoamerican antiquities, including an Olmec head) and I’m thinking about doing NaNoWriMo (something I said I would never do, but I need to kick start my writing after all the kicks life has given me lately). The point is, despite my grief, despite the oceans of tears I’ve shed and continue to shed, I have done these things. I can live without him. But I hate that I have to.

I’m coming to an acceptance of his death, though I’m not sure I understand it. (Don’t much understand life, either, but that’s a topic for another day.) I know I will never see him again in this life, and I hate it. I hate that I will never go back home to him. I hate that I will never talk to him again. I hate that I will never see his slow sweet smile again.

I hate that he will never watch another movie. I hate that he will never plant another tree and watch it grow. I hate that he will never have another cat. I hate that he will never read another book. I hate that he will never listen to his music tapes again. I hate that he will never start another business. I hate that he will never play another game of baseball, or smell another flower, or swim in another lake. I hate that so many of his dreams are going unfilfulled.

Most of all, I hate that he is dead.

I am thankful that I had him in my life for as long as I did, but I hate that his years were cut short. I know I should be glad that he isn’t suffering any more, and I am. But I hate that he had to suffer in the first place.

This stage will pass as have all the other stages of grief I’ve lived through. I might even find happiness again, but he will still be gone. And I hate that.

Posted in culture, grief, life, writing. Tags: acceptance, dealing with grief, death, grief, hate, loss, loss of a mate, stages of grief. 25 Comments »

Introvert or Extravert?

October 3, 2010 — Pat Bertram

I don’t like the words introvert and extrovert. The common definition of an introvert is a painfully shy person or someone who thinks only of him/herself, while an extrovert is an outgoing, sociable person with interests outside him/herself. In our society, which rewards the gregarious, being an introvert seems to put one at a disadvantage. Introverts, however, are not always shy, and apparent extroverts can be uncomfortable in crowds. And introverts are no more self-centered than extroverts.

According to Laurie Helgoe, author of Revenge of the Introverts published in Psychology Today, “It’s often possible to spot introverts by their conversational style. They’re the ones doing the listening. Extraverts are more likely to pepper people with questions. Introverts like to think before responding—many prefer to think out what they want to say in advance—and seek facts before expressing opinions. Extraverts are comfortable thinking as they speak. Introverts prefer slow-paced interactions that allow room for thought. Brainstorming does not work for them. Email does.”

Colin DeYoung, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, says that introverts do best in quiet conditions and extraverts do better with more noise.

So being an introvert is neither a disadvantage nor an advantage, simply a different way of processing information. Which could provide an answer to a conundrum I’ve been considering for some time now: why some authors can effortlessly flood a page with words, and others struggle to find a few words.

All the books about how to write say not to edit as you go, but to let the words gush out of you, to write the first draft as quickly as possible. As much as I like the idea of letting the words flow and seeing what transpires, nothing shows up on the page unless I sit and ponder. So, even though few writing coaches admit it (and why would they? They are probably all extroverts) there are different approaches to writing: extrovert and introvert.

A writing extrovert would be someone who can write anywhere — on a bus, in a crowded room, in a coffee shop. Even when alone, they like to write accompanied by sound, either music or the television. And no matter what, the words gush forth as fast or faster than fingers can type.

A writing introvert would be someone who can only write when alone and in absolute silence. The words come slowly to these authors. Once involved in a scene, however, these writers get into the flow of writing, and the words can come more quickly, though still slowly in comparison to the writing extroverts. And, though they are gradually shifting to computers, their preferred method of writing is by hand so they can get the best mind/hand connection.

Of course, few people inhabit the extremes of this writing spectrum — most authors find themselves somewhere in the middle.

It’s apparent what kind of writer I am — an extreme introvert. I need the quiet so I can find the few words that bobble to the tip of my mind. What kind of writer are you?

Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: extrovert, introvert, Laurie Helgoe, Psychology Today, Revenge of the Introverts, writing, writing style. 15 Comments »

Recording Your Character’s Voice by Aaron Paul Lazar

September 16, 2010 — Pat Bertram

Please welcome my guest, Aaron Paul Lazar, author of the LeGarde mysteries and Healey’s Cave, the first book in the Moore paranormal mysteries. Lazar says:

I’m wondering if every author needs to take voice-over training. Especially if they want to record their works in audio formats.

Readers like hearing the author read. Right? They know that only the author really understands the nuances of each sentence, the way it was supposed to be said aloud. I do believe this, and wish I could download books read by Dean Koontz himself, or that John D. MacDonald could come down from Heaven for a while to record his Travis MacGee series for us. Wouldn’t that be cool?

When you’re reading from your own character’s point of view, you really have to get inside his head. You have to feel his pain, suffer his humiliations, and share in his joy.

Could you do that? If so, it’s a good sign that you really know your characters.

And what do you do if your character is of the opposite sex? I guess unless you’re a woman with a very deep voice, or a man who does a reasonable falsetto, you’ve got to find someone who fits that mold, a friend who can sound like your character and really get inside his or her brain.

Would you like to get to know a character, even before you read his book?

Well, I never took acting lessons, but I sat in the back of the auditorium while my daughter performed in fifteen musicals and plays. Maybe a little of the training rubbed off on me. I don’t know.

Regardless, I figured it was a good idea to help create a little buzz for my debut book in my new green marble series by writing a letter from Sam Moore to his future readers. Would you like to hear it? See what you think and please let me know, below.

Sam Moore’s most intimate and tortured thoughts are in this video. It’s not really a normal video, but the only way to get audio on YouTube or other sites is to put a jpeg image behind it and save it as a movie file. ;o) Took me all day to figure that out – shows you how bright I am. And I didn’t want to make it into a book trailer, for Heaven’s sake. I already have one of those!

Sam Moore is a retired country doctor in the new paranormal mystery series, Moore Mysteries. The first book just came out via Twilight Times Books, and you can read the first few chapters here: Healey’s Cave .

***

Aaron Paul Lazar writes to soothe his soul. The author of LeGarde Mysteries and Moore Mysteries enjoys the Genesee Valley countryside in upstate New York, where his characters embrace life, play with their dogs and grandkids, grow sumptuous gardens, and chase bad guys. Visit his websites at www.legardemysteries.com and www.mooremysteries.com and watch for his upcoming release, FIRESONG, coming Winter, 2010.

Posted in books, writing. Tags: Aaron Paul Lazar, audio books, Healey's Cave, LeGarde mysteries, Moore Mysteries, recording. 9 Comments »

The Healing Power of Stories

September 14, 2010 — Pat Bertram

I attend a bereavement group every week, which surprises me, considering that I’ve always been a do-it-yourself sort. I only started going to the meetings because I wanted to know how to survive the terrible agony of grief I experienced after the loss of my mate. I didn’t learn how — it’s something no one can teach another — but I learned that one could survive those first unbelievably painful weeks when I met people who had survived them. I keep going to the group because of those same people. We have something in common, a shared understanding, a survivor’s respect. And now, after five months, I am one of those who, just by being there, show the newly shell-shocked bereaved that one can learn to live with the devastation of a major loss.

Each meeting begins with a lesson, and today’s lesson was about the importance of stories and how they help us heal. The people who attended the meeting today all happened to be women who had lost their mates after decades of being together, and the counselor asked each of us to tell the story not of our mates’ deaths, but of how we met. We all knew the end of each of our love stories — over the months we have told the story of our grief many times. But this is the first time we talked about the beginning of our love stories, and in those stories we found hope, comfort, smiles, a reconnection to our past.

According to the handout we were given, the benefits of telling stories are:

Searching for wholeness among our fractured parts
Coming to know who we are in new and unexpected ways
We can explore our past and come to a more profound understanding of our future direction
We can seek forgiveness and be humbled by our own mortality
We can discover the route to healing lies not only in the physical realm, but also in the emotional and spiritual realms.

An unexpected result of today’s lesson was a new understanding of the importance of writing. For me, anyway.

These past months, I’ve spent a lot of time reading. I have always tried to lose myself — and find myself — in fictional worlds during periods of trauma, but this time it’s not working the way I hoped. I’m not finding healing in current books. The authors seem to be going for the shock effect of not-so-good versus unbelievably-outrageous-evil, for story people who have identifiable characteristics but no character, for fast-paced stories with little substance or truth. How does one find wholeness in such stories? How do we come to know each other or come to a more profound understanding of our future in trite mysteries and unrealistic thrillers?

Perhaps it’s not important. Maybe entertainment is all that counts when it comes to fiction, but I want something more. And I especially want something more when it comes to my own writing. I don’t know where grief is taking me — it is changing me in ways I cannot yet fathom — but I hope I will end up writing stories of truth, of understanding, of healing. I hope I will make people smile. I hope my words will matter.

Posted in culture, grief, life, writing. Tags: bereavement, bereavement group, death, dying, grief, grief counselor, grief group, healing grief, healing power of stories, life lessons, loss, love stories, stories. 7 Comments »

Sucker Punched by Grief

August 31, 2010 — Pat Bertram

After the first excruciating months, dealing with a major loss is like being in the ring with an ever-weakening opponent. The feeble jabs inflict little pain, and you start feeling as if you can go the distance. Gradually, as the blows come further and further apart, you let down your guard. You even welcome the blows that do land, because they remind you why you are fighting. Then . . .

Wham!

Out of nowhere comes the knockout punch.

My knockout punch came after a restless night. I finally fell asleep in the early morning hours, and I dreamt.

I dreamed that my life mate was dead, but I woke to find him alive and getting well. It was wonderful seeing him doing so much better, and a quiet joy seeped over me.

I started to wake. In the seconds before full consciousness hit, I continued to feel the joy of knowing he still lived. Then . . .

Wham!

The truth hit me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Then, like an aftershock, came the raw pain, the heartbreak of losing him . . . again.

I’d only dreamt about him once before, and that was at the beginning when my defenses were still in place. In that first dream, I told him I thought he’d died, but deep down I knew the truth, and there was no shock when I awoke, just a feeling of gladness that I got to see him once more. But this time, I had let down my guard. I even felt a bit smug that I was getting a grip on my grief so early in the process, and so the dream caught me unaware. In the depths of my being, I believed that he hadn’t died.

I cried on and off for two or three days (I lost count; grief tends to override time) but now I’ve regained my equilibrium — at least until the next time.

A friend who counsels the bereft told me, “In my experience with grief, a healthy person, such as yourself, is going to grieve in a gradually diminishing way for two years.”

Two years??!!

If so, I have a very long way to go. I’d planned to stop blogging about grief. I don’t want people to think I am eliciting sympathy, nor do I want to seem pathetic, grieving long after the non-bereft think I should be done with it. But if I’m going to have bouts of pain for many months to come, I might as well share them and let others take whatever comfort they can from my learning experiences.

This episode with the dream taught me to be patient with myself. I’ve been thinking that I’m mostly healed, and I’ve been feeling like a slacker, just taking life a moment at a time, not doing anything to prepare for the rest of my life, not doing much of anything but reading, walking, writing a little (a very little), taking photographs, and going through my mate’s collection of movies. Now that I know the power of the sucker punch, and how easily it can gain the upper hand, I understand this simple life is all I can expect of me right now. And perhaps that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Posted in blogging, culture, grief, life, writing. Tags: dealing with grief, death, dreams, grief, loss, loss of a lifemate, major loss. 7 Comments »

Sorry For Your Loss

August 15, 2010 — Pat Bertram

Cops, social workers, therapists, just about anyone who deals with death in any capacity, learn to give an automatic, “I’m sorry for your loss,” to the bereaved. At first, this condolence by rote bothered me. It came across as insensitive and . . . well, automatic. Besides, it seemed to reduce the death of my mate to the level of a lost sock. I don’t mind as much now. Even though I have been born into the world of grief, I still don’t know what to say to someone who is grieving. Besides, grief is about loss, and not just the primary loss of a loved one, but also multiple secondary losses.

In my case, when I lost my life mate, I lost my home (my mate was my home even more than the house we lived in, but I lost that too when I had to move away). I lost the future we planned. I lost the hopes we had. I lost my best friend. I lost my partner. I lost my lifestyle. I lost the one person who knew everything about me and liked me anyway. I lost the person I could depend on to be there when I needed him. And most of all, I lost myself.

It’s not so much that I saw myself as an adjunct to him, or that my identity depended on him, but he was the focus of my life for more than three decades. By his very being, he gave my life meaning. Before we met, I always wondered about the meaning of life. I wanted to live a significant life, to make sure my life meant something. After we met, I didn’t worry about such things — at least, not much. It was important that we were together, that we faced the world together. Only after his death did I realize how much “togetherness” mattered to me. And the loss of that togetherness is something to mourn.

Now that I am alone, I have to find meaning in “aloneness,” to find significance in that aloneness. And I don’t know if I can. I feel fractured, as if bits of me are scattered all over the universe, and I haven’t a clue how to put myself together again. Oddly enough, I had no real interest in spending my years with anyone until he entered my life. And now I am back where I started. Sort of.

I feel a bit foolish (and self-pitying) at times for all the tears I shed. I always thought I was more stoic than this, able to take life’s big dramas in stride. Yet the deletion of him from the earth is impossible for me to fathom. It affects every single aspect of my life. I haven’t found the bedrock of my new life — the thing, the idea, the place, whatever that bedrock might be — that gives me a firm footing and allows me to get on with my life. He’s been gone for twenty weeks (is that a lot or a little? I no longer have any sense of time) and everything is still resettling. If I get a grip on one facet of my loss, another secondary loss rises to the surface. And so his absence (and my loss) becomes more profound as time passes.

I’ve been trying to write again, and even in such an exercise that epitomizes aloneness, I feel his absence. I used to read what I wrote to him. He didn’t always have a suggestion or a comment, but sometimes he’d get a little smile on his face when I hit the scene just right. And that smile is just one more loss for which I am sorry.

: : : : : : : : : :

Posted in culture, grief, life, writing. Tags: aloneness, condolences, death, grief, identity, identity crisis, loss, secondary loss, togetherness. 15 Comments »

Comes the Dawn

July 24, 2010 — Pat Bertram

Someone recently sent me a version of this poem. Turns out there are several versions and several author claimants. The two most likely authors are Veronica Shoffstall or Judith Evans, though the person who sent it to me has had it for many decades, so it could be older than any of the self-professed authors. Still, whoever wrote it, the poem has brought comfort to a lot of people.

Comes The Dawn

After a while, you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul.
And you learn that loving doesn’t mean leaning
and company isn’t security.
(Kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises.)

After a while you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes open,
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build your roads on today
because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain
and the inevitable has a way of crumbling in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns
if you stand too long in one place.

So, you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone else to bring you flowers.
And you learn you really can endure,
that you really do have worth.
You learn that with every good-bye comes the dawn.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: Comes the Dawn, Judith Evans, poem, Veronica Shoffstall. 18 Comments »

Write for the Dead Whom Thou Didst Love

July 22, 2010 — Pat Bertram

A voice calls, “Write, write!”
I say, “For whom shall I write.”
And the voice replies,
“For the dead whom thou didst love.”

—John Berryman

I read a novel the other day where the main character was a grieving widow with a young daughter, but neither character showed any symptoms of grief — at least not what I have come to know as grief. The only indication of their grief was a conversation about how the two needed to be strong and not cry.

If this is the way the non-grieving public learns about grief, no wonder so few of us understand what grieving means until we find ourselves immersed in this strange new world. Because of the lack of characters who grieve properly, I’ve been toying with writing a book about a grieving woman, even going so far as to write a few scenes while the emotion is still fresh in my mind (though I can’t imagine ever forgetting what it feels like to grieve for a soul mate — every single day in a thousand ways, I am reminded once again that he is gone).

After having written those few scenes, I now understand why it’s almost impossible to write a grief-stricken character. All the tears, the pain, the nausea, the inability to focus, the not sleeping or sleeping too much, the not eating or eating too much add up to a character who appears as a wimp and a whiner. We are so used to invincible characters who manage to fight despite grievous wounds or agonizing pain, that a normal character living a normal — though grief-filled life — comes across as a weakling. Another problem is that a character who cries at her own pain, who feels everything herself, eliminates the need for readers to feel that pain, and so they dissociate from the character. But the very nature of grief is feeling pain. It’s by embracing the pain, by letting the tears spill over, by giving in to the grief that we come to terms with it.

Perhaps that’s the way I should write the character — have her actively participate in her grief. Instead of being brave and not crying, she should embrace the pain, make grief a part of her life. And in doing so, she will show her strength.

Posted in grief, life, writing. Tags: characters, emotional scene, grief, John Berryman. 11 Comments »

Nor All Your Tears . . .

July 11, 2010 — Pat Bertram

The Moving Finger writes, and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it.

When I started writing, I often thought of the above quatrain from the “Rubaiyat of Omar Kayyam.” It made me smile to reflect that this warning about the moving finger does not hold true when it comes to writing. We writers can — and should — rewrite and rewrite until the story turns out exactly the way we want it to turn out.

When it comes to real life and especially death, however, there is no rewriting. If the story does not turn out the way we want, too bad. And tears, as I now know from experience, will not wash away a single moment of what has already happened.

No matter how much I cry, my mate is still dead.

I worry sometimes about talking so much about my crying for him (and for me). Perhaps people will see me as weak since people often equate tears with spinelessness and immaturity. There is certainly something babyish about crying for that which one cannot have, for wailing against that which one cannot change. Sometimes I think I should be braver about this traumatic turn my life has taken, or more stoic. Still, tears are the only way I have of momentarily relieving the terrible ache of his absence. And this reason for tears is true not only for me.

I met a woman who cannot cry over the death of her husband, though she wants to. People have suggested that she cut onions to stimulate tears, but research shows that tears released by such irritations are different from those released because of emotion. Dr. William Frey, a biochemist and director of the Dry Eye and Tear Research Center in Minneapolis, says that people “may be removing, in their tears, chemicals that build up during emotional stress.” So crying is not a sign of weakness. Abstaining from crying is not a sign of bravery.

Tears are simply that — tears — though I wish with all my heart they were more, that they had the power to wash away the past and bring my mate back to me, healthy and happy.