For Immediate Release:

Friday, September 18, 2015

http://ruthcrocker.com Writer Sun, 06 Sep 2015 00:10:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://ruthcrocker.com/what-is-your-writing-practice/ http://ruthcrocker.com/what-is-your-writing-practice/#comments Sun, 06 Sep 2015 00:10:29 +0000 http://ruthcrocker.com/?p=1454 Writing takes time and courage. But, is there a sure-fire approach that will maximize productivity? I’m not sure.  Unfortunately, I don’t have an organized practice – or even a routine that I can easily describe. Deadlines are always a great inspiration and get me to the desk more frequently than anything else. I know I’m not a morning writer. That’s when I prefer to read. I build up to writing during the day and hopefully start in the afternoon. It’s easier for me to see what distracts me from writing. Today, I’m feeling dispossessed, as if I can’t settle down and feel at home in the world. I’ve spent most of the day roaming around my house, picking up random books, wondering if I should give some of them to the library book sale. If I can sit down and start typing, I know that I might get through this odd feeling of having elusive, abstract, uncomfortable ideas. I might begin to understand and tease apart my sense of absence and become present. As David Whyte says in Consolations, “we become visible and real when we give our gift and stop waiting for the gift to be given to us. We wake into our lives again…” Whyte also says that most of us feel besieged: by events, by people, and even by our own imagined creative possibilities. He suggests starting the day with a “don’t do” list rather than a “to do” list so that you have the highest likelihood of getting to your writing. Life happens – birth, death, an accident, a financial setback – and may take you far away from the page for an extended time, […]

The post What is Your Writing Practice? appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>            Writing takes time and courage. But, is there a sure-fire approach that will maximize productivity? I’m not sure.  Unfortunately, I don’t have an organized practice – or even a routine that I can easily describe. Deadlines are always a great inspiration and get me to the desk more frequently than anything else. I know I’m not a morning writer. That’s when I prefer to read. I build up to writing during the day and hopefully start in the afternoon.

It’s easier for me to see what distracts me from writing. Today, I’m feeling dispossessed, as if I can’t settle down and feel at home in the world. I’ve spent most of the day roaming around my house, picking up random books, wondering if I should give some of them to the library book sale. If I can sit down and start typing, I know that I might get through this odd feeling of having elusive, abstract, uncomfortable ideas. I might begin to understand and tease apart my sense of absence and become present. As David Whyte says in Consolations, “we become visible and real when we give our gift and stop waiting for the gift to be given to us. We wake into our lives again…”

Whyte also says that most of us feel besieged: by events, by people, and even by our own imagined creative possibilities. He suggests starting the day with a “don’t do” list rather than a “to do” list so that you have the highest likelihood of getting to your writing.

Life happens – birth, death, an accident, a financial setback – and may take you far away from the page for an extended time, but you can begin again. Sit down, turn off your critical editor and write a sentence, a paragraph, perhaps a page. Natalie Goldberg says in Writing Down the Bones that every time we sit down to write we must come back to the beginner’s mind.

“There is no security, no assurance that because we wrote something good two months ago, we will do it again. Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we ever did it before. Each time is a new journey with no maps.”

Writing is delicious, messy, and challenging. It’s worth all the effort it takes to make it happen.

The post What is Your Writing Practice? appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>http://ruthcrocker.com/what-is-your-writing-practice/feed/ 0 http://ruthcrocker.com/the-emotional-tentacles-of-suicide/ http://ruthcrocker.com/the-emotional-tentacles-of-suicide/#comments Sun, 02 Aug 2015 21:43:06 +0000 http://ruthcrocker.com/?p=1417 My mind needs spring-cleaning right now, just like the rest of my house. The ideas are piled up like laundry ready to be sorted and folded and put somewhere. They are mental meteors ready to land and make a big splash, promising to be the beginning of an adventure on the page, but the lights on the landing field are obscured. My brilliant gems zoom off un-tethered into the stratosphere. I excuse this by reminding myself that I am besieged because a member of my family recently committed suicide. I’m choosing my words carefully. David Whyte says that most people feel besieged most of the time by events, by people – even by the creative possibilities they have set in motion themselves. A traumatic event, a suicide, throws the mind into disarray by demanding a place within every thought, every activity. It’s difficult to remember our vision of what we were doing and what we wanted to do with our lives before the event. Someone has chosen to stop in the midst of life and we question how to regroup and reorganize our life without them. The people who are still in the world are waiting for us to come back from the disorganization and brittleness of grief and we’re not sure how to cross the river of broken dreams and rejoin the world. Peter Walsh, believes that organization begins in the mind rather than our basements. Walsh became famous as an organizer of clutter on the TV series, “Clean Sweep.” He doesn’t focus on objects, he goes right to the heart of the matter. He asks his clients: “What’s your vision for the life you want?” He starts with the purported “purpose,” picking up […]

The post The Emotional Tentacles of Suicide appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>My mind needs spring-cleaning right now, just like the rest of my house. The ideas are piled up like laundry ready to be sorted and folded and put somewhere. They are mental meteors ready to land and make a big splash, promising to be the beginning of an adventure on the page, but the lights on the landing field are obscured. My brilliant gems zoom off un-tethered into the stratosphere.

I excuse this by reminding myself that I am besieged because a member of my family recently committed suicide. I’m choosing my words carefully. David Whyte says that most people feel besieged most of the time by events, by people – even by the creative possibilities they have set in motion themselves.

A traumatic event, a suicide, throws the mind into disarray by demanding a place within every thought, every activity. It’s difficult to remember our vision of what we were doing and what we wanted to do with our lives before the event. Someone has chosen to stop in the midst of life and we question how to regroup and reorganize our life without them. The people who are still in the world are waiting for us to come back from the disorganization and brittleness of grief and we’re not sure how to cross the river of broken dreams and rejoin the world.

Peter Walsh, believes that organization begins in the mind rather than our basements. Walsh became famous as an organizer of clutter on the TV series, “Clean Sweep.” He doesn’t focus on objects, he goes right to the heart of the matter. He asks his clients: “What’s your vision for the life you want?” He starts with the purported “purpose,” picking up an object and asking the homeowner if it moves them closer or farther away from their life vision. If it’s further away, out they go.

Perhaps vision is like hope, that place of deep intentionality and connection between what we feel inside and what formerly seemed outside. It is finding again the frontier of our thoughts where things seemed new. Perhaps I can find that place again where I was comfortable with my relationship with grief and living with it.

I’m in search of my place in the living conversation. And perhaps I’ll arrive if I can unpack my words again and land on the page.

The post The Emotional Tentacles of Suicide appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>http://ruthcrocker.com/the-emotional-tentacles-of-suicide/feed/ 0 http://ruthcrocker.com/national-nurses-week-2015-celebrating-those-who-care/ http://ruthcrocker.com/national-nurses-week-2015-celebrating-those-who-care/#comments Wed, 06 May 2015 22:59:03 +0000 http://ruthcrocker.com/?p=1338 During National Nurses week 2015, from May 6 – 12,  we acknowledge and celebrate the excellence and dedication of those who choose the nursing profession. I grew up surrounded by nurses in a nursing home that my family owned and operated. The patients were mostly elderly people who had the usual physical and mental problems related to aging, but we lived in a rural area and my mother’s skills as a Registered Nurse also made her the go-to person for many emergencies around the village – cuts, burns and even broken bones, head injuries and emotional problems. I can see my mother calmly cleaning and dressing a bloody wound caused by broken glass and, on another occasion, carefully positioning a child’s possibly broken leg after a fall from a tree. Eventually, a doctor might become involved, but watching my mother and her colleagues in action day after day offered me firsthand knowledge that nurses, always women in those days, were unsung heroines. Nurses in war zones and military settings have done their job quietly and largely unnoticed as well, putting their lives in peril on the battlefield for centuries. Yet, little is known about their experiences in war or exactly how many participated. Even appropriate financial remuneration has been meager and long in coming. Only at the end of the twentieth century did nurses’ pay, both in military and civilian life, begin to become commensurate with the risks and responsibilities of their jobs. Many women served as nurses during the Revolutionary War, but they are barely mentioned in history books. The Second Continental Congress, heeding George Washington’s advice to establish a means of caring for wounded and sick soldiers, authorized the formation of hospitals. In […]

The post National Nurses Week 2015: Celebrating Those Who Care appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>

My mother, Estella Whipple, 1943

During National Nurses week 2015, from May 6 – 12,  we acknowledge and celebrate the excellence and dedication of those who choose the nursing profession. I grew up surrounded by nurses in a nursing home that my family owned and operated. The patients were mostly elderly people who had the usual physical and mental problems related to aging, but we lived in a rural area and my mother’s skills as a Registered Nurse also made her the go-to person for many emergencies around the village – cuts, burns and even broken bones, head injuries and emotional problems.

I can see my mother calmly cleaning and dressing a bloody wound caused by broken glass and, on another occasion, carefully positioning a child’s possibly broken leg after a fall from a tree. Eventually, a doctor might become involved, but watching my mother and her colleagues in action day after day offered me firsthand knowledge that nurses, always women in those days, were unsung heroines.

Nurses in war zones and military settings have done their job quietly and largely unnoticed as well, putting their lives in peril on the battlefield for centuries. Yet, little is known about their experiences in war or exactly how many participated. Even appropriate financial remuneration has been meager and long in coming. Only at the end of the twentieth century did nurses’ pay, both in military and civilian life, begin to become commensurate with the risks and responsibilities of their jobs.

Many women served as nurses during the Revolutionary War, but they are barely mentioned in history books. The Second Continental Congress, heeding George Washington’s advice to establish a means of caring for wounded and sick soldiers, authorized the formation of hospitals. In July of 1775, congress initiated a plan to provide one nurse for every ten patients and a supervising matron for every ten nurses. But, nurses were not always easy to find and formal training was nonexistent. General Washington blamed the low compensation rate—originally $2 a month—for the shortage of nurses, but it’s more probable that a woman risked receiving a bad moral reputation if she wanted to be a nurse. Congress did increase nurses’ pay a year later, to $8 a month.

Louisa May Alcott, long before Little Women, had a brief career as an army nurse during the Civil War. Her first publication, Hospital Sketches, was a detailed account of her experience. Louisa was an unknown but zealous patriot when she arrived in Washington, DC, in 1862, to work in the Union Hotel Army Hospital. She had read Florence Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing and Dr. Home’s Report on Gunshot Wounds, but that was the extent of her training. She described in letters to her family that, on her first day, “…stretcher after stretcher arrived from the battle of Fredericksburg…each with a legless, armless or desperately wounded occupant.” Louisa cared for hundreds of soldiers with devastating wounds and loss of limbs, working with little more than soap, water, and whiskey.

Her descriptions were so vivid and evoked so much emotion about caring for the wounded, that the Union Army published her book and provided it to the families of soldiers. This small volume established her reputation as an author, but her experience devastated her health. She contracted Typhoid Pneumonia after six weeks and would suffer from the poisonous effects of treatment with mercury until her death in 1888.

She reported in her journal that she was pleased to receive ten dollars for her short stint in Washington, revealing that the pay had barely improved in one hundred years since the Revolutionary War. Approximately 6000 women served as nurses during the Civil War and their reward was largely the legacy of gratitude described in the letters and journals of the wounded.

Fifty years later, in 1901, the Army Nurse Corp was created during the Spanish-American War and nurses were appointed to work for three years but were not commissioned as army officers. The appointment could be renewed if their skills were satisfactory, but it would take two more wars and another fifty years for nurses to receive commissioned officer status in 1944.

I am on this earth because of the compassion of nurses. During World War I, my grandfather served in the British Army and ended up in a hospital in Malta after suffering the effects of mustard gas and severe wounds in France. The nurses suggested that he correspond with someone. He remembered a young woman he had met on a farm in Connecticut years before. The letters commenced and they married on his return, eventually creating my mother.

Growing up around nurses in the 1950s I was privy to occasional stories and vivid memories. One former army nurse would sit at a picnic table with me and my brothers during her break-time and suddenly launch into a story. She once described being one of sixty nurses attached to the 48th Surgical Hospital and climbing over the side of a ship off the coast of North Africa and down an iron ladder into small assault boats. Each boat carried nurses, medical officers, and enlisted men. The nurses wore helmets and carried full packs containing bandages, medicine, gas masks, and canteen belts. Only their Red Cross arm bands and lack of weapons distinguished them from fighting troops. They waded ashore and huddled behind a sand dune while enemy snipers took potshots at them. Before the night was over, their commanding officer ordered them to an abandoned civilian hospital, where they began caring for casualties. There was no electricity or running water, and the only medical supplies available were those they had brought themselves. We jumped out of our seats when she described the rat-a-tat-tat of enemy fire overhead.

“ We held flashlights so that the doctors could operate,” she said.

“There were not enough beds for all the casualties, and wounded soldiers lay on a concrete floor in pools of blood. The only medicines were the ones we had carried. Enemy air attacks on the harbor delayed the unloading of supplies for two days.”

Nurses were not spared capture and imprisonment. In 1945 U.S. troops liberated sixty-seven army nurses who had been imprisoned in Santo Tomas Internment Camp since 1942 and evacuated them to a convalescent hospital on Leyte where they recovered from malnutrition. Like many men who saw the worst of war, these women came home and slipped back into their communities and rarely shared their experiences.

The exact number of nurses who served in World War II is unknown, but they received 1,619 medals, citations, and commendations. Overall, 201 nurses died while serving in the Army in World War II.

During the Korean War, Army nurses served in medical units close to the front lines, in field hospitals, on army transport ships, hospital trains and at Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH). By chance, the general public has more knowledge of nursing services, especially during the Korean War, thanks to popular culture. The fictionalized depiction of a medical unit portrayed in the film, MASH, and a subsequent TV series featuring “Hot Lips” Hoolihan, offered a romanticized version of women nurses in wartime, but at least it demonstrated that they were there.

During the Vietnam War, on November 8, 1967, all restrictions to female officer careers were removed. Finally, members of the Women’s Army Corps and the Army Nurse Corps could receive the same promotions as those applied to men. Col. Anna Mae Hays achieved the rank of brigadier general on June 11, 1970. Again, the exact number is not known, but thousands of women served as nurses in Vietnam. The number killed in Vietnam is also unclear, ranging from seven to nine.

Nurses have served in untold numbers in wartime even before Florence Nightingale went to the Crimean War and became known as “the lady with the lamp.” I’ve been comforted by the thought that nurses were near the battlefields of Vietnam in 1969 to care for my husband in the brief moments he survived after being mortally wounded in a booby trapped bunker. I may never know who they are, but I’m sure they eased his departure with skill, calm and compassion. I’m deeply grateful for all those who choose to be nurses. Thank you – this week and every week.

The post National Nurses Week 2015: Celebrating Those Who Care appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>http://ruthcrocker.com/national-nurses-week-2015-celebrating-those-who-care/feed/ 0 http://ruthcrocker.com/lessons-learned-from-winning-the-2015-benjamin-franklin-book-award/ http://ruthcrocker.com/lessons-learned-from-winning-the-2015-benjamin-franklin-book-award/#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:02:44 +0000 http://ruthcrocker.com/?p=1310 My mother was a great fan of Benjamin Franklin. She was an entrepreneur and self-starter herself and she spoke frequently about Ben’s many successes: publishing newspapers; establishing a subscription library and philosophical society;  a fire company; a hospital; a militia; becoming postmaster of Philadelphia; proposing the University of Pennsylvania; performing electrical experiments (the lightning rod!) and on and on to signing the Declaration of Independence and enabling peace negotiations with France and Great Britain. The first lesson: nothing hinders success more than lack of ideas. She spoke about him so often that, as a child, I assumed we were relatives. I thought of my mother when I was honored with the 2015 Benjamin Franklin Award by the IBPA for my memoir, Those Who Remain: Remembrance and Reunion After War. She died years before the book was born, but I felt her influence as I battled continuous rejections by publishers. Once the book was written, the idea of giving up on its publication became impossible. It was only a question of when. I don’t know exactly how my mother planted the seeds of industry and determination in her children, but she did, and I’m happy to be associated with any famous person she admired (although Mata Hari was pretty high on her list, too). The second lesson: believe in yourself and your product – in my case, the story I wanted to tell. Now, in the spirit of Ben, I’d better get on to my next project.

The post Lessons learned from winning the 2015 Benjamin Franklin Book Award appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>

Receiving the 2015 Benjamin Franklin Award in Austin, Texas.

My mother was a great fan of Benjamin Franklin. She was an entrepreneur and self-starter herself and she spoke frequently about Ben’s many successes: publishing newspapers; establishing a subscription library and philosophical society;  a fire company; a hospital; a militia; becoming postmaster of Philadelphia; proposing the University of Pennsylvania; performing electrical experiments (the lightning rod!) and on and on to signing the Declaration of Independence and enabling peace negotiations with France and Great Britain.

The first lesson: nothing hinders success more than lack of ideas.

She spoke about him so often that, as a child, I assumed we were relatives. I thought of my mother when I was honored with the 2015 Benjamin Franklin Award by the IBPA for my memoir, Those Who Remain: Remembrance and Reunion After War. She died years before the book was born, but I felt her influence as I battled continuous rejections by publishers. Once the book was written, the idea of giving up on its publication became impossible. It was only a question of when. I don’t know exactly how my mother planted the seeds of industry and determination in her children, but she did, and I’m happy to be associated with any famous person she admired (although Mata Hari was pretty high on her list, too).

The second lesson: believe in yourself and your product – in my case, the story I wanted to tell.

Now, in the spirit of Ben, I’d better get on to my next project.

The post Lessons learned from winning the 2015 Benjamin Franklin Book Award appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>http://ruthcrocker.com/lessons-learned-from-winning-the-2015-benjamin-franklin-book-award/feed/ 0 http://ruthcrocker.com/how-to-earn-a-gold-star-gsw-of-america/ http://ruthcrocker.com/how-to-earn-a-gold-star-gsw-of-america/#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2015 21:36:40 +0000 http://ruthcrocker.com/?p=1284 It was a muggy July evening in 1946 when five women, whose husbands had died in World War II, traveled to Hyde Park, New York, to meet with a soon to be war widow, Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Roosevelt later wrote in her news column, My Day, “…they came for supper, and then went to Poughkeepsie [where] the Lafayette Post of the American Legion had given them permission to use a room… It was a small meeting, though the casualties among servicemen from Dutchess County were pretty high.” In fact, more than 175 men from Dutchess County alone were killed or MIA by 1945. These five young widows had first met together in Marie Jordan’s apartment in New York City in 1945 to talk about how they might band together to support the needs of all war widows and their children. Losing a spouse in combat meant also losing medical care, commissary privileges and even their home if they lived in military housing. Most had married young and had no job training. They had little or no resources from the U.S. government and often relied on the charity of family and friends. Out of desperation they formed a support group called the American Widows of WWII. Their appeal to Mrs. Roosevelt was auspicious. When FDR died in 1946, she counted herself among them and became one of the original signers of the group’s charter. The name was changed to Gold Star Wives of America in 1948 and the mission expanded to seek benefits for both the spouses and children of persons who died in war and as a result of service-connected illness. Today there are more than 9,000 active members of Gold Star Wives […]

The post How to Earn a Gold Star: GSW of America appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>

It was a muggy July evening in 1946 when five women, whose husbands had died in World War II, traveled to Hyde Park, New York, to meet with a soon to be war widow, Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Roosevelt later wrote in her news column, My Day, “…they came for supper, and then went to Poughkeepsie [where] the Lafayette Post of the American Legion had given them permission to use a room… It was a small meeting, though the casualties among servicemen from Dutchess County were pretty high.”

In fact, more than 175 men from Dutchess County alone were killed or MIA by 1945.

These five young widows had first met together in Marie Jordan’s apartment in New York City in 1945 to talk about how they might band together to support the needs of all war widows and their children. Losing a spouse in combat meant also losing medical care, commissary privileges and even their home if they lived in military housing. Most had married young and had no job training. They had little or no resources from the U.S. government and often relied on the charity of family and friends. Out of desperation they formed a support group called the American Widows of WWII.

Their appeal to Mrs. Roosevelt was auspicious. When FDR died in 1946, she counted herself among them and became one of the original signers of the group’s charter. The name was changed to Gold Star Wives of America in 1948 and the mission expanded to seek benefits for both the spouses and children of persons who died in war and as a result of service-connected illness.

Today there are more than 9,000 active members of Gold Star Wives and approximately 80,000 more survivors who are eligible for membership. It is not a group that one covets simply because of the very fact of how you become eligible. But, its membership does represent courageous spouses from all backgrounds who have been obliged to enter a different battle; to continue to protect the pensions, rights and privileges of all survivors. Male survivors are also eligible to join, in spite of the organization’s name.

Currently there are local chapters in all parts of the United States, and members-at-large throughout the world. The organization is primarily supported by membership dues and by the legacies of several thankful members.

It is a busy organization with many opportunities to participate and become connected with kindred souls. A legislative committee continuously monitors the status of legislation relative to pensions, medical insurance, education and VA home loans. GSW members search out other survivors who may not know about their eligibility for benefits because the best interests of surviving spouses has not been a priority for Congress and the Veterans Administration Services. Only recently has exposure to Agent Orange been recognized as a cause of combat-related illness. Membership in the Gold Star Wives is not required to receive benefits from the government as a survivor. They exist as the guardian of benefits for all eligible spouses and children.

At a recent National Board meeting of GSW held in Denver, I was one of many Vietnam War widows being recognized as part of the fifty-year commemoration of the war. As I glanced around the soaring classical style rotunda of the Colorado State Capitol at my “sisters” from all wars wearing the organization’s signature gold color, I thought of those five women back in 1945 who were still so recently bereaved at that first meeting, but had the courage to say: “We can do this. We can survive. Perhaps we can even thrive.”

Because of what makes us a group, I dream that someday the reason for our existence will become extinct and we will no longer need such an organization. Until then, we acknowledge the group’s 70^th anniversary this year and continue the battle to remain visible – and heard.

National Gold Star Wives Day is April 5, 2015. Find out more at www.goldstarwives.org.

Ruth W. Crocker is the widow of Army Captain David R. Crocker, Jr., and the author of Those Who Remain: Remembrance and Reunion After War. Visit her at www.ruthwcrocker.com.

The post How to Earn a Gold Star: GSW of America appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>http://ruthcrocker.com/how-to-earn-a-gold-star-gsw-of-america/feed/ 0 http://ruthcrocker.com/remembrance-reunion/ http://ruthcrocker.com/remembrance-reunion/#comments Mon, 09 Mar 2015 18:59:14 +0000 http://ruthcrocker.com/?p=1260 Join me at the Veteran’s Summit at Lyndon State College in VT on March 14, 2015, for a presentation on remembrance and reunion after war.  

The post Remembrance and Reunion appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>Join me at the Veteran’s Summit at Lyndon State College in VT on March 14, 2015, for a presentation on remembrance and reunion after war.

The post Remembrance and Reunion appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>http://ruthcrocker.com/remembrance-reunion/feed/ 0 http://ruthcrocker.com/laugh-page-humor-writing/ http://ruthcrocker.com/laugh-page-humor-writing/#comments Sun, 25 Jan 2015 19:05:17 +0000 http://ruthcrocker.com/?p=1193 Not long ago in a writing workshop, a colleague offered to read a personal essay I had written about a difficult life experience. My kind friend reported back that he felt as if I was dragging him, sad and depressed, to the abysmal end of the story. “I don’t want to feel as if I’m being forced to feel bad,” he said. “Where’s your sense of humor? And you’re not having any fun, either.”   Humor? I didn’t see anything funny about the story of my trip to Washington, DC, to see my husband’s name on the Vietnam Memorial for the first time – but – maybe I was taking myself a little too seriously. Perhaps Colette, the French writer whose husband locked her in a room to keep her writing, was right when she said that total absence of humor renders life impossible. Humor in nonfiction writing demands taking a firm, self-confident position about our “self” and then flipping the situation upside down. Writer Leigh Anne Jasheway calls this creative misdirection; engaging readers by taking them someplace they don’t expect to go, choosing words and metaphors that make readers giggle without knowing why. She says a smiling reader wants to read on even if the topic is inherently sad.   Where was my sense of comic relief? Obviously, I had forgotten that humor creates a bond with readers and cuts down on tension and anxiety. People need to cry and laugh. Humor fosters a sense of immediacy, a close personal connection. There was little to joke about in my essay, but there were some curious ironies that I hadn’t yet dug deeply enough to discover. As Dorothy Parker said in Writers at Work, “There’s a hell of a distance […]

The post How to Laugh at Ourselves on the Page: Humor in Writing appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>

Not long ago in a writing workshop, a colleague offered to read a personal essay I had written about a difficult life experience. My kind friend reported back that he felt as if I was dragging him, sad and depressed, to the abysmal end of the story. “I don’t want to feel as if I’m being forced to feel bad,” he said. “Where’s your sense of humor? And you’re not having any fun, either.”

Humor? I didn’t see anything funny about the story of my trip to Washington, DC, to see my husband’s name on the Vietnam Memorial for the first time – but – maybe I was taking myself a little too seriously. Perhaps Colette, the French writer whose husband locked her in a room to keep her writing, was right when she said that total absence of humor renders life impossible. Humor in nonfiction writing demands taking a firm, self-confident position about our “self” and then flipping the situation upside down. Writer Leigh Anne Jasheway calls this creative misdirection; engaging readers by taking them someplace they don’t expect to go, choosing words and metaphors that make readers giggle without knowing why. She says a smiling reader wants to read on even if the topic is inherently sad.

Where was my sense of comic relief? Obviously, I had forgotten that humor creates a bond with readers and cuts down on tension and anxiety. People need to cry and laugh. Humor fosters a sense of immediacy, a close personal connection. There was little to joke about in my essay, but there were some curious ironies that I hadn’t yet dug deeply enough to discover. As Dorothy Parker said in Writers at Work, “There’s a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.”

How do I find my wittiness when I feel like I’m climbing a mountain wearing flip-flops? Is there a proven way to access my artistic funhouse? EB White said, “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies.” But wait, how do Woody Allan, Steve Martin, Charles Lamb and Phillip Lopate inject humor? It turns out there are some methods in their madness.

Comparisons, using well-chosen metaphors, are one specific approach writers use to create an unexpected smile. Comic essayist David Rakoff, when faced with potential amputation of his left arm and shoulder because of cancer, quipped: “If they remove my left arm, how will I know when I’m having a heart attack?” Humor in grim situations humanizes the writer and shelters the reader, inviting them to laugh with us even as we travel in humorless territory.  A dash of self-deprecation, a small argument with oneself, and honest skepticism are also helpful.

Among Jasheway’s tools for adding a touch of comedy to writing is “The K Rule.” Words with the k sound (Cadillac, quintuplet, sex) are perceived as the funniest, along with words with a hard g (guacamole, gargantuan). (Perhaps I could say that the crowds of passengers at Union Station in Washington, DC, felt like a kangaroo roundup.)  Jasheway speculates that much of what makes Americans laugh today has its roots in Yiddish humor and these sounds come the closest. Readers are subconsciously amused just hearing these sounds.

Jan Hornung in Seven Steps to Better Humor Writing, says that whether or not a writer is personally funny is not important and please don’t tell the reader that something is funny. (This seems logical. I think I can follow this.) But do use descriptions with all five senses and let the reader discover the funny parts themselves.

Blending description, metaphors, and similes with dialogue is another way to generate humor. Hornung offers the sample simile, “we were wrestling around like two pigs in the mud, only he was enjoying it and I was just getting dirty.” Now we’re approaching something of which even Mark Twain might approve – or chance a smile.

It was the second part of my friend’s comment that created the most pause in my thinking. He was right. I wasn’t having much fun writing the story about the trip to Washington. And shouldn’t I be having some fun if I’m dedicating most of my time to writing? I had sucked the life out of my essay by taking myself too seriously. My father used to say about revising: “If you can’t fix it, get a bigger hammer.” I went back in and operated with hammer and tongs, glockenspiels and Guatamalas, and became the good-time girl. At least one of us is enjoying the essay, now. Find more musings about writing at www.Facebook.com/ruthwcrockerauthor.

This essay is reprinted from an earlier post.

The post How to Laugh at Ourselves on the Page: Humor in Writing appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>http://ruthcrocker.com/laugh-page-humor-writing/feed/ 0 http://ruthcrocker.com/healing-journey-grief/ http://ruthcrocker.com/healing-journey-grief/#comments Fri, 16 Jan 2015 16:24:12 +0000 http://ruthcrocker.com/?p=1165 At a recent meeting with a book club discussing my memoir, Those Who Remain: Remembrance and Reunion After War, one reader asked me if it is difficult today for me to look at pictures of my husband who was killed in Vietnam in 1969. It’s a great question because it brought back my memory of the many years during which it was difficult to look at anything that reminded me of him and our happiness. I remember putting out of sight anything that triggered my grief and the pain in my heart, even the book plates that he had placed in all our books, with an image of the little mermaid statue in Copenhagen, on which he wrote, “Dave and Ruth” was too much for me. I covered them up with the same bookplate, leaving the line where our names had been written blank. And yet, today, I have written and published an entire book about him, our relationship, his death and the serendipitous meeting of his comrades who have regaled me with stories about him. In the process of writing I’ve looked at many photographs of him, many supplied by the guys who were with him in Vietnam. I see this young, handsome guy who I was deeply in love with, who I still feel the same love for, but I can look at him and not feel shaken. Is this the effects of time, age, natural healing? Does the heart grow scar tissue? I’m not sure. In my memoir I wrote about learning from my mother’s example of putting things away after a death. When my youngest brother died at home after years of suffering from a seizure disorder, she put away all […]

The post The Healing Journey of Grief appeared first on Ruth W Crocker.

]]>