Read the Beforeitsnews.com story here. Advertise at Before It's News here.
Profile image
Story Views
Now:
Last hour:
Last 24 hours:
Total:

Embrace the Ordinary

% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.


by Marcia Peterson

Who would want to hear about my boring life? How can I write something compelling when my personal history is nothing special? These are questions many of us ask ourselves—and they can stop us in our writing tracks.

But ordinary can be enough, even great. First, you’ve got more material from your so-called boring life than you think. Second, strong writing skills can make almost any story interesting. It’s time to believe in your stories and get your pen moving!

Who’s to say you’re uninteresting?

We tend to believe that most people already know or experience a lot of the same things that we do, and therefore what we have to offer is common. But even if there isn’t much unique about your life, then the issues that have relevance to you would also be meaningful to many others. In other words, people who are similar to you would probably enjoy reading something they can relate to. For example, as a writer, don’t you enjoy hearing about other writers’ experiences?

On the other hand, there are people who live very different lives from you, who’d enjoy a peek into your world. Even the seemingly mundane can be fascinating if it’s different from our own lives. A book like Water Cooler Diaries: Women Across America Share Their Day at Work, a collection of short diary entries from women across the country on one given day, shows how interesting the average woman’s daily life really is. We are curious about people who live a different version of ordinary.

You are the tour guide

If you still think your life stories are too dull, writing guru Anne Lamott offers more support. In an older interview for The Writer magazine, she stated that you don’t have to have a lot of drama or outward destruction in your life to have a lot to write about. “But you need to have been paying attention, you need to probably have felt things very deeply,” she said. “If people are funny and can just tell me stories about life or give me their version of things, and choose their words carefully, I’m in. I’m interested.”

Lamott has always been honest in her own work, sometimes painfully so, and readers love her essays. She advises writers to share the real truth, and reminds us that we all have something to tell others. “I don’t think there’s anything more interesting than one human telling the truth in the clearest, truest possible way. If somebody has a sense of humor, it’s so fantastic. Everybody has been through something that no one else has seen, and he or she alone can be the tour guide for that time, that place, that house, and that role in the family—I think it’s all just inherently interesting.”

Don’t bore the reader

Author Vivian Swift also provides inspiration for sharing our ordinary lives. Her illustrated memoir, When Wanderers Cease to Roam: A Traveler’s Journal of Staying Put, has many fans. One of her readers wrote to Swift, noting what an interesting life Swift has led. Swift addressed this notion on her blog, stating: “And I want to answer this, once and for all: I have not. Had such an interesting life. No more than most.”

Swift then provided the secret for those of us with average lives: “However—and this is my whole raison d’etre as a writer/illustrator—I do know how to present ordinariness in a readable way. And that’s the only reason I get away with writing a whole book about myself, and why I give the impression of having had an interesting life.”

In reference to a certain part of the book, she continued, “So, the trick is, to write about that alley (and any other similarly ordinary part of one’s life) in a way that would make it interesting to other people, specifically readers. And that is the whole trick to writing a memoir: having an interesting life is not enough (and, in my case, not even necessary); it’s being able to write about it in a manner that doesn’t bore the socks off your reader.”

The bottom line? “If you give us a good enough story, we’ll let you get away with having an ordinary life,” she says.

***  

So, be confident in the value of your stories. Tell them well, and we’ll want to hear about your life. “I love it when people will tell me the truth and really take the lid off the soup pot and let me peer in,” Anne Lamott says. The ordinary can actually be extraordinary.

–This article originally appeared in WOW’s Premium Green newsletter

(C) Copyright wow-womenonwriting.com

Visit WOW! Women On Writing for lively interviews and how-tos. Check out WOW!‘s Classroom and learn something new. Enter the Quarterly Writing Contests. Open Now!

Never Stale! The Muffin provides daily writing tips, inspiration, and news from the bakers of WOW! Women On Writing.


Source: https://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/2022/07/embrace-ordinary.html


Before It’s News® is a community of individuals who report on what’s going on around them, from all around the world.

Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.

"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.

Please Help Support BeforeitsNews by trying our Natural Health Products below!


Order by Phone at 888-809-8385 or online at https://mitocopper.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomic.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomics.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST


Humic & Fulvic Trace Minerals Complex - Nature's most important supplement! Vivid Dreams again!

HNEX HydroNano EXtracellular Water - Improve immune system health and reduce inflammation.

Ultimate Clinical Potency Curcumin - Natural pain relief, reduce inflammation and so much more.

MitoCopper - Bioavailable Copper destroys pathogens and gives you more energy. (See Blood Video)

Oxy Powder - Natural Colon Cleanser!  Cleans out toxic buildup with oxygen!

Nascent Iodine - Promotes detoxification, mental focus and thyroid health.

Smart Meter Cover -  Reduces Smart Meter radiation by 96%! (See Video).

Report abuse

    Comments

    Your Comments
    Question   Razz  Sad   Evil  Exclaim  Smile  Redface  Biggrin  Surprised  Eek   Confused   Cool  LOL   Mad   Twisted  Rolleyes   Wink  Idea  Arrow  Neutral  Cry   Mr. Green

    MOST RECENT
    Load more ...

    SignUp

    Login

    Newsletter

    Email this story
    Email this story

    If you really want to ban this commenter, please write down the reason:

    If you really want to disable all recommended stories, click on OK button. After that, you will be redirect to your options page.