Archive for the 'General Information' Category

Page 2 of 6

Happy “Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day”

Published on January 17, 2011 in Author Blog, cathartic writing, General Information, Health, New Year, writer blog, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

2 Comments

You might not realize it, but today and every year, January 17th, is officially “Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day,” and this might be one of my favorite holidays next to my birthday and Thanksgiving. My father used to say that New Year’s Resolutions were meant to be broken. For some people making New Year’s resolutions is quite simply an annual habit that they do while sipping on their champagne on New Year’s Eve. For others, it is a good time to commit to a positive change in their lives. If you took my advice of an earlier blog this year, you might have already made your resolution, but now is your chance to break that resolution and celebrate today. In effect, it’s your chance to get out of a completely unrealistic New Year’s Resolution. Furthermore, this year the holiday coincidentally falls on Martin Luther King Day, honoring a wonderful man who was a spokesperson for the civil rights movement. There is something to be said about it being our civil right to ditch our New Year’s Resolution – so I hereby grant you permission!

In summary, there is not much information about this holiday and who initiated it in the first place, but there is some advice for those who have chosen to observe it.

For example, try to celebrate by doing some or all of the following:

1 – Eat a lot of chocolate
2 – Play instead of work
3 – Do what you want instead of what you ‘should’ do
4- Instead of saving money give a donation to someone in need
5 – Call in sick to work or leave a little earlier today

To me this sounds like National Freedom Day!

I would love to hear how about your own celebration…….

Until next time,
Namaste,
Diana

To The New Year

by W.S. Merwin, from Present Company

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible.

New Year Musings

Published on January 3, 2011 in Author Blog, autobiographies, General Information, Health and Wellness, Journaling, Journals, Musings, New Year, Passions, writer blog and Writing, journaling.

8 Comments

Typically, this is the time of the year when many of us make promises to ourselves that we are unable to keep. Recent studies have shown that only about twelve percent of those who make New Year’s resolutions actually achieve their goals. Some believe that if you share the content of your resolution with someone else, then your chances of success are increased, but there is no guarantee.

Making a New Year’s resolution involves committing oneself to a new habit, breaking an old one or making a personal lifestyle change. Anyway, what can be so wrong with improving ourselves? I have always been curious about the spectrum of New Years’ Resolutions. Recently I researched to see what were the most popular, here are the ten most common from year to year:

1. Spend more time with family and friends
2. Get fit
3. Get slim
4. Quit smoking
5. Quit drinking
6. Enjoy life more
7. Decrease debt
8. Help others
9. Get organized

This year, rather than making a New Year’s Resolution, I have decided to use these and use the suggestions of writer Carolyn Graham who offers the following advice for those she calls, “wicked”:

(http://debramoffitt.wordpress.com/?p=236&preview=true)

1. Create harmless mischief whenever possible. Find a friend who likes to incite you and will share in some mischievous hilarity. If there are no friends available, use your best thinking and mentally engineer an event designed precisely to meet your needs.
2. If someone tells you your bread’s not baked, or you have a loose screw, or your elevator doesn’t go to the top, consider yourself highly complimented and extraordinarily gifted. You have probably shed some of the constricting and restricting bounds of convention.
3. Look in the mirror: acknowledge and celebrate yourself as a masterpiece in progress. All of us are superb examples of a true work of art, an ever developing piece, even if some of the places have shadows.
4, Walk into each day as if you owned the world. Put your head up, your shoulders back, and swagger a bit. Remember, with choices about how you think, you do own your own space…your world.
5. If you can’t believe you’re great, then act like you are! Being great means reaching for a hand when you need one and offering one to others who could use some kindness.
6. Buy a new technical gadget you have been wanting. Explain the purchase by declaring that the intellectually stimulating affects of learning to operate the device enhance the performance of your immune system.
7. If you like dark chocolate, keep some readily available and slowly savor a tiny bit on a regular basis. The given pleasure will probably off set any potentially harmful affects. That’s a risk worth taking!
8. Absolutely DO NOT act your age. Retaining childlike behaviors probably goes a long way toward staying vital, alert, and healthy. If you have supposed that to be true, applaud yourself, dance a bit, and invite a friend for a play date.

Happy New Year to one and all!

Namaste,
Diana

The Fine Art of Storytelling

Published on December 20, 2010 in Author Blog, autobiographies, Creativity, General Information, inspiration, Journaling, Journals, Reading, writer blog and Writing, journaling.

2 Comments

Lately I have found myself contemplating the fine art of storytelling. Some people are wonderful at it and others just want to make you yawn. The idea of storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images, sounds and embellishments. It is a way to express the emotional power of information. Robert McKee, in his book, Story, says “Stories are equipment for living.” In fact, when a story is told well, the listener is transported on a journey to a new place.

According to John Gardner, “Like other kinds of intelligence, the storyteller is partly natural, partly trained. It is composed of several qualities, most of which, in normal people, are signs of either immaturity or incivility: wit (a tendency to make irreverent connections); obstinacy and a tendency toward churlishness (a refusal to believe what all sensible people know is true); childishness (an apparent lack of mental focus and serious life purpose, a fondness for daydreaming and telling pointless lies, a lack of proper respect, mischievousness, an unseemly propensity for crying over nothing); a marked tendency toward oral or anal fixation or both (the oral manifested by excessive eating, drinking, smoking, and chattering; the anal by nervous cleanliness and neatness coupled with a weird fascination with dirty jokes); remarkable powers of eidetic recall, or visual memory (a usual feature of early adolescence and mental retardation); a strange admixture of shameless playfulness and embarrassing earnestness, the latter often heightened by irrationally intense feelings for or against religion; patience like a cat’s; a criminal streak of cunning; psychological instability; recklessness, impulsiveness, and improvidence; and finally, an inexplicable and incurable addiction to stories, written or oral, bad or good. Not all writers have exactly these same virtues, of course. Occasionally one finds one who is not abnormally improvident.”

The holiday season is a good time to share stories amongst friends and family. Some people are better at verbal storytelling, while others, like myself, prefer to revert to the written word. Many of our preferences and comfort zones reflect back to the patterns of our childhoods. As an only child of working parents, I spent a lot of time reading and writing in my journal. My parents were first generation immigrants and worked very long hours to provide food for our table. Dinners were often rushed with a minimum amount of storytelling unless we had a visitor who probed us. As a result, I was raised with books and paper, but gravitated to friends who were good storytellers because my situation made me a good listener. Things haven’t changed. I am who I am.

Lately, I’ve become good friends with a few great storytellers and I have been captivated, mesmerized and curious about what it is that’s missing for me to tell a good story. I have also done some reading to improve my own verbal storytelling (my family often tells me, I neglect to build up the tension and/or I omit the punch line). Heading into my sixth decade, I plan to improve this. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

- Before telling your story, you need to know it well and/or memorize it
- Vary the pitch in your voice when telling a story
- Make sure your facial expressions coincide with the story’s mood
- Make sure the sequence of events is correct
- Build up to the story’s climax
- When finished do not go on to another story
- Practice storytelling in front of a mirror

One thing I also read was the importance of putting on a “story hat.” In other words, just before you are to tell a story, put on your story hat which gets you in the mood to tell your story. It is a way to take your mind off your audience, particularly if you are on the shy side.

If you are curious about some more tips in this area, I suggest you check out a great you-tube on the subject, called, “Storytelling: Theory and Practice.”

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all!

This blog will be taking a two-week hiatus.

Namaste,
Diana

Poetry as Medicine

Published on December 13, 2010 in Author Blog, Billy Collins, General Information, Health, Health and Wellness, Journaling, Poetry, Spalding University, writer blog, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

2 Comments

“Poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost…as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.” ~ Mary Oliver

There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the healing power of writing and reading poetry. Once again, I was reminded of this in a newly-released book called, Saved By A Poem: The Transformative Power of Words, by Kim Rosen. In her books, Rosen claims that a poem can be powerful medicine not only for the mind but for the body and soul as well. She has learned by heart more than a hundred poems, which she carries inside of her as teachers, healers and guides.

Rosen was recently interviewed by Alison Luterman in the Sun Magazine (December 2010) and I found it fascinating. She discussed the public’s sensibility about poetry and many of her ideas resonated with me in the sense that many are threatened or afraid of poetry. Part of her motivation for compiling her recent collection was to wake Americans up to the power of poetry as a way to enrich our lives. She talks about poetry as a lantern that shines in dark places within us and refers to poems as powerful medicine for personal transformation.

“To me a good poem is like a sacred mind-altering substance: you take it into your system, and it carries you beyond your ordinary ways of understanding,” she says. “Like a shaman’s drum, the best of a poem can literally entrain the rhythms of your body: your heartbeat, your breath, even your brain waves, altering consciousness.”

Perie Longo, PhD, MFT, Santa Barbara’s former Poet Laureate, who held several board positions for the National Association for Poetry Therapy also wrote a wonderful article on the subject called, “Healing Effects of Poetry.” Longo says that “the focus of poetry for healing is connection to the individual for self-expression and growth, whereas the focus of poetry as art is the poem itself. But both use the same tools and techniques; the end product is often the same.” Longo teaches poetry for healing and in her classes has many tips to help spark the writing process. She suggests to her class to begin with the phrase, “I have the right…”The article is filled with lots of useful information.

http://www.allthingshealing.com/Psychotherapy/Healing-Effects-of-Poetry/6350

As a teen, I wrote poetry inspired by reading the works of Rod McKuen, but really did not return to the genre until my 40s while raising children and feeling some strong emotions pertaining to child-rearing and life in general. What really inspired me to begin again was attending a reading by Billy Collins in 2002 during my MFA in Writing at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. I realized how accessible and funny narrative poetry could be. I laughed and cried listening to Billy read. I went home that night and wrote my first poem about how men love watching women park because they think we don’t know how to drive.

Since then I have incorporated writing poetry into my journaling classes. The holiday season is a wonderful time to bring poetry into your life to help cope with the stresses that accompany it. Try it and I bet you will like itTry it you will like it!

Balancing Optimism and Pessimism

Published on October 17, 2010 in Alternative Medicine, Author Blog, Depression, General Information, Health and Health and Wellness. Tags: , , .

2 Comments

I have always thought or believed that it is healthier to be an optimist than it is to be a pessimist. An article in the September 2010 issue (http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/of)  of “Ode: For Intelligent Optimists,” called, “No Silver Linings, Please,” says that recently a handful of psychologists think differently about optimism and pessimism. They are saying that, in fact, healthy doses of pessimism may be an important ingredient to overcome  psychological obstacles and the achievement of personal goals.

“Defensive pessimism,” can be employed when you get a book proposal rejected or when you get a cancer diagnosis twice in five years as I did—is a psychological stance that involves accepting the fact that things can go drastically wrong and being able to defensively prepare oneself for any eventuality. In other words this is an offense to achieve a positive outcome.

Thus it is suggested that we not get too elated or joyous when receiving good news. In this way there is less of a chance to be disappointed. In other words, a tinge of pessimism can be the most optimistic thing you can do.

Those living with cancer can react in two ways when given the bad news—they can treat the diagnosis with anger and resentment or turn a negative into a positive. This can be done by framing the disease as a gift to write and share stories to help and inform others in similar situations.

Creative individuals, particularly writers, are typically very hard on themselves and their creative process. They often air on the side of pessimism thinking that their work is not good enough and will be rejected by agents, editors and publishers. The positive side of this is that those who are in a negative frame of mind tend to be more alert to their surroundings compared to those who are in positive states of mind. Being alert to one’s surroundings is a vital characteristic for the writer. Perhaps in certain situations, a healthy dose of pessimism can be advantageous. In other words, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst!

Writing About Difficult Subjects in Memoir

Published on August 16, 2010 in Author Blog, autobiographies, Creative Nonfiction, General Information, Healing With Words, inspiration, Memoir, Memory, writer blog, writing, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling. Tags: , , , , , , , , .

2 Comments

Writing memoir can be viewed as a sort of literary alchemy. It is one way to transform your unpleasant past into an art form. This exercise can be cathartic, painful and confusing—things to be aware of before setting down this path. Many people believe they have a story to share but have trouble deciding whether to actually write about it. I say, if the story feels like a knot in your stomach, then it is something you should write whether it’s for publication or not. If there is an internal yanking and feeling that you cannot go to your grave leaving this story untold. That’s pretty much how I felt when writing my two memoirs, Regina’s Closet and Healing With Words.

When you finally decide to tell your story, you should know that it may not be easy getting down to the emotional truth of your subject matter. Sometimes it’s much easier to skirt the deep dark traumas of our past and write about the glossy and lighter events which shaped us.

Yet, writing about trauma can be life-changing for both you and your reader. My advice is to be brave and it will pay off.  Your first draft should be raw and long. Remember to be simple in your thoughts. Tell the truth and be straightforward. You can edit in subsequent drafts. If you have endured difficult times, the good news is that you have survived well enough to be able to write about them.

In my reading on how other writers have coped with writing about difficult subject matter. Many writers suggest not to throw yourself a pity party on the page, but instead, focus on writing the facts. Leave the reader to make their own decisions. In general, readers don’t like the narrative to whine. It is a turn-off and ineffective, however, there is also nothing wrong with letting the reader feel uncomfortable. In fact, if they are, they might be inspired to write their own painful story. This would be a plus for everyone involved.

Many people continue to be haunted by painful wounds of childhood and writing has a tendency to set people free from the shackles. Some might try to write their memoir in the third person in an attempt to remove or distance themselves from the story, but more often than not, however, this does not work because the immediacy is often lost.

Some people ask how they can protect themselves and remain ‘sane,’ while writing their painful story. My answer varies depending upon the person. Psychotherapy might be the answer for you or having someone trustworthy you can talk to on a regular basis, whether it’s an editor or dear friend. It’s good to have someone to call in time of need, just for inspiration or to prod you along—someone to tell that you “can do it.” Some people lean towards writing groups for support, although I have never personally found them helpful, as often times instead of supporting one another’s literary works, participants use the forum to  destructively criticize one another’s work.

Art Spiegelman, the author of the graphic memoir, The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, says to protect himself from the pain of his past, he wears a bicycle helmet so that when he hits his head against the wall it doesn’t hurt so much. This reminds me of a fiction workshop I once took at the University of the Iowa where Jonis Agee suggested we wear masks while writing. This was a great way to become someone else.

In summary, if a subject is scary or feels dangerous the best thing to do is just write and deal with the post-traumatic stress situation afterwards. Sometimes when you write what you remember about an event, it is one way of separating yourself from it. In a way, you gain a sense of control over your old memory.

Writing Happiness

Published on August 2, 2010 in General Information, Health and Wellness, Journaling, Musings, Notebooks, Spirituality, writer blog and Writing, journaling. Tags: , , , , , , , .

1 Comment

August is “Admit You’re Happy Month” and August 8th is “Admit You’re Happy Day” and even though it sounds like a ridiculous reason for a celebration, think again.

People so often focus on the negative and it’s always good  to step back and look at the things in our lives which bringing us happiness. It seems as if writers are more often driven to the page when there is something causing turbulence in their lives, rather than when they are happy. In fact, most memoirs focus on traumatic events, which is fine, but it’s a good idea to find a balance and also identify the good times. In the classes I teach at UCLA Extension, I advocate both positive and gratitude journaling.

In my recent readings on Buddhism, I’ve learned that one of the chief sources of anger is the quest for happiness. Just think about why someone would get angry while waiting in a long line in the airport or why someone would honk if someone was driving too slowly in front of them. The angry person just wants to be happy, but ironically, this quest for happiness is the source of his unhappiness. As, Eric Hoffer, a philosopher known for his adages observed, “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”

His Holiness the Dalai Lama believes that the pursuit of happiness is so important that he’s devoted his life to preaching about it. His book The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living is packed with useful information, mainly centered around the idea that “the purpose of our existence is to seek happiness.” So, the question becomes, if we want happiness, then how do we seek it? One way is to understand that negative emotions and behaviors are harmful, and positive emotions are helpful. The negative emotions hurt not only ourselves, but others as well.

So while journaling or writing about happiness, write about all the different ways you can bring happiness to others, whether it is doing a good deed for a friend, colleague or neighbor. A few weeks ago we had a party and  thought about what to do with the leftovers and decided to bring them to the homeless lining the streets of downtown parks. The act of kindness went a long way to make both us and the homeless happy.

Alexandra Stoddard has a great book called, Choosing Happiness, a quick and inspirational read which might be worth picking up, not only for journaling ideas but to make you smile and feel better.

Remember, happiness rarely comes from just thinking about yourself. Victor Frankl says, “Joy comes into our lives when we have: (a) something to do, (b) someone to love, and (c) something to hope for.”

I don’t think I could have said it better!

Writing For Happiness

Published on June 14, 2010 in 1960s, Author Blog, Baby Boomers, General Information, Health, Health and Wellness, Journaling, Journals and Memoir. Tags: , , , , , .

5 Comments

The headline of an article in yesterday’s New York Times was entitled, “In Midlife, Boomers are Happy—And Suicidal.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/weekinreview/13cohen.html?emc=eta1).

This was certainly catchy enough to make me stop and read what the article had to say, particularly because of some recent turning points in my life, such as I recently celebrated my 56th birthday, my sister-in-law, Serena celebrated her 50th and my middle daughter, Regine, is getting married in less than three weeks.

The article began like this, “If you are suddenly feeling confused about whether to greet middle age with open arms or dread, it is understandable. In recent weeks, researchers reported that Americans in midlife are a remarkably contented lot, and that they also have the highest rate of suicide.” Surely Charles Dickens was correct when he said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities)

At first, I was confused by the article’s opening paragraph, but while glancing over some recent pages of my journal depicting my own life, I completely understand the author, Patricia Cohen’s sentiments.

My husband and I have raised three wonderful kids who are now living on their own. We are lucky to have made an independent life for ourselves and are able to carve out enough time to follow some buried passions. Being in our 50s is also a time when we catch a glimpse of ailing health, whether it be from an elevated blood cholesterol or menopausal hot flashes. Coupled with this, many of us are finding that the time we had spent raising our kids are now devoted to taking care of our elderly parents. (I am thankful for each day that my mother remains independent at the age of 80).

It has been said that our generation of baby boomers is also called, “the sandwich generation.” Most of us have replaced the once urgent pressures of raising kids with more long-term and philosophical pressures like what we want to do with the rest of our lives. In a sense, many of us have re-entered the turmoil and confusion of adolescence.

In the journaling workshops I teach, I see many of my adult students at this juncture in their lives. The journaling process helps them understand not only how they are feeling, but helps them identify the right path for them.

By now, most of my readers understand that my solution to most of life’s dilemmas and questions lies in our freedom to pull out our notebooks and write down our emotional truth.

Here are some prompts to help you rekindle the joy in your life:

  • Describe how you are feeling right now
  • If you could be doing one thing to make you happy, what would it be?
  • Write a page describing your ideal life.
  • Write a love letter to yourself to read whenever you need to be nurtured and reminded of your hopes and dreams.

Remember that you are the star of your life story. You are responsible for the choices you have made in your life. If you are not happy, choose to be happy and make a change. You CAN do it. That’s the power of positive thinking and journaling can help you reach this goal!

Audio Books: A New Horizon

Published on May 24, 2010 in Creative Nonfiction, Creativity, General Information, Memoir, Musings, Publishers, Reading, writer blog and Writers and Their Notebooks. Tags: , , , , , .

0 Comments

The first book on tape I ever listened to was of Frank McCourt reading his memoir, Angela’s Ashes. I had a two-hour drive to Los Angeles and no doubt, my destination came too quickly. In addition to hearing his amazing story, Frank had a distinctive and compelling reading voice which simply made you want to listen to the entire book at once, but in reality that was not possible.

A few weeks ago, I was invited by a colleague to read my latest book, Writers and Their Notebooks for a reading marathon at The Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic in Santa Barbara. The small and efficient office was set up with a few recording booths and after signing in I was asked what I wanted to read. T.C. Boyle had just read there the day before and obviously the person checking me in did not know I was also an author. My friend stepped in (thankfully) and said, “She’s going to read her own work, of course.”

It was one of those honored moments when I felt proud to be a published author. I was equally honored to learn that soon my book would be made available to blind and learning disabled persons across the country. I had read sections of my book at book signings, but never entire chapters at a time.

I was handed a copy of my book which had been marked up with instructions on to how to read it out loud. My glass-enclosed booth faced another glass-enclosed cubicle occupied by a woman who would spot me and give hand signals telling me when to start and finish.

At the start of each page I was to announce ‘new page.’ When I forgot, she stopped the tape and rewound it for me to start over. After a few pages I got into the rhythm and, as difficult as it was, I had to resist the temptation to change or edit the words.

After reading for a while, I came to the beginning of a new page, looked up, but did not see the woman make any motions. I coughed to get her attention while watching her eyes following the lines on her copy of  my book. She stopped the recording and said, “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry, your voice was so hypnotic.”

There are not many times in a writer’s life when one gets that mushy feeling in the heart and I can safely say this was one of those times. I was delighted that my reading was seemingly as effective on this woman as Frank McCourt’s was on me. It made me want to donate more of my time to the worthy cause.

That night I came home to find a recent issue of Publisher’s Weekly which was highlighting, “Everything Audio.” One article of great interest to me was called, “Storytelling: Authors Reading Their Own Work,” by Adam Boretz. He made a few comments which really resonated with me. “The greatest challenge,” [of recording an audio book] said novelist Sam Lipsyte, “was being shut up in a booth with no sense of how things are really going. With an audience, you can tell if you are losing them, if they are falling asleep, laughing in the wrong places. But this was more of a floating-in-space deal.”

One author compared audio books to the southern tradition of oral storytelling. Other authors feel that reading their book out loud changes there perception of it and offers them new insights. Deepak Chopra who has  done many audio books says that reading his books out loud sometimes leads to new insights and ideas. It can also give the author ideas about where to edit in the book’s next revision.

Some writers claimed that it was important to get a good night’s sleep before the reading and make sure to also drink enough fluids. The funniest statement about doing audio recordings, however, was made by novelist Joshua Ferris who said, “I think the biggest lesson I learned is don’t drink sparkling water because it makes your stomach gurgle.” Now that’s something to remember!

Writing About Family

Published on May 17, 2010 in Author Blog, Creative Nonfiction, General Information, inspiration, Memoir, Musings, writer blog and writing. Tags: , , , , .

7 Comments

As it turns out, May 16th is National Biographer’s Day and May 18th is National Relatives Day. I thought combining these two holidays would make a good subject for today’s blog.Ironically, tomorrow I will be visiting my family in New York to celebrate my son’s 21st birthday – so I’m doing exactly what Wikipedia says I should do—visiting relatives!

As a memoirist, the challenges of writing about family are constantly present. Many of my students who write memoir often express their fear of being sued. According to Judith Barrington in her book, Writing the Memoir, the chances of being sued are extremely low. For the most part, suing someone is extremely expensive.  Plus most people w considering the process might not want to bring any further attention to a potentially-embarrassing situation.

The dilemma for the writer is having the desire to do justice to their families, but also wanting to write a compelling story. The fact is, drama sells. A humor columnist friend of mine who frequently writes anecdotes about his wife or married life, clears his short pieces with her first. He is both wise and sensible to do this. It’s good to allow family members to review your writing prior to publication. Not only does it allow you to face your family with peace of mind, but it can also solicit an additional perspective which might also even strengthen your story.

No doubt, the most interesting characters are those who are spirited and who are willing and able to create conflict, the essential element that keeps a story compelling.  There are three types of conflict—conflict within the individual, conflict between individuals and conflict between an individual and society. The odds are that if your story doesn’t contain some type of conflict, either you don’t yet have a story or it will be a boring one.

If you are driven to write about family and fiction is not an option for you, then you must know your limits and boundaries within the world of nonfiction. There are three important things to remember: be as honest as you can, fact check, and preserve other people’s privacy. In any event, here are some terms you should be familiar with:

Defamation: This is damage to someone’s reputation, which includes damaging statements that are either slander (spoken) or libel (written).

Libel: This is being accused that a published statement is untrue. This can only be done by a living person. One way to avoid this charge is to alter character name, especially if you are saying something which can embarrass or invade a person’s sense of privacy.

Invasion of privacy: This is writing something about someone which they don’t want published and then sharing it publicly. This can include embarrassing, personal or misleading facts about a person which you might be obtained from a third party.

Copyright: Most writers are familiar with this infringement, but one thing I recently learned was that letters are copyrighted the second they are written, and that you cannot publish a letter without their permission.

Indeed, there are rewards when writing about family. You might have access to fascinating stories and details which could really sell and might not otherwise make their way out into the world. But, it’s important to be cautious and keep the following in mind:

Set boundaries for yourself; allow anyone mentioned in your writing to review the material and honor the fact that people are entitled to their privacy.