People tell me all the time that they’re interested in writing their family stories, interviewing older relatives so they can pass down the details for the next generation, have something interesting to share at family reunions. I tell them about the ways they can approach the task, the old-fashioned way with pen and paper, recording interviews on their cell phone, doing a video and audio recording in a virtual format, scrapbooking or creating a photo album with detailed captions. In response I usually get a slight head nod and a lethargic, “That’s a good idea.”
I understand. We’re all busy.
But what if the details you needed to document a good portion of your family story, were much easier to obtain. That was the case for my friend, Nadine Schofield.
As a child, Nadine knew about a box of letters tucked away in a little suitcase in her parents’ closet. Occasionally her mother would read a few of them and reminisce.
“I asked my mother about them and she said, ‘Oh, they’re just some nice things your father said about me,” Nadine said.
Her mother made it clear that the letters were private and Nadine didn’t have permission to read them. Many decades later, her mother gave her permission to read them after she passed away. When her mother died at age 87, Nadine opened the box and what she found surpassed her expectations, hundreds of letters her father wrote to her mother when he was in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II.
“My father was a good writer,” Nadine said, her face lighting up during our dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant. “The letters highlight my father’s eloquence and wit. It was a real cool love story. It provided me with a deeper insight into my parents’ relationship.”
Written between 1941 and 1946, the letters had yellowed and were musty, but a sweetness rose from the words on each page.
World War II accounts are easy enough to come by in movies, TV shows, documentaries, and books, but the perspective Nadine has gotten from her father’s letters is something rare.
“He wrote a lot about the music of the era, the big bands. He talked about what it was like to go to New York City to see a musical and how grand that was. And then being in California, seeing the Palladium, which was apparently a gigantic dance hall.”
Nadine could have stopped there, reading each letter, treasuring the details of her parents’ love story, but that was only the beginning for her. She felt the letters would be precious jewels for her family, for her son and daughter, their children and the generations to come. A skilled editor, Nadine self-published the letters in book form, including many in their entirety and excerpts of others. It became a family affair. Her brother, Jon, created the cover art and wrote a reflection. A reflection is also included from her brother, Gene.
The result is the 167-page Hurry Home: Love Letters from the War. Family photos, postcards, a military recruiting poster, and newspaper front pages enhance the narratives. “Hurry Home” were the closing words in the last letter received in the collection of letters.
and secure my domain name. I already had LisaBraxton.com—that’ the domain for this website—but I didn’t have “dot org” or the domain name that is the working title of my manuscript. I did what the book said, stopped what I was doing, and secured the other domain names.
Distance Romance,” about how I met my husband in the most unlikely place. The story was published in 
honorable mention in its 84th annual writing competition. The mention was for an essay I wrote centering on a troubling medical diagnosis I received.
I had sent an essay I titled, “The World I Didn’t Know Existed,” to 
eye of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Sherlock Holmes, Oscar Wilde, or any of the other literary action figures on the market. My favorite is Jane Austen, one of the greatest English novelists. Despite living a largely sheltered life, she skillfully captured the subtleties of human interaction and her works are more popular than ever.
noise. They have a comfortable over-ear design and sliding headband to fit any head size. They can block out barking dogs, howling cats, annoying spouses, and anyone and anything else that can break a writer’s concentration.
ubiquitous slot machines too distracting, but a weekend stay at a hotel can give a writer the space and tranquility needed to increase that daily word count. And when the writer needs a breather, there’s always the hotel pool or gym.
for an extended stay and their lighting is not set up with the writer in mind. When I get the urge to write on these occasions, the dim lighting in the guest bedroom leads to frustration. I sometimes end up writing in the guest bathroom, which, for some reason, people tend to light more brightly. The rechargeable booklight takes care of this issue. It attaches to almost anything, and provides bright, white light.
end can leave a writer’s back muscles tired. What better way to relieve the tension than with the gift of a massage. Day spas provide gift cards for a menu of massages, including deep tissue and heated stone.
The writer gets out of the house to craft that story, all the while tapping into the energy of the coffee house patrons and inhaling the full-bodied aroma of a cup of java.
