A storyteller is never alone

Friday night I had an extraordinary opportunity to do a public reading of the first chapter of the memoir I’m writing, Standoff at Ronnie’s Place. The event was held at Fairfield University in Connecticut, where the editors of Mason’s Road, the journal that published this piece, were throwing a launch party to celebrate the journal’s first two issues.

Now I’ve done plenty of public readings. What was different about this one was the fact that until that evening, I had not met a single one of the 75 audience members assembled. In addition, many of them had never heard of Berks County, Pennsylvania, the all-important setting for my piece. If I hoped to gain these people’s interest in my tale, I was going to have to earn it.

Elizabeth Hilts, my creative nonfiction editor at Mason’s Road, introduced me. She explained that the issue’s theme had been pieces with a strong sense of setting, and added that when she first read my submission, “I walked through that door with Kathryn and stood out in the rain with her and felt everything she felt. Her language would not let me go.” [Paraphrasing possibly impacted by author's inner excitement.]

What a wonderful thing to hear said about your work, in front of witnesses, no less. And I’m thinking Okay, this was worth it, I can go home now. But then people clapped, and still expected to hear me read.

I was prepared. I had my black three-ring binder that opens flat. I had my pages printed out in a 16-point font that allows me to scan—even quickly memorize—entire lines so I can look out into the audience and connect with them.

I'd handwritten large asterisks where I sensed that an extra beat of silence would allow my words a tad more resonance. I’d put the pages in plastic sleeves so my dry fingers wouldn’t flub while turning pages.

In my hotel room, I’d repeated the biggest tongue-twisters so that I might rely on muscle memory for correct delivery of “squashed plastic seat pads” and “the telescopic sights of their rifles” and “marking with blood splatter”—it’s my heart that still stutters on those last two.

I replaced Elizabeth at the podium; she moved to the back of the room. I began: “I wrapped myself in a parka and headed into the storm.” The story pulled me back in time, where once again I headed through the door of our farmhouse to try to impact what I could of my fate. But it wasn't the same; Elizabeth’s comment was already changing my experience of that day.

As I looked into the audience for my oh-so-cleverly planned moments of staged connection, emotion welled in me when I found something I hadn’t bargained for: real connection. My voice pushed through the silence in the room and the audience tipped toward me to receive it, some of them with their hands to their mouths as if saying, “Oh no, I fear where this is going.” Yet they came with me. By the time I had fully transported myself back in time to enact once again the events of my story, I no longer stood alone in that driveway, with the rain pummeling my face. Around me stood 75 silent witnesses, willing to take the soaking right along with me.

My awareness of this new camaraderie built all the way to my final line: "My children would soon be home, and they needed me." Speaking of the way Ron's act impacted the boys often breaks me, and this night was no different. When I closed my notebook, I could only mouth the words "thank you," yet my gratitude was sincere.

Of the readers that night, I had driven the farthest (although in a fun twist, three of the contributors read via Skype from India, Tel Aviv, and Savannah, Georgia). A few registered surprise that I had made the trip. After all, I was paid nothing for the story, burned a half a tank of gas at $3.50/gallon, and had to shell out $120 for the hotel room.

Yet not going, for me, had never been an option. We can never know what gifts are hidden within the opportunities offered us unless we show up and say “yes”—even Ron’s suicide standoff, with its forced participation, eventually offered up hidden gifts.

This time my gift was a new awareness: a storyteller is never alone for long. We may have to navigate solo through some challenging events in life, but our aloneness is a temporary discomfort. Through story we can later invite people to become part of that world—and there, together, we'll all be less alone. I entered the worlds of others who read that night, and even after the reading, I had the privilege to bear witness to several stories offered me by people moved to share their own life experiences.

Through story, magic happened in Fairfield that night, and all of us who attended were transported and transformed.

Embrace negative feelings? Yeah, right... Part 2

My last post introduced some common negative thoughts that can stymie writers, creative artists, and anyone undergoing an arduous healing journey. Here I revisit them to show why we should embrace them.

This is too hard. Yes, hallelujah! This is why great thinkers are so drawn to creative endeavor. Like life, it challenges us in almost every way possible: our ability to juggle detail while tracking the large picture in our minds; the ability to research fact at the same time we are willing to surrender to imagination; the ability to construct surface tension while adding emotional, philosophical and psychological underpinnings; the willingness to invite inspiration and then thank it and let it go when the time comes so that the work can evolve on its own path. And doing all of this while employing both natural and learned aspects of craft that from the beginning of time have kept the listener/viewer/reader tipped forward in her chair in breathless delight. Creative endeavor taps everything we are. The artist creates something that before didn't exist—and couldn't exist, without her perspective. If it were easy, it wouldn't be half as seductive.

I thought I'd be farther along by now. That yearning for more, that need to reach ever higher, is what makes it possible to embark on such a trying ordeal without the guarantee of any reward. Yearn away!

I'm not as good as I first thought I was. Your accomplishments will never be great enough and your work will never be good enough—this is the nature of the creative process that one best stop fighting, and learn to accept. Be glad for the irritation of your self-criticism, for it's that left-brained, self-critical element that allows us to improve.

The economy will not support what I'm trying to do. Creative endeavor is front-loaded to the extreme, even in better market conditions. The world has not conspired against you, all artists are in the same boat. Our fear reminds us how important it is to keep trying. If we give up, the arts will continue to atrophy, and society will suffer a great loss. Let the unfavorable odds incite us to try harder.

My uncle gave up on his novel because "the back of his bedroom door was plastered with rejection slips," according to my aunt. His DOOR! What would one door hold—ten, twelve pages? Some of us could plaster the exterior of our houses!

When dissatisfaction and disappointment rear their ugly heads, thank them for visiting you, because they're a necessary part of the creative life. Listen for what information they have for you—"you must now learn to confidently wield point of view," for instance—and then dismiss them, go for a long walk, and get a good night's sleep.

Then get back to work.

Embrace negative feelings? Yeah right... Part 1

You stumble, as humans are bound to do. But this time it isn't a skinned knee, it's a wound to your creative soul, and it hurts enough to make you want to go back to bed with a bag of cookies and someone else's novel. Your inner critic takes control, pummeling you with its negativity:

This is too hard.

I thought I'd be farther along by now.

I'm not as good at this as I first thought.

The economy will not support what I'm trying to do.

Do any of these emotions sound familiar to you? As someone whose personal growth began while ensconced in an emotionally abusive relationship, then tried to heal from her husband's suicide while powering up a creative writing career, I've adopted a few strategies for engaging with negative emotions.

1. Allow yourself these feelings. I'm done with people telling me that what I feel is wrong or unimportant—and that includes myself. Denying my feelings only separates me from my personal truth. Remaining optimistic isn't about hypnotizing yourself into always thinking good thoughts, it's about being able to regain your equilibrium once bad thoughts try to knock you down.

2. Change the script. As with all feedback, creative perception can help us transform discouraging words into something that's helpful to hear.

This is too hard = I need rest or some additional skills to face this challenge.

I thought I'd be farther along by now = I must reinvigorate those things I can affect—my attitude and effort—and stop focusing on what I can't control.

I'm not as good as I first thought I was = I need to take stock of the ways in which I've made progress.

The economy will not support what I'm trying to do = All of us are struggling within the same conditions, and together our struggle can change the world.

3. Thank negative emotions for the information they bring. When I was a choreographer, the start of each new dance felt like a love affair. But the initial euphoria of creative expression was soon supplanted by the doubt that I could ever master the skills needed to complete the task. Two-thirds of the way through, quite predictably, I tired of it. I failed to believe in it. Convinced myself it was drivel.

I've interviewed many artists who feel the same way, during the difficult yet critical transition from initial inspiration to full creative birth. A comparison to miscarriage is apt, since most miscarriages occur after hormones alone can no longer support the pregnancy and before the sustaining connection to the mother is yet established. We need not allow emotional shifts to end our work. We can expect them, thank the negative emotions for the information they bring, and send them on their way.

4. Embrace negative emotions for all they're worth. Abraham Lincoln said, "The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend." As creative individuals, our negative emotions can seem like enemies—but they're crucial. Befriend them. If you've never lived conflict, and experienced heartbreak, how can you write, or sing, or paint of it? This is the material that drives creative effort. Thank God for our trials and our missteps!

Embracing negative emotions can nurture sustained artistic endeavor. More on that in my next post.

Are you good enough to be a writer?

As a freelance editor, most of my clients, on some level, want an answer to this question. But I'm not even sure the question is valid.

You either are a writer, or you're not. Because you either write, or you don't. Those who write, over time, will get better at it.

Most people who write are drawn to the lifestyle as much as the activity. The stereotypes are fun—camping out at a coffeehouse with a laptop, tucking yourself away in a secluded cabin, or working from home in your pajamas. I've done all of these. Call it method acting— these behaviors strengthen my writing persona, inside and out.

But at a deeper level, writers don't want corporate structure ruling their days. They're entrepreneurs, willing to gamble that they have something to offer that the world will want to buy. For me this transcends want; it's what my soul needs to thrive. Writers need the freedom to explore ideas that seem meaningful to them, and to follow unexpected tangents to their inevitable conclusions in a way that would drive a corporate manager insane.

Some of us choose this life even while hating to give up a steady paycheck and health insurance and the inherent benchmarks a corporate ladder provides. On a ladder everyone knows if they're good enough—just check out the rung and you'll see where you stand. At some point we want writing to be a meritocracy, where those who have put in their time and learned their craft will suddenly be discovered and rewarded with bestseller status and mounds of cash.

The harsh truth: if you eschew corporate America and embrace the writing life, you lose its ladder as well. Until a publishing company starts telling you what to do ("Simon & Schuster owns me," author Judith Viorst once told me), you are both your boss and your employee.

To succeed, both must be equally developed. My boss (left brain) is always coming up with some new plan that my inner writer (right brain) would be happy to derail.

Boss: "Kathryn, this week you're going to get up at 5 a.m. every day to write, when you'll get no e-mail to derail you."

Employee: "Thanks! I love to write!"

Boss, Monday morning at 5:15 a.m.: "Hey, what are you doing writing that e-mail? Get back to your writing."

Employee: "You can't make me."

Boss, patiently trying to re-motivate: "But you love to write. I set aside this time just for you."

Employee: "But I keep forgetting to to e-mail Ellen about something. Anyway, writing e-mail counts. There's a long precedent: letters of authors can get published."

To keep your inner employee on track you must do your own performance reviews. Instead of hoping your critique group or freelance editor will tell you you're a good writer, listen to your own writing to decide whether you've communicated effectively. If you've accomplished what you set out to do (not what others hoped you would do), you can give yourself a good review.

If you haven't, you can revise--and give yourself a good review.

If you're struggling in an aspect of craft and need more education, sign up for a course or buy a how-to book to improve—and give yourself a good review.

If one day your energy is low and applying more words to the page overwhelms, let your boss give you the afternoon to research, instead, and the next day you'll be up and writing with new ideas to apply. Then give yourself a good review.

The writers who are in it for the long haul benefit from recognizing their work as a calling, or vocation. I feel that way, although according to author and theologian Frederick Buechner, I'm only halfway there. Buechner defines a vocation as "where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Hmm. I've got that "deep gladness" in spades. But does the world have a deep hunger for what I have to offer? Time will tell. Until then, I must urge myself on. (Blogged today! Good performance review—because it's only in getting my work out there that I can discover whether the world hungers it.)

Is being a good writer really as easy as being your own cheerleader? As long as you're writing, and moving ever closer to effective communication through the stories or articles you choose to write, I believe this is true. And we'd better develop this trait now, because we'll need it, commercial success or no. If we allow money to define success, how will we weather market fluctuations? If we hand away our performance reviews to others, how will we withstand the critics who'll be happy to tell us that our freshman efforts were pap?

There's really only one way to be a bad writer, and that's to stop.

But then, by definition, you aren't a writer at all.

How do you stay motivated?

A writing friend e-mailed me this weekend, desperate for words of encouragement. She hit me on a good day—I'd just hit the skids the week before.

Discouragement is an integral part of the creative life in any economy, let alone one in which the likelihood is diminishing that our talents and passions will be able to support us. I'll talk about why we should embrace discouragement in my next post. But today, let's bolster ourselves up.

The inspiration I'd like to share comes from dance, the art form that gave birth to my creative spirit. When I need encouragement, I visit the words of modern dance visionary Martha Graham (1894-1991). I'll let Martha tell you why in this series of pulled quotes:

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.

I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes in some area an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose, I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life. When any young student asks me, "Do you think I should be a dancer?" I always say, "If you have to ask, then the answer is no." Only if there is one way to make life vivid for yourself and for others should you embark upon such a career...

I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable.

Many of these quotes are from Martha's autobiography, Blood Memory, published in the year of her death. What powerful words from an amazing woman. Could I hear an amen?

Martha was the daughter of Puritan-bred Presbyterians who were none too thrilled to have a daughter at the cutting edge of American modern dance. Martha was both admired and reviled for her work. Her success was never guaranteed—there wasn't even yet an audience for the type of work she did. She created her genre, seeking out top-notch collaborators.

Martha continued to perform until she was 76 years old. But even Martha, whose words have re-energized me time and again, fell prey to discouragement. When she stopped dancing, she wrote:

I had lost my will to live. I stayed home alone, ate very little, and drank too much and brooded. My face was ruined, and people say I looked odd, which I agreed with. Finally my system just gave in. I was in the hospital for a long time, much of it in a coma.

Yet her spirit proved indomitable. She rallied. She continued choreographing until the age of 96 from a chair; by then arthritis had crippled her hands to the point that she wore gloves to hide the disfigurement.

I never met Martha Graham, although I saw her ushered onto the stage to take a bow at the end of her company's performances. I too loved modern dance. My maiden name is even Graham.

But these aren't the reasons my connection to her feels so personal. Her own words tell us why: she was inside my head, knowing what I needed to hear. All artists, famous or not, share a vulnerability that allows them to do what they do. Deep inside, Martha Graham and Kathryn Graham Williams Craft aren't so very different (okay, she was wiser not to take all of her husbands' names).

If she could resurrect after drinking herself into a coma, I can forgive myself the occasional lapse of confidence. I draw strength from her story time and again, hoping to by-pass the coma by listening deeply to words that even she struggled to live up to.

From what sources do you draw your encouragement?

Coming of age at 54

Last summer, while staying at my summer home in northern New York State for several months, a combination of benign neglect and the lack of a good hairdresser kept me from tending to hair that for a good decade I'd been trimming and dying as a matter of course. As my hair grew richer (I'd added a silver crown to my gold), I became more curious: what the heck did I really looked like these days?

By the time my guests were due to arrive for my fall writing retreat, I had collaborated on the sly with one of them, a hairdresser: for the first morning’s writing prompt, we had a bit of performance art in store. Roxanne would cut my hair. Short.

My resolve was immediately put to the test when Lisa walked in the door. “I love your hair!” she said, referring not only to its inordinate length but also its sun-bleached state. And I thought, "I love compliments!" I smiled and thanked her and wondered if I’d really go through with this.

But the next morning, when the women had assembled in the living room, I marched straight to the sink to wet my head, threw a beach towel over my shoulders, and sat in a chair in the center of the room. The other women were quite surprised when Roxanne pulled out her scissors and began combing my hair. She explained that she’d been watching my hair since she arrived, and that it had told her what it wanted to do. (And I'm thinking, thank God it knew!)

I then described the writing prompt, which was one part a theme of transformation, and one part a randomly drawn lyric from a Kinks song (I’d printed those up ahead of time—the Kinks were big my with my lake friends while growing up).

Retreaters Ellen and Nancy took these pictures of the process. All was fun and games until I started seeing four-inch sections of my hair fall to my lap. Fear and anticipation duked it out for dominance.

To me it felt no less important than carving out an authentic sense of self.

That's a re-emerging theme these days. As I write my memoir, I seek a sense of my own developing character within a story over which I had little control. In a parallel process, as I strive to lose weight, I feel I’m carving out a physical sense of self from the excesses that protected the unfurling woman whose shell shattered from Ron's suicide. I see all of these events as connected.


After taking a moment to contemplate the new me, the women and I got writing. Having these women witness my transformation raised the experience to the level of ritual for me. It was fun, and meaningful—I think all aging women should gather their friends to celebrate the dropping of the hormonal veil that keeps us from truly knowing ourselves. I tried to wrestle my feelings into my usual prose style but they just wouldn’t go—these images felt more raw and untamable. The result was this poem. I've put the Kinks lyric in italics.

The Urge to Push
by Kathryn Craft

An urge asks no permission.
The body simply knows
how to accept a lover, or birth a child.
Yet I needed pills, thermometers, surgeries.
Split second timing. Chemical induction.
With no urge to push, a monitor’s line graph supplanted instinct.

Growth seeks its own path.
The soul finds a way
to bend toward ample light.
Yet I needed journal pages, tough circumstances, therapy.
Life or death choices.
I would be a widow before I could call myself a woman.

Gravity will have its way
with materials meant for temporary use.
It breaks down bone, washes out hair, tugs on skin.
Yet I dammed the inevitable with calcium and hair dye,
pitting my desires against erosion and entropy
and the very spin of the planet.

Time offers up trials
that blister and bolster the enduring spirit,
rubbing, peeling, revealing.
Growth and gravity and time have finally made me
so swollen with experience
that I sense, at long last, a true urge to push.

Impulsive courage seizes me.
The lie of my hair weighs heavily
and I seek rebirth to self.
The scissors snip and shape,
a glimmer of silver feeling freer than
the lock of brass that falls to my lap.

Naked truth emerges,
seeking the light, embracing the gravity, honoring the time.
People take pictures of youth to prove it really existed.
I push my aging self into the open

while I have the chance
before modesty dictates that I don the robe of the crone.

It took four months before the blond was all cut out. Here's the final result:

How old will you be tomorrow?*

Now that I’m fifty-four-and-a-half I’m starting to feel it, you know?

Younger, that is.

When it comes to aging, not all is equal. If my life were equal to my first husband’s, for example, I would be dead in another 191 days.

That’s sobering. In so many ways I feel I am still awakening to myself—how could all this be over any time soon? There is so much to see and learn and do. And READ!!

If my life were equal to my grandmother’s on the other hand, I’d have a leisurely 15,888 days remaining to accomplish all I’d like. (Excuse me—may I choose this option?) My grandmother traveled with my uncle to Europe in her eighties, and read many a book while rocking in front of the fireplace at our summer home in northern New York. When I project forward to think of myself at that age, I mix in a little Laura Ingalls Wilder so I can still be writing. Why not?—Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books were published while she was between 65 and 76 years of age.

My grandmother’s life was no picnic. Her physician husband worked long hours and died early, so she raised her four children largely on her own. A series of small strokes left her wheelchair bound and unable to speak for several of her final years. But I never sensed she had left us. She never had that frighteningly blank look I saw on so many faces in the nursing home where I once worked. Even when she couldn’t speak she looked as if she were listening, and wore a sweet smile. (She also smiled while rocking and reading—Harlequin romances.) Thanks to my ever-attentive uncle (pushing her wheelchair in the above picture, which was taken at my wedding to Ron), my grandmother always looked put together, wearing rouge and lipstick and a dress (never once in the thirty years I knew her did I ever see my grandmother wear trousers).

My grandmother died in her sleep on February 13, 1987, at the age of 97. It was a Friday the 13th, and the moon was full. I hope she'd understood when I told her I was pregnant—in a wonderful affirmation of the circle of life, my son Jackson, left, was born on her birthday that year.

So why bother thinking about this? I know I can't control the number of my days here on earth.

But I can allow the days of the people I’ve known to inspire the way I choose to live them.

As to the 191 days: To honor that, by the time I reach Ron’s “deadline,” I aim to finish my memoir. To put the story of that part of my life to rest at a time in my life that corresponds with his decision to end his life. It feels right.

As to the 15,888 days: If I am lucky enough to have a marathon of days still before me, I’d better get in shape. I’ve always been active, and at fifty could walk and run and swim farther than I could in my early twenties. Yet I had belly fat that just wouldn’t budge, putting me at risk for all sorts of physical maladies that could shorten my life, or worse, disable it.

Thanks to fitness tips from my younger brother, who’s a personal trainer, I’m finally losing that weight (more circle of life here: new science has supplanted the fat burning principles I learned in exercise physiology when I got my master’s degree in health and physical education in 1980). My arthritis bothers me less. I’m fitting into clothes I hadn’t worn in over a decade. And whose arms are these? In many ways I'm turning back the clock, and becoming my younger self. Any wisdom accrued is mine to keep.

*I borrowed my title question from the tagline of Lifespan Design Studio, an architecture firm which utilizes universal design to support the comfort and function of people of all ages and abilities in commercial and residential settings. It's run by my friends Doug and Ellen Gallow, who printed the question on the back of the tee-shirt advertising their business. (We've been friends a long time—Doug took this picture of my grandmother.) I guess when they read this they’ll know how I value the question on that tee-shirt. It adds a philosophical punch to my workouts.

So: How old will you be tomorrow?