Writing Your Life
by Deborah Jehonyak

When I began my writing career twenty years ago, I was a graduate student at a Middle Eastern university in a land of civil unrest. One of my master’s level classes was creative writing, and the course was taught in English. As the only American and native English speaker, I arrogantly expected my writing to surpass that of my fellow students. Following a few minutes of reflection, I picked up my pen and aimed it at the yellow legal pad before me; in twenty minutes I had completed an essay about changing trends in American family life. Bored with it, I somehow thought my professor would nevertheless approve the draft as a worthwhile piece of quality—albeit it, stodgy—writing.

The middle-aged instructor, a balding man with a wry sense of humor, scanned the five-hundred-word-draft and pronounced it "Rubbish!" With a wink he sat back, hands behind head, and said, "As an American in a fundamentalist Moslem country, surely you can find something interesting to say. Write what you know--use your personal experience."

Returning to my seat with a deflated ego, I stared out the window for several moments, searching the autumn foliage for inspiration. Finding none, I turned my thoughts inward and retraced recent home life scenes that were either humorous or insightful. Moments later my tightly-held pen raced over the page, leaving behind a swirl of words that testified to the comic predicaments I often found myself facing as a stranger in a strange land: Kentucky Fried Chicken where the chicken smelled worse than the farm that bred it; the anxieties of adjusting to eastern toilets (literal "holes in the ground" rather than on pedestals); and my poor pronunciation skills that had brought a few listeners to their knees in captive humorous hysteria. When I handed in my second draft, the professor's words rewarded me: "Now you're catching on."

Same Old Problem—New Topics

Ten years later, I was a 30-something mom with two children living in the suburban Midwest of the United States. Eager to submit my first short story to a family publication for what I hoped would be pay instead of praise, I hesitantly placed my hands on the keyboard of a portable electric typewriter and tentatively typed a few well-chosen words. Agh-h-h! It stunk! The story was going nowhere, just like my essay for the creative writing class in ran.

With a glance at the clock I jumped up, racing through the living room to straighten things while my youngest napped and the other was at school. Pondering what I "knew" about life at that point, I grabbed a besmirched coffee cup from an end table and recalled my six-year-old's irritation with a recent disciplinary ruling--and voila, an idea was born: “A Goldfish Named Roy” outlined a war of wits between a father and his young son.

My story incubated the rest of the afternoon, and when my husband got home, we ate dinner before I hurried off to my weekend evening shift as a medical transcriptionist. During a break I feverishly captured my plot on the office word processor in a draft or two, chuckling to myself as I shifted the point of view from my female perspective to the step-father’s voice--quite a change! Adding comic twists and finishing with a poignant touch, I mailed my story the next day. Despite using a male perspective—something I did NOT know, I had included step-parenting accounts from a close friend whose plight had touched my heart during our frequent conversations during which I could feel her pain and hope.

Both praise and pay rewarded me. The note accompanying my $45.00 check said, "Your story made my day—thanks!" The writer in me emerged had finally from the depths of long-held insecurities and lack of confidence, and I've not been able to repress her since.

Writing What I Know and What I Have Learned

That was many short stories and articles ago, with a book currently underway that was produced on my laptop computer--a far cry from the legal pad and pen of my first story produced so long ago and far away. While I've experimented with a variety of forms, styles, and genres since then, my greatest successes come from pieces drawn from writing what I know to focus on areas that interest me--parenting, care-giving, mentoring, relationships, communication, friendship. I know better than to tackle topics like gardening, home decoration, weddings, or health—at least, not before girding myself with the requisite research.

The next time you're tempted to wander into unknown territory via your keyboard, reconsider and give yourself a chance to "write what you know." Chances are you have dozens of humorous, thoughtful, or insightful experiences stowed in the rich depths of layered memory. With a little prewriting or brainstorming, you can unearth them for review, and by polishing such gems, send personalized work into the editorial arena to showcase your expertise and personal voice. Write what you know and know what you write; editors and readers will love you for it.

Sidebar

Build a repertoire of themes drawn from personal experience. List amusing, challenging, or insightful memories or anecdotes from the past, and when you have time, explore each of them by jotting the key points of each event.

Look through a photo album to recall special events or people who were once an important part of your life. Write down names, places, and dates to add to your collection of possible writing topics.

Interview older family members for their recollections about world-changing events, such as economic shifts, wars, cultural movements, and so on. Many stories about the Depression or World War II have been written, as well as some about the Vietnam War and the hippie movement. (Think of Forrest Gumpp for example.) Quote your relatives’ descriptive phrases or impressions about these events to recreate similar characters in your writing as you explore these incidents with them.

Debra Johanyak has written stories like “East and West” and “A Goldfish Named Roy” for magazines that include Home Life and Standard. Prentice Hall has published her book, Shakespeare’s World. She and husband Mike teach college writing, and they enjoy reading and travel with their son and daughter.