“As a writer, it can be difficult to find a clear path that leads you to your goals.” “One of my biggest concerns is that someone has a vision for what they want to write and create, and they justify giving it up. That it’s too hard to publish, so they don’t. That they receive too many rejections, so they give up. That they read marketing is impossible nowadays, so they stop trying.” You don’t have to struggle alone. Dan Blank has answers. “We struggle alone. We succeed together.”The Creative Shift by Dan Blank, November 7, 2025
I have re-read a Wall Street Journal article numerous times since its publication, July 2024, partly because of the subject, mostly because of the riveting way it was written . . . the account of the days before and after Rachel Zimmerman’s husband’s death by his own hand.
“As a health reporter, I wrote years ago about a study that showed the psychological benefits of storytelling. I was fascinated by research that found that people felt differently about themselves and their lives when they reframed their stories so that they were agents, not victims or bystanders. Essentially, the story matters less than how we tell it to ourselves.” Rachel Zimmerman, “A Decade Ago, My Husband Killed Himself. Could I Have Stopped it?” The Wall Street Journal, July 6-7, 2024
As Zimmerman wrote, “This is my effort to make sense of something senseless.”
Both Zimmerman and Samantha Rose (Giving Up The Ghost) wrote about extremely difficult subjects with an eloquence that makes their writing and their stories memorable.
The trick to writing about hard topics is to practice self-care while writing.
“If we write about our pain, we heal gradually, instead of feeling powerless and confused, and we move to a position of wisdom and power.” — Louise DeSalvo, Writing as a Way of Healing
“In times of unrest, struggle, and uncertainty, people reach for the comfort of story. When the world around us may feel bleak or overwhelming, stories offer us not just an escape from our troubles and worries, but a version of life that remind us of what’s most important, what we value and what is worth striving and fighting for, and the kind of world we could create if we do.” — Tiffany Yates Martin, “How to Write Amid Chaos,” Writers Digest July/August 2025
Sophie Campbell hands us the key to unlock the dilemma of when to “show” and when to “tell.”
“In creative writing, we’re often told to show, not tell. It’s practically gospel. In essence, it means show us how a character is feeling, don’t tell us.
For example, ‘Jane felt a bubble rise in her throat and her chest heaved as she sobbed,’ is more powerful than simply, ‘Jane was sad and she cried.’
But the truth is, the most compelling fiction does both showing and telling, and the best copywriting does too.
The key isn’t choosing one over the other, it’s knowing when and how to use each of them to create characters that feel like real people and a voice that readers will remember.”
“A good editor gives feedback that feels less like judgment and more like a conversation—less ‘here’s what’s wrong’ and more ‘here’s where we can dig deeper.’
There is something incredibly satisfying, almost magical, in those small, right-aligned edits that a good editor suggests. A word change here, a rephrase there, and suddenly the piece feels tighter, braver. One editor suggested I cut an entire paragraph detailing a painful memory I thought was essential to the piece. ‘The story feels stronger without this part,’ she said, and once I’d made the cut, I realized the rest of the piece came into sharper focus, allowing the heart of the essay to shine through.”
About a difficult piece she wrote:
“Going into these pieces alone would have felt impossible. I needed someone at the mouth of that cave, someone who could shine a light and pull me back if things got too dark. A good editor does exactly that. I couldn’t have written my most important pieces without knowing that support was there, without that trust.”
Elizabeth Austin’s writing has appeared in HuffPost, Today.com, Thrillist, The Sun, Reactor Mag, and others. She holds an M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with her two children and their many pets.
Note from Marlene: How to find a good editor? Email your ideas to me: mcullen – at – sonic.net
The human mind tends to focus on painful memories while letting positive ones fade. These distressing memories become our heaviest burden, causing ongoing emotional pain.
How much of our past can we carry with us through life’s journey? This is a profound question that affects everyone in different ways. The past resides within our memories like a vast collection of stories, each one leaving its unique impression upon our consciousness. These memories manifest in various forms — from the radiantly joyful moments that warm our hearts, to the mundane yet comfortable memories of everyday life, to the deeply sorrowful experiences, and finally to those truly tormenting recollections that seem to pierce our very soul.
When we carry these memories forward naturally, allowing them to exist without judgment, it should theoretically be manageable. However, human nature often leads us down a different path. We tend to automatically focus on the painful memories while letting the positive or neutral ones fade into the background. The heaviest burden we bear comes from those tormenting memories — the ones that inflict suffering, burden our hearts, and generate persistent emotional pain. Even as we experience significant personal growth and positive changes in our present circumstances, these fragments of our past, particularly the painful ones, create a barrier that prevents us from fully embracing and experiencing our current life.
I’ve witnessed this unfold countless times in matters of the heart. Picture pristine relationships — couples painting their futures with vibrant strokes of hope, individuals discovering new love with fresh canvas in hand — only to watch as the shadows of their past gradually seep through, staining their masterpiece with doubt and fear. But here’s a fascinating thought that changed my perspective: our past is like a phantom theater, existing only in the projection room of our minds. Its power flows solely from the energy we feed it, like a ghostly performance that continues only as long as we keep the projector running. The moment we dim those lights, the show begins to fade, and we rediscover our power to write new stories.
Like unwanted guests crashing a peaceful evening, memories have a peculiar way of barging into our minds uninvited. They pirouette through our consciousness — a carousel of faces spinning past: the high school friend whose laughter still echoes, the barista who knew our coffee order by heart, the stranger whose kindness touched us on that rainy afternoon. But it’s not just people who make surprise appearances in this impromptu theater of remembrance. The trees from our childhood playground, the cherished dog who died, the cat that once shared our lunch, the creaky garden gate that marked our homecomings — they all take their turn on memory’s stage, tugging at the curtains of our present with persistent hands.
Imagine your mind as a traveler, carrying a weathered suitcase filled with memories. This faithful companion — your emotional baggage — accompanies you everywhere, from sun-kissed beaches to snow-capped mountains, its familiar weight a constant presence at your side. But what if we could transform this heavy burden into something lighter, something that enriches rather than exhausts? The answer lies not in attempting to abandon our past — for it is as much a part of us as our own shadow — but in learning to dance with it gracefully. Like a skilled alchemist, we must learn to transmute these memories, both golden and leaden, into wisdom. For our past, unchangeable as the stars above, stands as a silent testament to our journey. When we finally embrace this truth, accepting each chapter of our story without resistance, we begin to feel the weight of that old suitcase gradually lifting from our shoulders.
Click “Our Past” to read the rest of this article posted on The Gurdeep Magazine on Substack, April 23, 2025.
Note from Gurdeep
I’ve chosen to keep my articles free to ensure they remain accessible to everyone, regardless of their income. I don’t wish to create barriers for those facing financial hardship. If you have stable employment and a steady income, though, I trust you’ll read my articles as a paid subscriber.
Gurdeep Pandher is a Bhangra dance artist. He creates dance videos in nature/outdoors and performances that bring people together. He is best known for spreading joy, hope and positivity during the pandemic.
Note from Marlene
Use Gurdeep’s thoughts as a springboard to write your story. Click on Healing for self-care ideas when writing about difficult topics.
I particularly like Allison’s suggestion about “converting similes to metaphors when possible—saying something is something else is more powerful than saying it’s like something else.”
Complementing Allison’s recommendations is advice given to Anita Gail Jones, author of The Peach Seed about her use of “the.”
Anita found where she overused “the,” there were other problems. Her evaluation of “the” led to stronger writing and improved her story telling.
This advice reinforces Allison’s concept of focusing on one thing at a time when revising.
Another gem from Anita, “Beats: A unit of emotional measurement between people.” Harder to find than the single word “the,” but so important in creating a compelling narrative.
Thank you to Susan and Patricia for helping me to remember what Anita said at her keynote address at Sebastopol’s Lit Crawl, May 2025.
“My science teacher uses a ruler and twine to mark a square-foot box in the damp blanket of leaves covering the ‘outdoor classroom.’ My task today is to observe this small patch. Part of a log has fallen within the boundaries, and I note the moss that grows on it and the bugs that seek shelter under its flaking bark. We return once a month to note how this woodland square changes with the seasons and maybe even write a poem.
I do not remember completing this assignment, but I recall the crisp smell of forest floor, the slip of mud beneath my shoes, and the surprise of a roly-poly beneath the log.”
Can you see this scene? The ruler, the twine, the square-foot box, the damp blanket of leaves. Maybe you know that smell of damp leaves, of a crisp forest smell, of mud.
Notice how sensory detail bring this scene from the page into you sensory awareness, into your memory bank.
More on sensory detail in writing on The Write Spot Blog:
“Most readers know that sensation when immersed in a book of being transported from their couches or chairs into another world, where a film unspools in the mind’s eye.
The engines that power this transport are the smallest components of craft: sensory details. Concrete sensory details paint a story so compelling and vivid that as readers, through the awesome power of our imaginations, see, hear, smell and feel the story. This process is a bilateral exchange that I think of as literary transference: the story enters the reader’s mind, and thus the reader enters the story, as if through a magic portal.
It is during this transference process when mere black and white words—hieroglyphs–are alchemized into the images, smells, sounds, and sensations that transport readers deeply into stories. This exchange yields more than the pleasure of being whisked into another realm; it allows us to flex our powers of empathy as we vicariously experience others’ lives.”
I bet you do this and perhaps don’t know it has an official name, or many names . . .
Words that create new words when spelled backward are called: heteropalindromes, semordnilaps, semi-palindromes, half-palindromes, reversgrams, mynoretehs, reversible anagrams, word reversals, or anadromes.
The term “semordnilap” is a playful invention. Though the term is relatively modern, the concept has been used for centuries.
Lewis Carroll is known for creating “Semordnilap” (the reverse of Palindrome).
Examples of semordnilaps are found in the works of James Joyce, particularly “Finnegans Wake” (1939).
Joyce was known for his experimental use of language, and “Finnegans Wake” is filled with complex puns, wordplay, and linguistic tricks. Although the book primarily focuses on palindromes and complex word formations, it also features instances where words and phrases take on new meanings when reversed or rearranged. Joyce’s innovative approach to language helped cement semordnilaps as a legitimate and intriguing form of literary expression.
Semordnilaps have made their way into various forms of literature and pop culture, adding a layer of creativity and wit.
For instance, in the Harry Potter series, the mirror in the Room of Requirement, called “Erised,” spells “Desire” backward and reflects the deepest desires of those who look into it.
