And what a beautiful compliment — that you are a peacemaker who makes the flowers bloom.

Now there’s an epitaph to aspire to!

Here’s a favorite release from my Heritage Watcher’s class: a long braided rug sketched above these words: Bad memories… negative happenings. Hidden under a rug, it grows like a deadly cancer. Celebrate the good… deal with the bad. Forgive and forget. Forgive – yes. Forget – never. Live and learn.

Recently while in Switzerland a close Swiss friend gifted me these words: “You know how “to lay all on the table” and still be positive, hopeful, and kind. Wherever you go, flowers start blooming for you are a great peace builder.”

I wonder whether there’s any more wisdom to extract from the video . . . ? That light tone I highlighted does not come with the first experience of story telling. I’ll bet there were tears before that event and probably have been some since also.

So, I think it’s important to write without thought of the audience at first. Just try your best to describe what it feels like to be you or what it felt like in the past. Keep probing the layers. As you go down deep under the surface pain to naming your fears, you are likely to connect with universal fear. Then I would recommend a developmental editor for getting the tone and the themes just right. Keep going! Or as Marian says, stay in the chair.

You provide a wonderful list of things to consider as we’re writing. I’m struggling with writing about painful things and how to do so in a way that doesn’t turn off the reader or make me sound like a mere complainer. It’s hard.