How to Write From the Small Moments of Life

THERE ARE MANY over-used and under-explained phrases in writing instruction. We tell writers to “show, not tell.” We tell them to “write what you know,” and we tell them that they need to know how to write from the small moments of life. I would argue that if you learn that last one first, the other two are far easier to do. Let me explain. 

It would be a lie to say that I have deliberately misplaced the ironing board. In fact, I’ve lost two: One long-legged, folding sort, and one table-top, short-legged version. And I’d like to say that it was not easy to do but that, too, would be a lie since, in fact, it was a snap.

Early in my thirty-one-year marriage, I told my husband that I didn’t iron. It was during that breezy getting-to-know-you time, and since it seemed to me that he might very well be the real thing, the go-the-distance guy of my life, I figured there was no better time to fashion myself into the woman I might like to be forever. Topping the list of things I would become was a woman who does not iron.

It’s not that I am not domestic. In fact, I go on regular benders of domestic godessies, sometimes baking for days; my knitting jags are seasonally effective (very effective, in fact). I recently emerged from a slow-cooker jag that explored myriad ways to dispatch pork shoulders. The gardens on my property include an herb bed that is harvested in all seasons for kitchen use. I have three freezers. So I am no slouch when it comes to the benefits of the domiciliary aspects of life and love. I simply took a no-ironing position long ago, stuck to it and made it as much of my brand as my red hair.

“What are you looking for?” my husband inquired recently as I was apparently overheard, scrounging on my knees in the back of a bedroom closet.

Uh oh. What to say? Fess up? Admit that from time to time I want the wrinkles out of one of my shirts and do actually do it myself? Lie outright? I began to reach for one of the closet’s wasteland of discarded items, just about to pronounce, “Look, honey! The rehab boot from when you broke your ankle!” when instead I backed up just enough to see what he was doing.

There he was, my husband of thirty-one years, neatly folding his t-shirts, smoothing their wrinkles, preparing them to be put in his dresser. All normal, all part of another day, another week, another month in a marriage that I now know can absorb revelations of various sizes, and I quietly put down the boot.

“Tell no one,” I said now back in the cave of shoes and boots, belts that and not been seen in years, and one, exhausted piece of formal crumpled, like a deflated prom-queen, on the ground. And I again pulled my head from the closet to gauge his response.

“Okay,” he replied, shooting a knowing smile in the direction of our adult daughter’s bedroom.

“I’m going to iron a shirt.” And I watched the marriage math ping around his head as he recalculated this algorithm. Our daughter is home, briefly. She is downstairs. She is under the impression that I do not iron other people’s clothes and that if other people want their clothes ironed they must possess and educate themselves on how to use an ironing board.

He nodded. And a new conspiracy was born, as was a scene.

How to write from the small moments of life begins by appreciating those small moments. No doubt about it. But much like walking with headphones or, instead, taking them off and listening to bird song, that choice  begins with you and what you choose to listen to. Because you must listen. And look. And palpate these moments.

The myth is that you will recognize them in the moment for what they are. You will not. Or you may, if you are far more intuitive than I. This is why you must keep a notebook on you at all times. In this case, mine was on my nightside table, mere feet away from the scene. I jotted down, “the ironing board.” Nothing more. Later, upon reflection, I saw that scene as a conspiratorial moment that marriages may need as we let our children go into adulthood, and we are left with one another, and the real need for that to be okay. And I will probably use that small scene in something larger as I write more from home at this time of life.

How to write from the small moments of life begins with taking off the headphones and catching the jagged and the smooth, and running your fingers over them when you have the time. It begins with having them, writing them down and then feeling for what they are.

You can do that. I know you can.

Want more? Let’s talk about your work. Join me in some classes. Here are the current offerings:

• Memoirama: The everything-you-need-to-get-started-writing-memoir class. Live, online memoir class with Q&A. 90 minutes. This is the class to get you started writing what you know.
• ​Memoirama 2: Book structure. Period. No one is born knowing how to structure a book and no book can exist without structure. Book structure was taught to me by four of the best editors in NY publishing for my four published books. This course gets your structure up and supporting your story. Two hours. Live. You and six other writers.
• ​How to Write Op-eds, Radio Essays and Digital Commentary: Live. Ninety minutes. Co-taught with a former Pulitzer Prize juror, newspaper editor, weekly newspaper columnist and host of a nationally syndicated public radio show. Get your voice our into the world.
• ​The Master Class: Open to those who are writing book-length memoir. Seven writers. Six months. Once a month. All live. Get your first draft written.

And don’t forget to listen to my podcast. It’s called QWERTY, and it’s by, for and about writers.