What I Learned from my Memory Whack-a-Mole Project

Last week I experimented on a new way to catch up on journaling, inspired by former Utah governor Michael Leavitt’s Thousand Stories project. In an attempt to come up with more anecdotes for his speeches, Leavitt sat down and wrote only a few words—one line—for each story he could remember. Then he decided to shoot for a hundred stories, which, over time, morphed into a thousand.

My project consisted of writing only a few words about each day on a February 2016 calendar until each day was covered, and then adding details as I remembered them until it could be transferred over and completed in a more permanent journal format. Because of the way memories seem to pop up at random, I decided to call my project Memory Whack-a-Mole.

I wasn’t able to complete February 2016 by the end of the week, but it was a fantastic start and I’m still pleased with the results so far.

My Observations

I’ve learned a few things from my maiden voyage, but I have a few caveats to add.

Each day last week, I got up at 5 a.m. and wrote in my daily journal, and then I worked on my Memory Whack-a-Mole—which was essentially catching up in my journal for the month of February. Now, I had already kept a sporadic journal throughout February, but when I commenced this Whack-a-Mole project last week, I started from scratch.

Basically, I wrote in my journal twice a day last week. Add on top of that revising my upcoming e-book on journal writing (called Old School Blogging, to be published in the next couple months), as well as attempting to write 1,500 words a day on the first draft of my third novel manuscript in a fantasy trilogy (more on that in another blog entry). That means by Saturday I was getting burned out from all the writing.

I found that last week’s techniques sparked memories I hadn’t written in my daily February journal entries; however, there were also details I wrote in my February journal entries I hadn’t remembered while writing in last week’s project.

My greatest word count for Memory Whack-a-Mole came from writing about the first week of February because that was the most memorable week; however, in my regular journal writing, I didn’t write much about that week for the same reason: because it was so memorable—and packed. Being the week of RootsTech 2016, I had the least amount of time—and/or focus—to devote to writing in my journal, but it took the least amount of effort to remember it.

The Takeaway

The whole point of Memory Whack-a-Mole is to make journal writing possible and easier if you're not keeping up with it.

If you don’t keep a journal but want to, start today by writing about yesterday. Then tomorrow, do the same thing you did today, except designate a specific time each day for journal writing. Then do it every day at that designated time.

Starting a worthwhile habit is the easy part; continuing on with it until it becomes habitual is what’s hard. Even if you make the time to write in your journal every day, because not all days are created equal there will be days you don’t touch your journal at all because of conflicting, escalated priorities. Once you miss a day, it’ll be easier to miss the next day and slightly more difficult to catch-up. Then it becomes a slippery slope.

You need to have at least one day per week when you don’t think about or do work at all, when you have time for quiet reflection. If you work six to seven days a week, I give you my deepest sympathies and hope you can reach a point in your life to have at least one day off per week from anything involving work so you can have time for quiet reflection.

For me, that time is Sunday afternoons, after I’ve returned home from church, eaten, and snuck in a much-needed nap. Then my schedule is open enough for me to sit down at my laptop and start writing freely in my journal. Find what time each week is best for you and stick with it.

Don’t give up on something as important in the long-term as journaling, but for those times you find yourself having lived an entire month without having recorded it, Memory Whack-a-Mole is a new technique to help you prime your memory and write about the past.

Memory Whack-A-Mole

Lately, I’ve been focusing on revising my first e-book, tentatively called Old School Blogging: Getting Back to the Art of Journal Writing. The purpose of that book is to help people put a greater emphasis on journal writing—regularly keeping a journal and improving upon their writing.

After floundering with the manuscript at the close of 2015, I found new inspiration in February by attending RootsTech 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. With this year’s conference theme being story-telling, I had a fresh spring to draw ideas from for not only Old School Blogging but also my personal history business.

During his keynote address, former Utah governor Mike Leavitt (1993–2003) polled the audience on governor-era stories they wanted to hear him tell. Those anecdotes included the time the governor’s mansion caught on fire, when he was chosen by Pres. George W. Bush to serve as the EPA administrator, when he informed his female lieutenant governor she would be the first female governor of Utah, and experiences revolving around the 2002 Olympics. Some stories were humorous while others were poignant to the point of bringing the audience to tears.

It was all thanks to his Thousand Stories project.

It started the day Leavitt realized he drew on the same well of stories for his speeches. One Sunday afternoon, he took out a pad of paper and starting filling the page with anecdotes from his life. Instead of painstakingly writing down explicit details, he just wrote a few words for each story—making up only a line. He reported that a few words would remind him of events in his life. After about ten minutes, he felt like he was going somewhere.

“That was fairly easy,” he thought. “I wonder if I could do a hundred?”

After a short period of time, he reached a hundred stories. Then he decided to shoot even higher by writing down a thousand stories from his life—thus giving birth to his Thousand Stories project. For inspiration, Leavitt drove through the city of his birth—Cedar City, Utah—where he found himself flooded with memories of stories to write down.

“Before I knew it,” he says, “I had a thousand story lines.”

He put the project aside for a while, letting the stories marinate a bit, until he returned to the project and started categorizing the stories. As a result, Leavitt says he “tricked” himself into writing his own personal history, which has been an enjoyable and rewarding experience for him—especially as he hears his grandchildren treasure his lifetime stories as their favorite bedtime stories.

In my own journal writing—which has added up to a ballpark number of 10,000 pages of entries in thirty-eight years—I’ve had to play “catch-up” most of the past twenty years. I’ve found that’s been the easiest when I don’t try to catch up on strictly one day, but rather write down a line or two about each day that I remember and then go back to days I've written about. Suddenly, more memories pop into my head about a particular day, and I write it down. Then memories from another day pop into my head and I furiously write those down. Then it happens again with another day. Next thing I know, I’m playing Memory Whack-a-Mole.

Games are no fun when you don’t have anyone to play with, so my challenge to you all is to join me for Memory Whack-a-Mole next week.

Before Monday, google “February 2016 calendar” and print out the one you prefer. Make sure to use a calendar that gives you plenty of room to write a few words for each day about something you remember, whether an event, how you felt about something, or what the weather was like. And no excuses on it being the worst month of the year. On Leap Day, I asked my children around the table what their favorite part of February was. My eleven-year-old daughter said, “Dr. Seuss Day.” My nine-year-old daughter said, “Groundhog Day.” My seven-year-old said, “Valentine’s Day.” I said, “President’s Day,” because our family hit the road for a quick trip to Utah for the day.

Starting on Monday, March 7, and continuing through Sunday, March 13, make the time to sit down at a table or desk with your calendar and start writing a few words about each day, Gov. Leavitt-style. Once you’ve filled each day with a few words, go back and start expanding on them as memories pop into your mind. Once the entire calendar is filled up, migrate it all over to a more permanent format, such as a journal, a digital note-taking app like Evernote, word processing software like Word, or even a blog—some format for your budding stories to continue growing. Leavitt mentioned in his keynote address that “it wasn’t pretty,” so don’t expect your stories to be worthy of sharing in front of an audience of thousands. Just expect it to be by bringing it to life.

On Monday, March 14, join me on Facebook to report how it went. Was it fulfilling? Did you remember events you’ve already forgotten? Did it bring up memories you wanted to bury, or was February a better month than it seems?

I look forward to hearing from as many people as possible. If you haven't been keeping a journal, now is your time to start.

See you all on Monday!

Learning from a Famous Namesake

I’ve always liked my last name. It’s short, clocking in at only four letters. There’s only one syllable. It’s easy to spell, although it’s possible to misspell if you happen to be the phone company. It’s easy to pronounce, whether you understand German or not, and I answer to both—whether the Americanized way, which is like the weapon of war, or if you throw an “ow” in between the “B” and the “m,” which is the way it’s supposed to be pronounced auf Deutsch. With the Americanized pronunciation, my wife and kids and I have a creative way of labeling ourselves: we proudly call ourselves the Baum Squad, and our house is the Baum Shelter.

Another thing I like about my last name is that it’s the same last name of a famous author who once created an iconic, bestselling children’s story that launched a baker’s dozen sequels and a timeless movie.

While I have yet to find the bloodline connection between me and the true Wizard of Oz, Lyman Frank Baum has been on my mind the last few days, especially with the journey I’ve been taking in my writing. As I’ve begun breaching the surface into his life, I’ve found enough parallels in my own life to reignite the smoldering coals underneath my cooling novel manuscripts.

Born in 1856 in upstate New York, L. Frank Baum developed a love of writing early in life, fed by the cheap printing press his father purchased for him. Baum published two amateur journals and a pamphlet before he turned 18. In his early adult years, Baum developed a lifelong infatuation with theatre, writing scripts and producing (and occasionally starring in) musicals with mixed financial success.

In 1888, he and his wife moved to the Dakota Territory, where he opened a Bazaar. It eventually went bankrupt because of his generosity in extending credit to customers. He subsequently began editing the local newspaper, which flopped in 1891. As a result, he and his family moved to Chicago, where he became a reporter for the Evening Post as well as a door-to-door salesman. It was here in Chicago that he found success publishing stories. In October of 1899, at the age of 43, Baum finished a manuscript he called The Emerald City, which was retitled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz upon its publication in 1900. The rest is an integral part of American pop culture.

As I write this blog post, I’m less than two months shy of turning 38. In my career, which has lasted almost thirteen years, I’ve been a newspaper reporter and magazine editor. I wasn’t given a printing press as a kid, I’m sorry to say, but I would tear open paper grocery bags and make mock-up newspapers out of them. While my love of theater has waned recently, I caught the theater bug in the eighth-grade, becoming the lead in the school play twice in high school and participating in a summer-stock theater, among other small community plays. Regrettably, I’ve only dabbled in writing scripts.

My efforts to take over a magazine company failed when I realized the debt-to-income ratio was too great. Since December 2014, I’ve been working on my publishing company, specializing in freelance writing, editing, transcribing, personal histories, and publishing. It’s been a rocky road these past thirteen-plus months, but at this point I’m putting my publishing company on the part-time back-burner to find full-time employment.

Inspired by Baum’s example of not giving up, I look in my Writing Projects folder on my laptop, seeing how many novels and nonfiction books I’ve started but haven’t finished. Those farthest in my queue include an e-book on journal writing that was mercilessly (but necessarily) ripped to shreds by a talented editor. I’ve licked my wounds, and now I’m plugging forward with rewriting it. There’s also a rough second draft of a fantasy novel that takes places on a fictional planet where winter lasts for an entire year and is unhospitable. I almost finished the first draft of Part II during NaNoWriMo in November.

Tuesday of this week, as I started creating an invoice for a personal history customer of mine, I cringed when I calculated reasonable fees for the hours and services I’ve rendered so far. If she was a corporation, I wouldn’t even flinch, but because she’s a Baby Boomer/farmer’s wife I’ve come to know as a friend, I can’t help but throw in discounts. I understand why Baum’s Bazaar flopped.

But I’m not giving up. If it’s possible for a man in his forties at the close of the nineteenth century to create a new world in a best-selling children’s story that would spawn a successful series, then it’s possible for a man in his late thirties—with the same last name—in the twenty-first century to create a new world in a self-published novel trilogy and find success.

Here’s to 2016.

Who Died Today?

What do David Bowie, David Margulies, Alan Rickman, Dan Haggerty, and Glenn Frey all have in common?

According to Worldometers, they are among the roughly three million people who have died since this month (and year) began.

Because these people were all celebrities—Ziggy Stardust, the mayor on Ghostbusters, Professor Snape, Grizzly Adams, and a founding member of The Eagles—their deaths were noticed by the masses. And the fact that they all departed within the same seven days of each other has sent Americans into a frenzy of social media sendoffs.

But again, three million more people have passed through the same mortal portal since the Gregorian calendar changed from 2015 to 2016.

While it’s slightly alarming to think the number of deaths in over two weeks is the equivalent of 79% of the entire population of Los Angeles, about seven million people have been born since the month/year began. That’s about 82% of the population of New York City replacing them in the same amount of time.

So what does it mean? It means that while seven million people have begun the exciting but difficult journey of life this month, the stories of three million others have come to an abrupt end, whether expected or unexpected. Whether accidental, intentional, or natural. Whether their stories were written down or not.

A few months ago, I started interviewing a 71-year-old mother/grandmother/farmer about her life’s history. The three interviews I’ve conducted—so far—have each lasted two hours a piece, making over six hours of recording on her life. The single-spaced transcript, in Word, so far has the word count of a novel—over 50,000 words. But to put it another way, this 71-year-old has only filled 99 pages—making not quite a page and a half for every year she’s lived. I know for a fact her life’s story could fill volumes. As it is, I have a grocery list of questions I still haven’t yet asked her.

While she’s still recovering from recent shoulder surgery, her health is fair—besides the aches and pains that accompany being a septuagenarian. And yet anything could happen. Cancer could quickly invade her body—which it has done to countless people in the area. A car accident could snuff out her life. I have another interview scheduled with her this week, and I can't wait, especially now that I realize at least three of the celebrities who died this past week were younger than she is.

So her story must continue to be told. And so should yours.

So who died today? A lot of people. Make sure that you give your loved ones an extra-long hug today and ask them to tell you about the story of their lives. Because you may not see them again tomorrow.

Me@20

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of an organization all of you have never heard of: The Association for Personal Historians (APH). For the past ten or so years, off and on, I’ve wanted to start my own company publishing people’s personal histories. Then I found out that the idea wasn’t original—an organization for it began when I was still a junior in high school (1995)!

To celebrate today’s twentieth anniversary, the APH has decided to start a marketing campaign called Me@20. What we want everyone to do is post a photo of yourself at age 20 and answer a few questions, telling us what life was like when you were 20. Funny anecdotes are obviously encouraged. The goal is for Me@20 to go viral today! Make sure to tag some of your friends and include the hashtag #APH20.

Let me start:

1.      Where I lived @20. I lived in Los Angeles County, being a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On my 20^th birthday, which was March 1, 1998, I lived in the mansion of a well-off member of the Church in Diamond Bar, California. (One of these days I’ll find photos I took of the mansion and post them. I’m not exaggerating—it was a mansion!) However, then I found myself in the ghetto-ish cities of El Monte and Baldwin Park before I ended up in Chino by the time I turned 21 in 1999.

2.      What I did @20. I would get up at 6 a.m. every morning and either study scriptures by myself, study the Missionary Guide with my companion, run around to different areas to get supplies to other full-time missionaries, or hold/attend early-morning district or zone meetings. At 9:30 a.m., we would leave our apartment and go proselyte, mostly “tracting” (knocking on doors). We’d teach people the gospel at every opportunity and baptize converts, returning to our apartment by 9:30 p.m., with lights out(ish) at 10:30. Whereas most people dread Mondays, full-time missionaries look forward to Mondays—that’s the one day a week we didn’t have to start proselyting until 6 p.m. I would sleep in until 6:30. We’d get laundry done, write letters, play basketball, and rest.

One day, while in Baldwin Park, my mother sent me a package of brand-new white shirts. The “white” shirts I still wore were stained from bleeding backpack straps and black and maroon belts. Against my nature, I decided to take part in an apostate missionary tradition—I burned my old shirts. I put them in a pile on the apartment balcony and lit them up. For a minute, I suddenly realized the stupidity of what I had done, but I managed to keep the fire contained until it burned out. When it was over, I disposed of the ashes. I never got called out on the carpet by our landlords.

3.      What I dreamt @20. I dreamt of home. No, seriously. I once dreamed of the day I could call myself a returned missionary. Other than that, I don’t remember my dreams because shortly after my head would hit the pillow, I’d find myself waking up to the alarm in the morning. I’ve never slept like that since returning from my mission.

4.      My favorite song @20. As a full-time missionary, we weren’t allowed to listen to non-mission-approved music. When I was 20, Enya was approved. That year, my favorite song was undeniably “Memory of Trees” by Enya. To this day, it still reminds me of El Monte, and I still get nostalgic over my mission.

5.      What I wore @20. Proselyting clothes consisted of a white, short-sleeved Van Heusen, a conservative tie, black slacks that could handle proselyting but wouldn’t work with a suit, and tracting church shoes—Doc Martens were not allowed on my mission. Every day.

6.      Whom I loved @20. I’ve loved only one woman my entire life; however, that year I received a letter that was kinda sorta a “dear john.” In the letter, she mentioned her “boyfriend” and then I didn’t hear from her again for many months. I humbly told myself I was happy for her, and I focused on preaching the gospel. The next year, I received a letter from her suggesting she was still single—living in Utah and going to school. In 2001, I married her. I’ve been happily married to her for the past 14 years.

7.      What made headlines when I was @20. A little blue dress.

#APH20

  

I encourage everyone to read the posts of the following personal historians: 

Clinton Haby at http://www.storykeeping.com/me20/

Jennifer Korba-Gill at http://storyboxmovies.com/news/

Emily Koppelman at https://rainmakervideo.com/me20-sky-high-beauty/

Dave Bloom at http://www.milestonesandmeanings.com/#!me20/c114h/555c8d480cf298b2d3cf351d

Your turn! Please answer these questions!

1. Where I lived @20:
2. What I did @20:
3. What I dreamt @20:
4. My favorite song @20:
5. What I wore @20:
6. Whom I loved @20:
7. What made headlines when I was @20:
‪#‎APH20

My Next Mountain

I teased on Facebook that I’d provide more information on the “summit” of the metaphorical mountain I had finally ascended back on March 25. It’s not the tallest peak there is, but the tallest peak I've ascended to this point in my publishing career. Now it’s time to tell you more about the climb and the view. For more background on what I’m talking about, refer to my blog post “Recording More than Just Cats” (October 28, 2014).

In a nutshell, for ten months of my LDS mission I talked about each day’s events into a tape recorder rather than writing the experiences down in a longhand journal. From 2003 to 2011, I transcribed all thirty-six hours of recordings and then edited, proofed, and added end notes to the text. In 2011, I started formatting the text in InDesign CS4. In the past twelve years I've worked on this project, there have been a few years I haven’t touched this project at all. When I have worked on it, it’s been no more than an hour at a time because of full-time employment and other conflicting priorities.

After becoming self-employed in December as a personal historian, I decided that in order for anyone—including myself—to trust me to publish anything, I'd have to have published something. I've been in the writing business for years, but I've never been the person to take a project the final steps to publication.

While at BYU, publishing opportunities slipped through my fingers in situations beyond my control. My English 318R class required me to publish a short, personal history project. After I finished it, no matter how many times I took the zip disc to the BYU Print Shop or even to Kinko’s, no one could print it. There were always problems, like missing fonts or a corrupted zip disc. In 2002, the student publication adviser chose me to be the co-editor of a student journal called Inscape: Conference Edition. Soon afterward, the English department pulled funding. Funding returned a year later—during my final semester of college, as I limped and crawled to the finish line of graduation.

While a newspaper reporter, I worked in a bureau in a separate county from the newsroom. For a single month, I worked in the newsroom. I proofed the paper each afternoon on the day prior to circulation; however, I never took part in taking it to the printer. I had a much, much larger role to play in a magazine production process at Harris Publishing; however, once again, the artist formatted the magazine and prepared it for publication, not me. That’s where my experience has stopped.

Until now.

As this year began, having taken a year or so hiatus from my missionary book project, I didn't know where I had left off. Tired of putting it together piecemeal, and while finding side jobs wherever I could, I've spent most of my time—hours per day—working on this missionary journal, which I now call My Captain’s Logs. 

At the beginning of February, I started proofing the entire book—five chapters and an epilogue—for the umpteenth time. I realistically cannot count how many times I've proofed this book, but I can say I've completed every step in this production process myself. I did that for the bragging rights, not because I should have.

I intentionally made this project more complicated than it needed to be, partly to give me my first taste of publishing a truly professional book, and partly for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with LDS jargon. The preface explains how the project came to be. The epilogue concludes my mission between the time the final cassette ended and when my stake president released me three days later. End notes explain details or complete events I had forgotten about while recording the captain’s logs (so that those memories won’t be lost for all mortality). The glossary explains LDS jargon and missionary culture mentioned too frequently in the text to be included in the end notes.

Starting on February 4, I devoted the entire month to proofing the main text—several hundred pages—one last time. During the proofing process, I came up with scores of new end notes for every chapter I hadn't yet written that needed including. So as to not derail my proofing, I marked each spot in the text for a new end note and continued on. Once I completed proofing the book, the day after my birthday I went back and wrote all of those missing end notes—as well as even more notes I hadn't thought of while proofing it that final time—and renumbered the end notes in the Notes section and corresponding text. I also had to confirm every cross-reference I mentioned in every chapter.

At one point I felt like Lewis Carroll's Alice, metaphorically plunging down a rabbit hole. Much like picking rock in a field while growing up on a farm, the more rocks I picked the more I found. With this, the more I corrected the more needed to be verified/corrected. Once I finished writing new end notes, I proofed the end notes. And then I proofed the glossary. Then based on the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (2010), I corrected front matter, back matter, general formatting, and I checked for style consistency throughout the entire Book document until I finally felt satisfied with the changes I’d made. Since the day I felt I had finally reached the summit—finishing a complicated project I started twelve years ago—I've even added a few final end notes. Just this afternoon, I even revised one end note to make it more factually accurate.

Now that I stand on this summit, feeling the cool wind on my face and enjoying the spectacular view of a completed project, I look ahead to the peak rising yet above me on the next mountain over. I've already run into hiccups on my way up the new slope—the website of a book printer based in Caldwell, Idaho, won’t even let me send them a quote request, which I've attempted several times. I’m still working on it.

My plan is to have it printed, bound, and delivered no later than the sixteen anniversary of my release from my mission (June 23). I’ll distribute those ten or so copies to family members and mission friends. Like I mentioned in my blog post in October, if you want a copy let me know. Donations will be gladly appreciated.

However, you’ll notice—after the countless hours and years of manpower I've poured into this book—it doesn't even have an index or an ISBN number.

I’m saving those for the second edition.

Reaching a Checkpoint

Today I reached what I thought was a milestone in my journey to publishing my first novel, only to find out it’s just a check point.

I've been working on my first novel for a few years now, tweaking it sporadically while I mainly focused on meeting magazine deadlines. Most of the time I've worked on the manuscript, I've been “perfecting” the Prologue rather than actually finishing the first draft. More than one published author has told me how foolish that is. One published author told me in 2013 that I need to know how the novel ends before I can find out how it begins. (Wrap your head around THAT!) Last November, another published author explained to me that if writing a novel is like baking cookies, the first draft is like putting all the ingredients onto the table. Once I've got all the ingredients out and the oven has been turned on, then I can start to mix the ingredients to make the cookies.

Today, I triumphantly raised both hands in the air, believing that I had finished the first draft of my first-ever novel manuscript!

My novel, the first in the Nova Chronicles series, is called A Reason to Run. It’s about a young man who lives on the planet of Elba, as part of a society divided into clans. Elba’s orbit around its star is such that the planet is habitable for three years at a time, followed by a fatally cold and uninhabitable year of winter. While the protagonist, Errol Nova, and his sister live under tyrannical rule, the theme of the novel is more about how family trumps society.

Once I reached a satisfactory climax and denouement today, my novel clocked in at 46,246 words. However, as I did some research on novel length, I found that, yes, it’s technically long enough to be considered a “novel” rather than a “novella,” but it’s more stranded between the two. It’s like in a game of Clue when you roll the dice and exit one room, having successfully pinpointed the right suspect, room, and weapon—you just need to get to the right room—but because luck wasn't a lady you’re now stuck on a square in the void where you can’t do anything but watch helplessly as your sister enters the Hall and solves the game.

In other words, the typical length of an adult novel is more like 80,000 to 90,000 words, and fantasy novels can be over 100,000 words without being considered too long. Going back to the analogy of the cookies, I've only got half of the ingredients out on the table. I guess I’d better turn off the oven.

At any rate, what I've finished writing today will be considered “Part I,” whether it’s published as a stand-alone, teaser novel or is the first half of a much larger, complete novel. That means I've got a lot of work to do revising Part I. I already know the direction I’m going to take with Part II, I just need to find where those ingredients are stashed.

Stay tuned, Elbers.