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.