What’s Your Story?

Knowing I write,  my friend Betsy invited me to join Retrospect.   I was already blogging,  but writing to weekly prompts sounded intriguing.

Yet little did I know how special Retro would become for me and writing would be only one part of the experience;  reading stories by fellow writers another;  and building friendships across the country as we commented on each others’  stories the best part of all.

I’ve met some of my Retro  friends in person,  and hope to meet you all to share more of our stories,  some laughs,  and even a few tears.

So my friends – keep writing!

RetroFlash / 100 Words 

– Dana Susan Lehrman

It was the dark winter solstice of December 2020.  Everything was shut down because of COVID, and vaccines were a mere glimmer.  Life was suspended.  Work had stopped abruptly one day in March—I was too old to risk showing up in person, and virtual options were poor—so de facto retirement came more suddenly than I expected. All travel plans cancelled.  Lots of walks in the park with the dog, now with plenty of time for ruminating over life.  Reading. Lots of time on the internet, catching up on e-mails, signing up for book clubs and meetings and zoom sessions.  At Suzy’s urging, I said yes to Retrospect.

I didn’t know what to expect, and after sending in my first story was surprised to get comments on it.  Then I figured out how to read the other stories early in the week and comment on them, and started to recognize the names and styles of frequent contributors.  For someone who has avoided social media, this felt different and seemed like a safe space, and I valued the new connections and interesting stories.  I still do.  Life has taken me far from early days, geographically and socially, and there is nothing else that fills that ecological niche in my life.

Retrospective writing was new for me, though I wrote for work all the time.  Each week a new prompt goaded me into recalling some bit of history to share–sometimes difficult to find or reveal, but the discipline was good.  I wouldn’t have gone those memorable places otherwise, and if not now, when?

Two years later, I have a sheaf of stories in a drawer, travel is fraught but open and I have even met a few fellow Retrospectors in person.  The site has had some technical issues and enthusiasm is apparently waning after seven years in operation.  I am late to the game so it still feels fresh to me, but the future is uncertain.  For me, this would be a great loss: loss of encouragement to write, loss of camaraderie on line, loss of connections.  I hope this is not the end.

 

 

 

 

302 stories. Seven years. Probably thousands of comments on other people's stories and replies to their comments on mine.
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It’s a daunting task to put my experience with Retrospect into perspective. To say it’s been meaningful is a huge understatement.

A little background, already familiar to some of you, to others not. Although I never considered myself a writer, some time in 2016 I got it in my head to write a memoir about my nutty life. I felt like I had something to share that might help others who wondered why their lives seemed to have gone off track and blamed themselves for being “less than.” I also wanted to get to the bottom of why I’d had such a hard time finding happiness and security when everyone around me seemed to have nailed it long ago. I got pretty serious about the project, read everything I could about writing a memoir, and in 2017, at 70, even took a weeklong master workshop in Maine, which in hindsight turned out to be one of the highlights of my life.

Here’s a photo from our farewell dinner, a real live classic lobster boil where we fledglings mingled with real live published authors (not boiled) which I’m including here just because I think it’s such a fun, dynamic shot.

But, to get published (by a mainstream house, which is the route I had in mind), you need an agent; to get an agent, you need to (a) already be somebody or (b) already have some publishing credits under your belt. Much like the acting profession, it’s a Catch-22 situation. My experience was that most literary submission sites (or lit mags, as they’re known in the trade) weren’t all that interested in works written by baby boomers of my ilk.

Hungry for feedback, though, in 2019 I happily stumbled upon Retrospect and jumped onboard, at first mostly editing excerpts from my memoir and molding them into suitable fashion to fit the prompts whenever I could, but also writing fresh stories when that wasn’t feasible. Before long I was asked to become an administrator working behind the scenes with my wonderful co-administrators on writing prompts and finding suitable images to complement them and, the most fun of all for me, tweaking them in Photoshop as necessary. I think you’d be surprised at how many hours have gone into that, but I’ve enjoyed every minute!

Here’s one of my favorite projects from our Feathering the Nest prompt . . . what started out as just a photo of a birdhouse. The fun — and, to me, magical — part was then finding a photo of a bird with a feather in its beak, combining the two photos in a way that looked natural, and finally adding tiny bird legs so that it looked like it was indeed perched on the birdhouse.

Thoughts of getting publishing have ebbed and flowed, but have pretty much petered out at this point. Having run out of suitable material to poach from my memoir, I’ve just ducked behind the scenes where I’m most comfortable and have continued to do the work I enjoy the most, both for Retrospect and for myself. An artist at heart, I make some form of art (by my very broad definition) almost every day. Here’s a little video clip I made the other day…my typical morning.

Quirky, right? You’re the only ones to have seen it yet (except for my featured husband), and you may remain the only ones. And anyone who recognizes the soundtrack gets a high five.

In the larger life process, issues have been resolved, lurking demons vanquished, I believe at least in part because I’ve received so much incredibly positive feedback from you guys! I think that’s the true heart of Retrospect . . . all that team spirit! I’ll probably never get my memoir published; honestly, I just don’t have the tenacity to get it published. It’s hard to try to “sell” my story, my self.

Now 75, I no longer feel less than. I just am, and with many, many thanks to you here at Retrospect, I’m definitely okay with that. And thanks for sharing your own stories so openly . . . I have very much enjoyed getting to know you! I’m just so impressed by this community, by all your caring and supportive words for each other.

Special thanks to Suzy, of course, for all her hard work, for bringing me onboard, and for being so gracious when I ran out of steam and stopped writing and commenting. I love you, Suzy!

Cheers to the new year, my friends . . . all best in 2023! [Clink]

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Note: I did want to mention that during the process of submitting to literary agencies, I was advised that no one would take my memoir if pieces of it had been published elsewhere, including online blogs or the like. I’m not at all sure if that’s written in stone, but in a flurry of perhaps misguided optimism, at one point I removed all of those stories from Retrospect. All that remain (90 counting this one) were written specifically for Retrospect.