Telling Your Story with Joyce Maynard

If you liked this story and want more, pick up your own copy of COUNT THE WAYS.

About COUNT THE WAYS

In her most ambitious novel to date, New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard returns to the themes that are the hallmarks of her most acclaimed work in a mesmerizing story of a family—from the hopeful early days of young marriage to parenthood, divorce, and the costly aftermath that ripples through all their lives

Eleanor and Cam meet at a crafts fair in Vermont in the early 1970s. She’s an artist and writer, he makes wooden bowls. Within four years they are parents to three children - two daughters and a red-headed son who fills his pockets with rocks, plays the violin and talks to God. To Eleanor, their New Hampshire farm provides everything she always wanted—summer nights watching Cam’s softball games, snow days by the fire and the annual tradition of making paper boats and cork people to launch in the brook every spring. If Eleanor and Cam don’t make love as often as they used to, they have something that matters more. Their family.

Then comes a terrible accident, caused by Cam’s negligence. Unable to forgive him, Eleanor is consumed by bitterness, losing herself in her life as a mother, while Cam finds solace with a new young partner.

Over the decades that follow, the five members of this fractured family make surprising discoveries and decisions that occasionally bring them together, and often tear them apart. Tracing the course of their lives—through the gender transition of one child and another’s choice to completely break with her mother—Joyce Maynard captures a family forced to confront essential, painful truths of its past, and find redemption in its darkest hours.

A story of holding on and learning to let go, Count the Ways is an achingly beautiful, poignant, and deeply compassionate novel of home, parenthood, love, and forgiveness.

Today's episode answers a very popular question - one concerning the creative process - how do we bring our best selves to the table, and keep showing up? 

Since 1977, Joyce has created and followed a highly disciplined work practice that also keeps her inspired. But before sharing the elements of her writing practice, she reminds us that everybody has to create his/her/their own writing practice, based on what they know about themselves. Perhaps through Joyce's examples and anecdotes, you, too, will be inspired to create a dedicated space for your most important work, and then be devoted to doing the work, and doing great work. 

First person? Third person? Through whose eyes are we experiencing the story as it unfolds? 

This is an area where so many of us can - and often do - get into trouble, and violate the rules of good story-telling. 

In this episode, Joyce guides us on how to establish and maintain a point of view that best serves our story. When we have point of view down, it makes us more trustworthy as narrators, which will then allow our readers to be fully invested in the stories we have to tell. 

Today, we talk about structure in story-telling. 

What is your story about? 

When you sit down to write, did you consider what you'll be writing about? What is the story that you'd like to tell today? Choose one particular piece of your story, and follow that one, and partly, that means, you recognize and understand where you're headed, and where you want to land, your destination. Joyce calls this exercise, the Road Trip. 

Today, Joyce invites you to join her, as she gives a craft talk on the language we use to lay out our stories. Language and our use of it, form the building blocks of absolutely everything in writing, and today, we dive into two lists of very different language - one Joyce calls, "dead language", and the other, "And Now for the Good Stuff". 

This is an early exercise for all those who attend Joyce's workshop, and we thank each one of the nine brave women, whose words are used here, for their generosity in sharing this session. 

How do we pack so many big experiences (that often spiral into so many different directions) into a personal essay? 

By using a concept Joyce calls the Container. 

Previously, Joyce has explored this concept and form with former student Betsy, whose story spanned decades, and identified a container that gives edges and containment to what is often unwieldy and abstract. Today, we continue this conversation and talk about the cinematography involved with our language. 

Thank you, Betsy, for your openness to share your story with all of us.

Previously, we talked about the big concept of the small container, and today, Joyce is joined by former student Betsy, to continue to tackle  big, global topics through the small stories that give edges and containment to what is often unwieldy and abstract. Thank you, Betsy, for your openness to share your story with all of us.

The impulse that so many writers have when approaching memoir, is to tell everything... but we don't have to tell everything all at once. 

Joyce suggests to begin with some short stories, and today we explore the short personal essay - there is a way in a very short space to tell a very big story - Joyce calls this the Container Story. 

Every single sentence that we write is important, and deserves care, but there's one part of our writing that deserves even more care, and that's what Joyce calls, "the point of entry." If we don't get that part right - we risk losing our readers right from the get go. It's always easier to turn off the computer, put the book down, than it is to keep reading. 

The beginning sentences need to win our readers over, and today, we talk about this "first meeting."

Today, Joyce continues her conversation with Anne about one of the most important challenges for writers of personal narratives or memoir - whether or not we have a right to tell a story that involves other people who might be made uncomfortable by it. 

Is it our job to make the readers feel comfortable with our stories? 

Maybe sometimes, the job of a writer is to go to the uncomfortable place.

Sometimes, the job of a writer is to take the reader to a place where they simply feel. 

And sometimes, it is in going to the uncomfortable place, that we learn things that we've been needing to know.