We Women Writers
Inspiring and encouraging women to write, to develop a personal writing practice through exploring the real-life writing stories of other women
We Women Writers
Shari Hollander – The Journey as a Writer
In this episode of the We Women Writers Podcast, Shari Hollander, a freelance editor and poet, shares her early experiences with writing, the influence of teachers, and how she transformed personal tragedies into artistry. She explores her journey of self-discovery through writing, her identity as a writer, and the intersection of personal and professional writing with Jane. She offers the significance of starting small in writing and the beauty of finding strength in brokenness, drawing parallels to the Japanese art of Kintsugi. The episode concludes with reflections on her personal growth and experience of the power of creative expression.
Quote:
“I just told her, just write, don't think about it. Don't put any structure in it. Just write, just to get everything down on paper. And then we can go back, and we can kind of format it into, like, I think of it like in waves.”
Takeaways:
Starting small can help new writers overcome overwhelm
The distinction between personal and professional writing is significant.
Transforming personal tragedy into artistry is a powerful process
Resources:
Jane Jones (00:00)
Hi there. I'm Jane, and this podcast is designed for you. Five minutes of daily writing can change your world. Come with me as we explore the stories of women who have transformed their lives through writing. Welcome to the We Women Writers Podcast.
Good morning. I'm Jane, and today, we have Shari Hollander with us. Shari is a freelance editor and poet who explores short fiction and memoir forms. She lives in Simi Valley, California, and often visits San Luis Obispo, where she hopes to live one day. Her writing journey began as a child when she read books and worked crossword puzzles with her father.
It continued throughout her school years, and she eventually earned a BA in communication journalism. She will publish her first sensual poetry book, which will be published later this year. And her skills and her abilities are, as you said,
Shari Hollander made for editing, right? Well, welcome, Shari.
Shari Hollander (01:21)
Good morning, Jane.
Jane Jones (01:23)
Alright, so we'll start off with a question that I ask everyone: Tell me about your writing story.
Shari Hollander (01:32)
Can I say that I knew when I was a child that I was going to be a writer? And I used to say that I'm going to write children's books, even though I didn't know what that meant. But I could read at a very early age. I was about four. And what I remember, the first thing that I remember writing that rhymed was a Valentine's for my father when I was four. And he kept it all these years. It's somewhere in a... You know, a precious box with other ephemera from the ancestors. But it's something like roses are red, violets are blue. My daddy likes to cook, and I love you.
Jane Jones (02:08)
That's very cute.
Shari Hollander (02:10)
I was perceptive, right? I could see that my dad liked to cook. So, it started back then, and I got a lot of approval for writing these little rhymes, right? And so, it was just like feeding my joy.
In sixth grade, I had a very creative teacher. She just encouraged me so much, Mrs. Sirota. I'll give her that footnote in history. Anyway, I was the class poet. I wrote the class play. And she used to give me permission. She'd say, Shari, anytime the inspiration strikes, you feel free to get up and get a piece of paper, and you can write that poem. So, I hated math. And every time she would do math, I felt super inspired.
So I started writing these - more poetry. And also I was remembering, because I've been thinking about what I might tell you today, we had a school literary magazine. It was called Milnes Highlights. Milnes was the school I went to. And I think I was the de facto editor, because I was the one that would go to each classroom and ask for submissions. And then I had the...privilege of going to the office and running them off on the mimeograph machine and those of us from our generation might remember that purplish ink that kinda got you a little bit high when you were doing it and the papers would come out slightly damp and the print said that my name was you know like an editor so there was some inklings of it back then
Jane Jones (03:44)
I didn't know that. That's really interesting. When you're tiny, you are already editing something. Young, very young. Already editing, ipso facto, you know?
Shari Hollander (03:55)
When I went to college, I thought I was going to teach special ed. And through one of those errors, errors, the crossroads, it turned out that I didn't have a guidance counselor to help me choose my classes. And I ended up in junior level statistics classes. And I thought, well, if this is what teaching is about, like it wasn't my fantasy of standing in front of the room and, you know, directing young minds.
The first week of school, we had parties. I was in a coed dorm, which was kind of new for that time. And I always tell this story because I think it's so funny, but we were getting drunk, which is what you do when you're a freshman in college. And a drunk friend of mine couldn't stand up. was so limp from drinking that he kind of, I remember, he slid down the wall, and he said, “You know, you ought to consider my major.” It's a brand-new major. It's called communications. And that's how I became a communications major through a drunken tip at a, you know, freshman party, but it was the right place for me to be. I studied journalism because the other track was teaching, and I didn't want to teach communications. And so, I ended up in classes in journalism that had to do with copy editing. And if I had to say, like, what was one of my favorite classes, I loved copy editing. And back in the day, you had a certain amount of column inches. And so you had to be spare and very precise in what you put the headline in, what you put the slug in as. And it was a very difficult teacher. His standards were so high. And I was in the class again with upperclassmen. And he said, my grading scale is like 1 to 10. And don't ever expect to get a 10. Like, nobody ever gets a 10. And one of the assignments we had was to write an essay.
And I was a creative writer, more so than a journalist. I didn't really want to do journalism, but I like creative writing. And I didn't want to write all the papers from English. So that's how I ended up in the middle of the road there. And one of the free prose pieces that I wrote for him, I got a nine and a half.
Jane Jones (05:58)
Wow.
Shari Hollander (06:00)
So, there were little signposts along the way. And I'll stop there for now. That was the beginning of it.
Jane Jones (06:12)
So, this thread that you have starts with writing a poem, and this time with your dad, and then very quickly it focuses into editing because in school you're editing, and then you're going into college, and you end up
at this copy-editing class that you were in. And that again, the praise that you got for that work, encourages you forward, right? Okay, good, good. Thank you for that. Something that you said, you made a turn of phrase that was the approval was feeding your joy. So, I'd like to know a little bit, you know, I'd like to hear a little bit more if you would. What was that experience like for you as an individual?
Shari Hollander (07:06)
It was a taste of fame really because, you know, thinking back to the younger years, I was known for it. And I think any time a young person gets approval, it builds their self-esteem. So, in that area, it felt pretty good where in other areas of my life, I had this underlying anxiety. For example, when I was four and I could read, someone my father knew wanted to do a documentary featuring me because I was a very young reader. I was kind of precocious, right? But my anxiety held me back. I said, No, no, I can't do that. I'm too scared. But writing was something solitary and creative. And as a teenager, I would use it to work out my teenage angst, right? Break up with a boyfriend. know it was when I'm looking back at what I was writing then, it was more somber, you know, and a little bit overblown, but you could see there were some phrases there that, you know, show talent, and people always just really loved what I wrote.
Jane Jones (08:11)
With Milne School, was that elementary school, middle or high school?
Shari Hollander (08:17)
Elementary up till sixth grade.
Jane Jones (08:19)
And so, did you, what was your middle and high school years like in terms of writing?
Shari Hollander (08:29)
A lot of poetry. I had another great teacher, Mrs. Carlo, and she was the AP, I guess you could call it like humanities, but she even gave it like an unusual name. So, let's put this in perspective. You know, I was born in the middle 50s. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, very revolutionary, free expression times, I identified as a flower child. And so, I felt very free to express myself. And I was thinking about that word.
I'm not an artist, but I think that my artistry is the expressive arts, and that could be writing, decor, things like that. So this teacher, Mrs. Carlo, it was the same kind of thing. In fact, I probably have it right here on my desk. I have the journal that I kept in her class with all my and poetry. And I was kind of a celebrated person because of that.
But actually, it is my skill. I sometimes we don't appreciate or understand or know what our skills are unless we're looking in hindsight, and you go like you're doing now. You're asking me to kind of draw the through line, you know, and I wasn't aware of it at the time, you know, but looking back, I'm going, well, duh, why didn't I do that sooner? What took me so long? So, I was known for it.
Jane Jones (09:48)
Do you have a Haiku? Sorry to interrupt you, sorry. I was wondering, do have a Haiku that you would like to read? That you can see in that book? Is there something? Sure. Yeah. Because Haikus are a particularly interesting form of poetry that I particularly like, and people do find fascinating, and they're easy to remember, and they keep your mind.
Shari Hollander (10:16)
Yeah, the form is five, seven, five, five syllables in the first line, seven in the next line, and then five in the last one. And the way that I learned it, it usually is a reflection on something in nature.
Jane Jones (10:33)
Okay.
Shari Hollander (10:34)
So, you know, that's funny. I do have it. I have it right here. It should be right here. I was going to read you the first one that I ever wrote. And I think I could probably recite it.
Does staring duck know That watery reflected Gazes are his own?
So, it's, you know, the word reflective is in there, the reflection on something in nature. And I think technically, because I'm posing a question, it's what they call a Senryu, which is a form of Haiku. Does that suffice? Yeah.
Jane Jones (11:17)
That's yeah, I like that. Thank you very much for sharing that. OK, well now go back over, stepping sideways from Haiku. What is your experience with other forms? What else are you in terms of poetry?
Shari Hollander (11:32)
In terms of poetry, well, I was very inspired, let's say, by some of the classical poets like John Donne, Andrew Marvell.
And yeah, now that I'm thinking of it, Jane, one of the biggest influences that I had was, and this is just, I'm just going to take it tangentially, but was E.E. Cummings. Yeah. Right. And when I saw that there was this freeform, you didn't have to capitalize or worry about punctuation. Funny for a copy editor to say. But I just I was just gobsmacked. And in fact, my favorite E.E. Cummings poem, I probably have it. I'm not sure why I'm not finding things easily here, but…
Jane Jones (12:21)
We are exploring a lot. So, sometimes when you’re doing that, it’s hard to put your hand on something. I’ve had that number of times.
Shari Hollander (12:29)
It’s called “Since Feeling is First”. And he uses a metaphor of like, since feeling is first, who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you. Holy to be a fool. I think while spring is in the air, my blood approves, and he's talking about he had me at syntax. I'm like, what you're talking about, like literature, literary terms, your punctuation, and it's there, you know, I can't recite it. I can't even recite my own poems by memory. But the last line is for kisses are a better fate than something. And I'm drawing a blank. And death, think, is not a paragraph or something like that. And he just uses the metaphor of punctuation all the way through.
Somebody can look it up if they care to. I'm not doing a good job of repeating it, but it's called “Since Feeling is First”. And that's a crossroad. I think I read that after college. I moved to California in 1976 and worked in my father's company in Hollywood. And I remember sitting at the typewriter and typing up a copy of that poem. And as I go through my things, the archeology of my life, right, and I find different things I've written. Almost everything that I have has that poem typed somewhere. I even carried it in my wallet for a while. So that was a huge influence on me, and I identified as a poet. Now, more recently, I never thought I could write stories, although in third grade I wrote a story called “Shari Spinach.” I was a new student. I had moved from New York City to Fairlawn, New Jersey, didn't know anyone, and I soon found notoriety as the author of “Shari Spinach.” And people even in fourth grade said, “You wrote Shari Spinach.” And so, but in between, I never thought that I could complete a story. I didn't have a story. Well, in 2012, my life kind of - it was the year from hell, and you knew me back then really.
You know, when they take those quizzes in a newspaper and they say, Did you move? Did you have an accident? You know, all of these things that are stressors in your life. And I could check every box, you know, including death in the family. But because of those intense memories and experiences like it was when I was a teenager, when I had a right to kind of process what was going on with all that emotional stuff, I started to have something real that I could look back and describe poetically, but complete it as a story or as a chapter. And so it was at that time that I became aware of like micro fiction, which is, you know, a shorter version, like what can you say in a hundred words? Like, my God, is that not like copy editing? Like you have this much space. What can you say? What's the best word for that? So there was a dovetail at that point where I found that I could write stories, and through something that you were practicing with me in our writing group was the prompts. And that, I just see all of those as being parts of the whole.
Jane Jones (15:51)
So, I'm gonna come back a little bit when you said when you were all these things are happening and life was really difficult you went where it had something to look at and my mind went to this when you said this word permission.
The permission to write that you and then now I'm just in my head bringing in the joy and all that stuff, it somehow connected or provided the permission to process what you were going through. Did I make that connection sort of clumsily, but is that kind of what you were saying?
Shari Hollander (16:30)
Yes, I could agree because it's a transmutation, right? I took tragedy and I'm turning it. I'm processing it and I'm turning it into something that is art artistry. So from tragedy to artistry, maybe that's what I should call the book.
Jane Jones (16:47)
Okay, so, the podcast is to inspire women and support them, and encourage them in their writing. And I think it is from tragedy to, Artistry, we experience things and we get the royal we meaning pretty much every human being on the planet gets stuck with something and what I hear is that You had a thread that brought you through that now during this really crucible kind of time Allowed you to process through it and then come out into this artistry if you like so I'm gonna maybe just make a suggestion to the listeners is to look at what you have like Shari's expressed and start writing or expressing in some artistic way like you said earlier Shari about expressive arts. Could be writing. Could be pottery. It could be lots of different things, expression. And anything. Some people even say that like swimming is kind of artistic. if you can turn whatever it is you're doing into an expression of some art, some skill, that helps you find your way through something.
Shari Hollander (18:08)
Yeah, and you touched on something I'd like to go a little bit deeper with it, which is how I edit. And you're going to laugh, but you know me like I'm if I don't laugh, like I'll be crying. So, I got to laugh. I got to make it funny. But I was thinking about it this morning. If I were to encourage young writers or any female writer. And over my desk, by the way, I have a sign that says “Inspire.” And then I have another little affirmation here that says, “Write without fear. Edit without mercy.”
Jane Jones (18:41)
There you go. You do edit without mercy, I do. You're very clear about it.
Shari Hollander (18:47)
I have a little voice in my head and it's like orchestration and I'm hearing the voice in my head will tell me a word and sometimes I'll spend a week like should it be tremble shiver or quiver which is the exact right word to express what we're looking at and where I want to take this is I was thinking about what I had for breakfast today. So what I had for breakfast was I had a piece of gluten-free toast with locks cream cheese fresh dill and capers. Okay, I like that. And I could describe that to you in a way that will make you wanna have it on a menu. Okay, that's what I could do. However, what I really wanted to have was that goddamn bagel that is not gluten-free. I really wanted that bagel with sesame seeds, a little bit dark on the top, a little crunchy when you bite into it. I couldn't get that. So, if I were encouraging a writer, what I get across my desk as an editor is mostly like, I had toast and lox for breakfast. And what the desire is, sub, you know, Sub rosa desire is they really want that bagel. And so, I would encourage you to really dig below the surface, you know, talk about that desire, talk about the disappointment or the anger that you have at not being, at the unfairness.
Not having that bagel and just substitute to other events it doesn't have to be food I’m using that you know everybody can relate to it but you know I wanted to date that man and instead this man was attracted to me but really what I wanted. Write about that that disconnect that that subliminal what goes below it, and that's where writing becomes more interesting, and that's where you're going to in that a motive liminal space there is where you're going to capture a reader in my opinion
Jane Jones (20:42)
Yes, and not only capturing the reader, but processing through things, what comes to my mind is this automatic thing that I find myself here. And I made the choices, but I didn't know I was making choices. I didn't know I even had choices to make a different choice. This is the experience of so many in our lives now men and women but we're talking specifically about women is our mothers and our grandmothers and our great grandmothers and we know we kind of are a little bit farther along the line here but we especially with we're born in the you can grown up in the in the fifties and sixties and seventies there was still even this freedom of doing this.
There's still a huge number of people, swaths of whole sections of women. Hordes of them, hordes of women, that would we had swords, that would have been fun. No, no, not really. But I remember talking to this young lady who was talking about her mother.
And she had said to me that, she said, “My mom didn't know she had any choices. She just did that.” So, there's a certain amount of compassion for the mom, but she still decided what she decided, and so this idea of processing through an experience of say, the classes you went to, right? And so you go, you don't have this person to help you choose a class, so you chose statistics, which is like totally anathema to you. It's like, I don't know what part of the planet that dropped you down on to, but that would not have been comfortable. So, but then, you know, through the experience of being out there and some might, find the environment that it was a, you know, drinking new frat party, blah, blah. Somebody makes a comment that is somewhere inside of you, picks it up…
Shari Hollander (22:59)
Resonates, yeah.
Jane Jones (23:00)
Resonates, and then you act on it. And, and so I think writing helps us sort out those things. And I really appreciate your comment about going down to the emotion of the detail. That just like go into the undercurrent. What were the biases? What did I default? And I'm using the royal I, meaning for anybody that's listening.
Shari Hollander (23:25)
What if space what if i had chosen differently can you write about that you know what is that mean what's the disconnect is the word that comes up and i don't know if it's the right word i have to think about that but.
Jane Jones (23:37)
Yeah, so the what if it's, and of course that would be the, and I don't know the word for it, the caloric, that would be the partner, that would be the sister or the brother or whatever to this thing. There's the what if, then there's the why did I? Why did I?
Because for me, in my experience in my own self, my own life, and conversations with other people is that there's... The what if gets stuck because the emotion of the why, what did I do and why did I do it? That's something that needs to be taken up and looked at, needs to be fixed or explored.
Shari Hollander (24:34)
Yeah, you said something there while I remember the writing can be beautiful, it can be pretty. OK, I used to write pretty poetry. But when I started to study NLP and some of the other things that I've done, and I understand like human behavior and more about the emotions and all of that. It changed my writing in a way that I wanted to provide the insight into why things happen, because that would be transformational.
That would be, know, insight is inspirational and transformational. Those are two words that are highly important to me. And that's what I'm looking for in the writing that I edit. Not to be on the top layer, but.
Jane Jones (25:17)
Yes, and this the podcast starts of the intro is that if you can write you know just five minutes a day it changes your life. And women will say to me what do you mean how is it gonna change my life I don't know but I know I don't. Yes, and like anything artistic somebody that is able to do the same reflection internal reflection through other kinds of artistic endeavors. know, there was a my most favorite poet teacher, she lives in Malibu, her name was Ellen Reisch. And she was a poet, and she liked E.E. Cummings. She was really that was her most favorite poet. And her husband was a potter and made beautiful things, pottery. So, there was two different expressions, two different ways of people going through their lives. And in his pottery, you could see his life. And I can, another time, go into that because he was a very, very wonderful, wonderful man. He and Ellen were a really good pair. So, I think that going through something with an intention to communicate something, and communicate it first to oneself.
Shari Hollander (26:47)
Yeah, if I can jump in, because I have these thoughts, come and go. It’s about an identity. Because I've written my whole life, and yet I had this impostor thing. Well, I can't really call myself a writer, right? But I've had a couple of experiences that taught me otherwise. And one of those was I was going through some personal development training while I was studying NLP and all of that. And in one of the exercises, we had to break up into groups.
One group was going to express things through dance, and another was going to express it through writing, and there was another one to it. I forget what the pieces of the pie were, and I naturally channeled myself, I funneled myself to the writer’s group, and they were working on mission statements and vision statements which at the time I didn't understand but I knew intrinsically I should be a writer. So what happened was one of the gals in the training came up to me and said, “Shari, we're doing ribbon dances over here and we really want you to be part of the ribbon dancing thing”. And so not being true to myself, because somebody was like giving me approval for something, right? I went into the ribbon dancing group, which I sucked at, if I can say that word. And when I look at the videos, everybody's in syncopation and they're all moving one way. And then there's me like on the end going like opposite against the stream.
And I'm like, “Why did I do that?” And it wasn't until later that I realized I'm not a ribbon dancer, I'm a writer. And then another thing that happened was I signed up for a writers' conference in San Luis Obispo. I'm going again this year, I'm excited about it. And I had just gotten, somebody had referred me to someone to be a ghostwriter, which I did not want to do, but that person said, Spirit told me that you were the one to write my book. So, I went to the writers' conference, not even sure that I should be there. And when people's you know, asked me what I'm working on, said, “Well, I'm a ghostwriter”. Oh, they would like “ You’re a ghostwriter, oh my God”. And I, I did. What did I do to deserve it? But then I felt like that was my tribe. I had found my tribe and I could. I walked out of there with all of the experiences that weekend saying, “I am a writer. I am a writer.” That changed a lot of things for me. I was already doing some editing, some freelance editing, but that was, even if you write five minutes a day to bring it, you know, loop it back to that, you are a writer. You wouldn't be in, you wouldn't be thinking about picking up that pen and having a piece of paper to jot down a thought unless you were intrinsically a writer. You can't fake that. I can't paint brush and paint because I'm not a painter.
Jane Jones (29:32)
Yes. And one of the other ladies that I interviewed, she made a comment that some huge number, like something in the 90% of things when people are before they pass on, one of the biggest regrets they have, like 90 something percent of them say they never wrote their book. That this meme that seems to be out there is that people think that they have a book in them, and they just don't do it. And maybe this imposter thing that you're talking about is, I'm not a writer. I've had so many people, people that there's actually a gentleman that I was working with the writing and going through things. And he was sorting something out and trying to get through something. And we were going through this writing and I was just blown away by the prompts of stuff he wrote. And I'm thinking to myself, dude, you're in the wrong business. And I still can't tell him. I can't tell him. He's like, he's, know, but I'm gonna suggest to him again that we pick this back up again. He would write for, we would get on Zoom and write for five minutes, because it was just something that would, he would accomplish it more that way when there was company.
So, to have something that you write and then you find out what you've written, you're surprised. Even the writers’ group that's in San Luis Obispo, one evening I did a conversation with everybody, and I walked them through one of the prompts, and a lot of them thought, where did this story come from? And it's five minutes of writing.
And you know, I really appreciate what you're bringing up, this imposter thing and that idea that you made this, again, this “Why did I do that? Why did I, I had a choice, but I defaulted to that.” And to go in and look at it a little deeper, that's the privilege and the privacy within your own self and your own handwriting to explore that and go “Ahhh”.
It sounds to me like you've come to this where yeah but I'm not that and that gets that huge clarity. So, after you realized that you did this ribbon dancing and you missed out on the writing did you have another opportunity to go through that again and then do writing or what happened after that?
Shari Hollander (32:17)
Let me think about that. I can't think of anything profound so much that happened after that. However, at that crossroads, maybe the conference or whatever, or when I started editing freelance, people would say, what do you do? And I would just declare, I'm a writer and an editor. Do you know that not one person ever said to me, “You're kidding? Can you prove it? Can you show me something?” I just went out with the confidence that I'm a writer and an editor. And that vibration was the... that truth just speaks for itself. even I think that we think, especially as women, like unless we're like Nora Ephron or somebody, know, J.K. Rowling, that we're writing great novels, we're not a writer. But even small things that you write, expressing yourself, even that hundred-word flash fiction, that might be something to challenge yourself with it shows that you're a writer.
You don't. You don't have those thoughts unless you are.
Jane Jones (33:23)
Do you think sometimes women have an experience of just not being aware of who they are, and they default to any negative messaging that they heard and like this thread of yours that of this recognition and adulation that comes along in a feeding your joy, a lot of people don't remember any of that. And they just default always to the negative
Shari Hollander (33:59)
Vibration.
Jane Jones (34:01)
In terms of their history or their lives. It's so real to them. Do you think that's part of the or the root of or... contributing factor to the impostor’s feeling, syndrome, if you like?
Shari Hollander (34:20)
Being intrinsically female. But I was thinking, I have pages and pages here of testimonials about me. And still, when I receive it, I'm like Sally Field, like really? Like you like me? And my husband used to say, “Everyone knows how great Shari is except for Shari.” In other words, I'm defaulting to that smaller image of myself. Not anymore, not anymore. And I think I have enough under my belt now to believe it.
Jane Jones (35:00)
Is being a writer or the writing that you have done, is that what makes the difference between everybody knows Shari is wonderful except Shari and now you know who you are and is, how much is the actual writing? How much is that is contributing to this?
Shari Hollander (35:22)
Good question.
I don't have a percentage, but I would say a goodly amount, really. I would say that editing is probably my professional skill, and writing is my personal skill. I think getting feedback, here's a fine line for me, getting emotional feedback, emotional reactions when I'm sharing my work, is highly important to me. And this is going to be ironic, but as an editor, I don't want anybody commenting on it because I want it to be my true voice, my true vibration coming through my writing. So, the act of writing has really boosted my confidence to declare that I am a writer.
And funny, video came up from a few years ago during COVID when I was part of a poetry writing group, and I had started, I had initiated writing short stories and they invited me to read something that I had been working on and I hadn't looked at it for a really long time and then there was this video of me reading it and I could hear the reaction of the people in the room. They were laughing when they should laugh, and they were sighing when they should sigh and when it was all done, I go “Damn she's good. She really is a writer”. I had to see myself from the like outside of myself looking at this woman on the screen reading thinking, oh if I was going to see her in an audience like if I was in the audience like I want to come away and say she was a good writer so.
Jane Jones (36:55)
So, you're a good writer.
Shari Hollander (36:58)
Yeah, and now I'm going to say when people say, what do you do for a living? I'm going say, “I'm a good writer”.
Jane Jones (37:03)
Excellent, the evolution of the writer. Excellent, you talked, something I wanted to explore a little bit more. The professional and personal skills. You just talked about the writing is the personal one and the editing is the professional. A person...
I just really, it's striking me that there's a difference. So, a lot of people's benefit, the benefit to their life in terms of development and transformation, and clearing things and doing all that work, that's personal skills. That's personal writing. But the professional is you're an editor or you're a novelist and you say, or you write stage plays, or you do sitcoms and things that you that's the professional side of this, how do you experience the time you spend doing your personal writing?
Shari Hollander (38:12)
It's kind of like a trance. I'll call it transcendental. I don't do enough of it. But let's just say that if the muse strikes, I must obey. And if I have a deadline editing project sitting on my desk, sorry, it has to wait until I'm able to download that highly creative experience. Editing is creative, but I would say it's more left-brained because there's punctuation and sentence structure. And I think that what I bring to it is empathy. I call myself the empathic editor because I get into their head, and it's almost like getting into their...
Jane Jones (38:59)
Their voice.
Shari Hollander (39:00)
Right, their voices like understanding how they think and how they see the world, and I'm able to help them craft it. But in my own writing, it's like being in a trance. And when I do it and I'm done, I'm like, I'm so like, it's like I've run a race or something. I've run a marathon, and I'm like, I have all those endorphins, and I'm satisfied, and I'll go back, and I'll like three o'clock in the morning. What did I say there? You know, and I'll look at it.
So, there's something that's just more internal, where editing is more external. Maybe that could be a way to express it.
Jane Jones (39:36)
I think for me it's the professional stuff is kind of... I don't see the line. I don't see a line. I see something that kind of goes like this. putting my fingers together here is just like When I look at my hands with my fans like this, I can see the difference, but I can't tell you where the line is because it makes no sense. Because it goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So, in terms of the purpose for the...the goal for the podcast is for women to begin somewhere in this maze of writing and from that perspective, where would you suggest somebody start?
Shari Hollander (40:25)
I think they should start with as small a piece as possible. And it was funny when you said that, “Don't ask me why”. But I thought, take a kitchen sponge and describe it. You know, something small because bite-sized pieces, the Kaizen principle.
Or following a system like what you have, Jane, which is beautiful, like to give people prompts and timed writing, you know, in your wonderful book, something like that. But I would say start small because people come to me and they go, I have this idea for a book and I don't know where to start and blah, blah. Start with the smallest possible piece. Start with the pivotal moment. Think about what was the pivotal moment and maybe describe that.
It shouldn't have. The distinction I make is that if you start, I'm not a linear person, and if you start, well, I'm going to write a book, and it's got to be A to Z, and I don't know where to start. Well, don't start at A, start at L. Start at P, start at Z, and work backwards. But just get something, just start somewhere. And that's why I was thinking something small like a sponge, small real estate. And how would you describe it? And then think about experiences you've had with a sponge.
I mean, it could be something as simple as that.
Jane Jones (41:40)
That's an excellent, excellent recommendation. Absolutely. There’s another piece in my mind, is when somebody would like to use writing, journaling as a method of self-reflection for healing, and it's feeling like there's a lot of broken pieces.
Your suggestion to start small, start in one place is really especially valuable. Because you're looking at just one little thing and not the whole mess. And the idea that there's a Japanese and it's on the tip of my tongue. It ties in. When they re-put the pot back together.
Shari Hollander (42:26)
Something Suji. Can Suji, no, can Suji maybe? I don't know. I use that word all the time, and now I can't think of it. Broken pieces.
Jane Jones (42:36)
Kintsugi. Yes, yeah. So, to be able to look at little pieces… What do you, when you think about this, Kintsugi, this somebody looking at a problem in their life and it's shattered on the floor based on your experience in life. And if you were to look back now and see that put together now, how would you view that? Watching that come back together, how would you view that? Can you describe what that would be like looking back now and
Shari Hollander (43:21)
Of my personal life or someone else, somebody else?
Jane Jones (43:24)
Your personal life without you don't need to I don't intend to get in internally or anything but how would you view that what if you were to watch like you watched yourself that woman on the stage and writing reading that poem, if you were to look back and see a movie of yourself going through all that, what would you how would you describe that
Shari Hollander (43:49)
Well, it's funny. I don't know if this addresses it, but I've been doing some reflection this week on topics like that, subjects like that. And I thought I found an old family video from when I was Sweet 16. And I thought, what advice would I give her? Like, you know, looking forward in her life. And the two pieces of advice I came up with were like, well, you're going to do a lot of stupid things in your life. Just do it once.
And the other one was like, nothing that ever happened to me, but like, and don't get pregnant when you're 16. It was like, it was something like that. And everything else is kind of open for discussion. I would, anxiety is an obstacle. And I can, I think of all the ways that I could have gone further, you know, more superlative versions of myself, except that my anxiety held me back.
And, I'm thinking of someone in particular who's wanting to write a book right now. And I just told her, just write, don't think about it. Don't put any structure in it. Just write, just to get everything down on paper. And then we can go back, and we can kind of format it into, like, I think of it like in waves, you don't, it's that…I'm struggling for words because you brought up an interesting thought and I hadn't thought about it before, but your life isn't like this, right? Your life is like this.
Jane Jones (45:19)
It’s always has ups and downs. Yeah. I liken it like sometimes you have to hold on to the wagon.
Shari Hollander (45:29)
Like that but look not everybody writes about so you were talking about for healing Writing through healing which is specifically what I do specifically who the authors that seem to find me are doing It is cathartic regardless of whether you're writing comedy I mean look at Anne Lamott, you know bird by bird. Is that what her book is called? How do you write bird by bird and that book is hysterically funny?
Why is it funny? Because she's expressing all the anxieties that we normally do, but at the end you still get through it. You still have something that you've created. It doesn't have to be the next best novel. You're not going to win the Poets' Surprise, but you can still be a writer and write these little small, beautiful Haiku, for example, 17 syllables, and I can still be a writer!
Jane Jones (46:17)
Yeah, yeah, excellent. And it's about picking up the pen and starting wherever you are. And most everybody has a kitchen sponge.
Shari Hollander (46:30)
Good one, Jane. Start where you are and be a sponge. Yeah.
Jane Jones (46:34)
Yeah. Look at yourself. I think it's really, really, it’s perfect advice. It's, you know, just pick up where you are, start where you are. Yeah. I keep saying it over because it's so, it's so profound. There's a, working on in terms of some business things I'm working on, there's a quote that I heard about this. It's keeping it simple, but not less than simple.
And people, because I thought that's really interesting. People try to, and then everybody tries to beat each other, this race to the bottom, and they've missed the, this is simple up here. And do that, and it is, I had this friend of mine who wants to, she said, she heard about the podcast and everything. She goes, “I'll start writing so that you can interview me”. And I know this woman has like, Oh my gosh, lots of things in her life. And so, I ordered her some notebooks and pens, and I'll have a conversation with her maybe tomorrow to help her go through this process. And I find that when the stuff arrived, she's already got stuff. She goes, oh, “I use these all the time”. And I'm going, “What?” So, she's already, she just needs some help in putting some things in here.
Shari Hollander (48:04)
Definition. The definition. Yeah. Yeah, the
Jane Jones (48:06)
Definition of writer, I'll have to write a book. Send me what you have. Or, you know, not really, I'm not going to take it from her, in terms of, I don't want to put my stamp on her, but I can help her find her way through that. And then the goal of the We Women Writers podcast is to support women and encourage them. And we'll find some more ways as this program develops and everything.
But finding ways to support women in those things. And sometimes they find that they've got wealth of information that they've already started, and they just don't even recognize it. So.
Shari Hollander (48:49)
Another thought that occurs to me is I work, I mentor some young women in a coaching kind of capacity. And sometimes they come to me with writing, and this is not a blanket statement, but in general, these younger women writers don't have the perspective of living their life to really understand some of the deeper level. You know what lies below the surface.
And that's where I think I can be particularly helpful is, you know, in that reflective state. But I, you talked about one of my things that I value highly is to inspire people and to inspire them through the experience of my own life. I have been through some dark places, and you would not call me a dark person, you know, and I have worked out a lot of things through personal development, through NLP, through spiritual practices, but a lot of it came through writing. And sometimes after I've written something where I know that I've expressed a truth, it puts it to bed, it puts it to rest.
Jane Jones (49:58)
Yeah, and you can move forward, and you're that part of that that is now transformed.
Shari Hollander (50:06)
And a legacy, and there's a legacy of not being forgotten, it not being forgotten. Once it's on the paper, it doesn't evaporate. It's there for posterity.
Jane Jones (50:18)
Nice. Excellent. Excellent. Well, on that note, and I would love to have you back again another time to go deeper into some of the things that, because I've got a big little page of all notes as you've been talking. Yeah, some things I've, some things I followed, and some, but no, not that one, let's go to this one. I really appreciate your time, Shari, and it is comforting and inspiring to yourself and myself and anybody listening that the dark things that we go through when we get past them they remain as part of this new courageous person that's come through it. And I'm at the risk of be a hyperbole impressed that the life that you've lived and where you've gotten to and that the focus is on where you are now with finding that thread all the way through and jumping over the things that that thread got you through and they're there, but they're not always the topic of conversation. The topic of conversation is the thread and, encourage women who are listening to find this thread.
And if you need some help, you know will develop and try to find some ways to do it. Pick up a pen, you'll start finding your way so. Thank you, Shari.
Shari Hollander (51:52)
Pleasure. Anytime. You know, one last comment that comes to mind, though, is we were talking about the event where we did the ribbon and, you know, that thing, and we had to come up with an affirmation for ourselves. And this was probably around 2007. So, it was quite a while ago. And I didn't really know who I was or what I wanted to be. But I had to come up with something because that was the assignment. Right. And I said, well, I want to be a courageous, creative, and loving woman.
And I didn't feel that I was any of those things at the time. But now I can say I am a creative, courageous, and loving woman.
Jane Jones (52:31)
Yes, and that is really evident in everything that anybody who knows you. Thank you. And it's other people know who you are, and now you do too.
Shari Hollander (52:40)
Thank you, Jane. Love you.
Jane Jones (52:42)
Thank you. Love you too. Bye-bye now.
Thank you for joining the We Women Writers podcast today. I appreciate you taking your time to listen in. I do hope that you've been inspired by this conversation, and I'd like to encourage you to pick up your pen today and write for five minutes. I would love to hear from you.
Please subscribe and leave a review. Until next time, take good care and have a perfectly lovely day.