Blog is a Verb: How to Find Your Voice and Write with Intention – Type-A Conference 2011 Liveblogging

We’ve just finished our Ovaltine Breakfast at the 2011 Type-A Parent Conference in Asheville, North Carolina and we’re getting ready for bestselling author Patti Digh’s opening keynote… Blog is a Verb: How to Find Your Voice and Write with Intention. Before we get started, though, we’re doing a quick giveaway. I just won the cute straw container that’s acting as our table’s centerpiece.

“I’ve been reading a lot on Twitter. I know a lot about you…” She mentioned Ovaltine shots. That was totally my tweet. Hehe.

Patti confesses that she doesn’t really know much about the technical part of blogging. She doesn’t know what an RSS feed does or anything, but she does know how to write from her heart.

A few years ago, her stepfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. 37 days later, he died. On day 38, she woke up and wondered what she would do if she only had 37 days to live. She didn’t want to wake up and do all the things she’d never done all her life, like climbing mountains and swimming with dolphins. She wanted to wake up and think that this was what she was already doing exactly what she wanted to do.

But to do this, she needed to make changes in her life. She wanted to write down her stories so her daughters would get to know about her life, know her as a person and not just a mom. This is why she started her blog, 37 Days. People started reading her stories and had a positive reaction because of her honesty.

Life Is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally became a book, and she did a 43-city tour that was supported by her readers, not by her publisher. She is trying to reclaim what is extraordinary about everyday life. (We’re getting treated to her reading an excerpt from her book, about her daughter Tess’s fascination with big, big buses and big, big trucks.)

We all come together at conferences like this to say, “I don’t know” and to learn more about those things. Any conference that brings people together who have a shared poverty… she  loves the connection, it’s very gratifying.

What keeps us from speaking in our own voice? Her first book was published in 2000, and it was the Fortune bestselling business book of the year. When you publish a book, you get a carton of these books. She felt nothing about this carton of books. Then she wrote another business book in 2003 – she still felt nothing.

The next year, her stepfather died, and that’s when she decided that she needed to write in her own voice. Putting on her power suit and giving high level presentations to CEO-type people, she felt like her mouth was moving, but someone else was speaking. She didn’t feel like herself.

When she started writing the stories down for her kids, it was the first time she had ever really written in her voice. A friend of hers recently turned 50 and said, “I wish I could find my voice.” Another friend rolled up and said

If I had a voice, what would it say? (Writing exercise time…2 minutes.)

My voice would say that I don’t feel like myself most of the time. I feel like I’m not allowed to be myself, that I have to put on a front for the various people in my life…my family, my friends, my colleagues… It’s not that what I write isn’t honest… It’s just not the whole story.

Patti wants us to know what is our primary intention? You can’t split your intention. What is really stopping you from writing in your own voice?

The first block is falsely comparing yourself with other people.

“She knows how to do that, and I don’t.” “She’s a New York Times bestseller.” The way I compare myself to others prevents you from writing in your own voice. “I don’t have as many readers as she has…”

Her husband has listened to her comparing herself to other women, and he said, “I never realized this was a competition.”

You need to come as you are. You don’t need to expend so much energy trying to be clever. Put down your clever and pick up your ordinary, and that is when you are the most potent. “My ordinary is not your ordinary.”

What happens when you just show up, when you be yourself?

The second block is false expectations of ourselves.

The third block is false investment in the story.

What is it to be ordinary and to make strong offers?

Be ordinary.

We’re being given another exercise, after she gives Lisa a birthday gift. We’re partenering up to plan a birthday party for Lisa. One suggestion at a time, and our partner has to respond, “Yes, but…”

There’s a lowering of creativity when the first reaction we get is disapproving. We have a lot of “Yes but…” moments in our life.

She’s talking about an improv skit she does. “Hello, Dr. Digh…” That’s why she didn’t go to medical school.

Say yes.

Why is it the first thing we think about is saying yes to other people? We need to say yes to ourselves, which can mean saying no to other people.

We redid the exercise, but the response had to be, “Yes and…” Far more laughter this time around. (This time around, we ended up planning a party with cake, cookies, vodka, and male strippers. LOL.)

Catch fire.

What do you care about? How far away from that are you? Instead of asking people what they do, ask what they love to do. The quality of engagement is so much better. What is your passion?

“Please don’t lick the art!” A guard in an art gallery had to stop a little girl from licking a painting because the blue velvet dress was so vibrant that she just couldn’t stand it. A chapter in Patti’s book is “Please lick the art.”

Work with positive intention. Are you pushing against what you don’t want, or are you naming what it is you want to create?

Give up your need to be right.

Why do you think you’re so attached to being right about a situation? Why is being right about it so important to you? Doesn’t everyone have their own version of right? I wonder what would hhappen if you gave up your need to be right.

Attachment is the root of our suffering. (This sounds Jedi, but it’s actually Buddhist.)

Don’t let being right become a palpable thing. Saying, “I don’t know, I have no idea” is connected to trusting yourself. We live in a work of great measurement, and it’s good to step back and say, “I’m pretty powerful as I am. I don’t need to measure myself that way.”

How are you really measuring your voice in the world?

“The second thing that occurred to me, is something I just forgot…” Patti is pausing to try and remember what it is she forgot. She’s joking that it was the most important point she was going to make. So she’s going to take some questions for now.

How do you just stop and find the moment to just breathe? Back in 1996, Patti took a long international trip. When she came home, her 3-year-old daughter told her she’d been dreaming about being a tiny fish in a big ocean, and she couldn’t find her mommy. Patti quit her job to do something else so she wouldn’t be away from her family for such long periods of time. Just last week, she made a deal with her 8-year-old daughter that she could still travel, but she won’t be gone for longer than “three sleeps.”

Patti just remembered her point from before that she’d forgotten. People have been asking her how to write a successful blog and a successful book. She asks them what is it they really want to say?

How do you know that what you have to say will be accepted by people? Patti doesn’t know and she doesn’t care. Honesty and transparency is what draws people to her, but her intention has always been to write these stories just for her daughters.

“Write like an orphan.” Her mom told her one Christmas that she’d found the picture she wants to use for her obituary, and that she would write her own obituary because she’d read her blog. Patti didn’t write on her blog for two weeks. You have to let go of your audience and just write authentically.

Know what you care about. Write in your own voice. Know what your intention is. You will never have perfect conditions, so just write. Write where you are.

The most important question at this conference and these sessions is not, “What do I get?” but “What do I bring?”

I am liveblogging as a volunteer for the Type-A Parent Conference, and an edited version of this post will be available directly on Type-A Parent.

Christina Gleason (976 Posts)

That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.