The back and forth you’ll read this week on the development of an essay-in-progress demonstrates the power of my three-step response method for helping writers revise. Years ago, Marjorie Ford sent me an essay-in-progress that she was having trouble developing to her satisfaction for meeting an upcoming anthology submission deadline. After I received her first draft, we immersed ourselves in the three-step response, back and forth on several drafts. The results were gratifying to both of us.

Fire

Each morning since fire ravaged our mountain community, turning generations of trees to stark black sticks and our cabin to a bed of ashes, I wake to the same words: It’s all gone.

As I lie in bed, powerlessness covers me like a scratchy old blanket. My own mortality cackles from the closet. Meaninglessness chills my bones. Old losses storm against the window. Anger and helplessness battle for air.

Each morning, It’s all gone, grief’s tenacious voice drones.

And each morning, I move on and out into the world, putting the voice aside, inside. I attend to people or to writing, to nature or to learning, the things I live to do. Then, suddenly, in the middle of anything, my mind uncovers another treasure in the ashes. Gone.

The quilt. Heavy, but not too heavy to cuddle under while reading. Sometimes for an entire snowy day.

My mother’s rocker. Padded by the mostly pink pillow she stitched together in a crazy quilt pattern from baby clothes we had sewed for Michelle.

 Jeff’s third grade painting. A waif of a boy gripping the tail of a huge white bird lifting them both from an emerald green mountain into a bright blue sky. After all these years, the colors remain as true as I remember Jeff himself.

Needlework by Mom. Thick yellow and orange yarn depicting Michelle’s grade school painting of the sun. It smiled down on Michelle and Jeff as they slide down a rainbow in their red wagon.

A client’s charcoal drawing. Given to me by her husband after she died. A woman’s face, as serene as still water, just like her face, and then again, not like her face at all.

Frank’s gift to me. It was the birthday after my own cancer returned. A simple line drawing of two hands holding each other above a poem about walking together on beaches and in forests and in heaven after death.

“It’s just stuff,” I scold myself, but my untamed-first-thought-morning-mind persists. It is more. Weeks later I look through photographs, one taken during five year old Ellie’s first sleep-over alone with us on the mountain. A perfect picture had made me reach for my camera.

I had gathered a basket-full of moments to remember that weekend.

Hiking oh-so-slowly down the hill to the village, we stopped to examine every rock and flower reflecting color in the clear, mountain light.

Playing Pooh Sticks in the tiny stream at the base of the hill, just like Christopher Robin and Pooh would do if they were here.

Discovering dandelion balls waiting just for us to send off their shimmering fluff with our secret wishes and dreams.

Plastering a cake with Blue and Red and Green and Yellow patches of frosting. Like a crazy quilt covering the cake and Ellie’s mouth.

Eating PB and J sandwiches, the bread cut with a heart-shaped cookie cutter. To entice Ellie to eat something more than frosting for lunch.

The exchange—of words and more—between us when I tell her the noise that startles her is Tata cleaning out the fireplace. “I love your Tata so much,” I add. She tilts her head to the side then flashes her big blueberry eyes. “Nani, I think you love Everybody!” I think to reassure her that I don’t love Everybody the way I love her. But her confident face says, Let it be. It’s okay, I think, to remember your grandmother loving a lot of people.

Each experience imprints in my mind, but the one my camera will record is of Ellie at the huge second-story window. She kneels motionless, entranced by the clear Arizona sky and dense pine forest, like an innocent at mass. Silently, slowly I soak in her wonder. Breathlessly I raise the camera. The window frames Ellie’s back and the trees, mountain ridge, and sky.

When I snap the picture, the camera whirs. Ellie turns, but not immediately. Her mouth is set in earnest concentration, her eyes dart among ideas. She is pondering a big question.

“Nani,” her words step gently, “Is this a tree house?”

I think to say, “No,” bound by truth. But I confirm the creation her eyes and ears have pieced together. “Yes. . . it sort of is,” I tell her. Because that is the larger truth.
As I look at the photograph, I long to know the larger truth about the fire. About loss.

The next morning, It’s all gone, does not greet my waking. Instead music booms between my ears, over and over again.

“Shower the people you love with love. Shower the people you love with love.” A cliché out of nowhere.

“Shower the people you love with love.” A cornball jiggle jangling over and over.

“Shower the people you love with love.” Annoying me as I shower. And dress.

“Shower the people you love with love.” God, stop it!

“Shower the people you love with love.”Harassing me all through my day. Until I get it: Memories of love are what survive—because they are the larger truth.

****

Sheila’s Response to This Draft
Whether I am reading an essay or listening, I respond to what I hear. When I receive in the mail or by email, I read it aloud to myself and think about the essay in three steps I have dubbed Velcro Words, Feelings (with subcategories of feelings in the service of the essay and feelings that distract) and Curiosity. Responding in these three steps is aimed at helping writers develop their drafts. Editing for paragraphing, grammar and punctuation is not part of the Three-Step Response Method, and is best considered after the drafts are developed. Even so, editing happens naturally during the Three-Step Response Method. For example, as Marjorie Ford’s essay developed, sentence fragments became complete sentences. She also combined and lengthened paragraphs as she worked from the responses I offered. To review the Three-Step Response Method process and refresh your memory about how it works, read last week’s article.

Here are my responses to what I “heard” while reading Marjorie’s draft:

Step One — Velcro Words (Words and phrases that stick with me upon first hearing)
fire ravaged community, cabin to a bed of ashes, it’s all gone, quilt, rocker, third-grade painting, needle work, a woman’s face serene as water, cancer returned, in heaven after death, just stuff, examine every rock and flower, Pooh Sticks, shimmering fluff, crazy quilt covering the cake and Ellie’s mouth, bread cut with a heart-shaped cookie cutter, more than frosting for lunch, Tata is cleaning out the fireplace, you love everybody, innocent at mass, is this a tree house, larger truth, about the fire, about loss, shower the people you love with love.

Step Two — Feelings
a. Overall feeling I have in response to reading the essay
I feel the sadness of losing a life’s worth of mementos and love for her granddaughter as well as the relief and surprise of being able to replace feelings of helplessness and loss with positive feelings of love.

b. Feelings that divert my attention
After the statement, “It’s just stuff,” I find myself wondering where the speaker is writing from. It doesn’t seem possible that she is in the home that burned, yet she doesn’t talk about being displaced.

The essay seems to center on a particular event—Ellie on her first sleepover. The speaker tells us that the experience has imprinted on her mind, though she recorded only the one moment of Ellie at the huge second-story window entranced by the clear sky and pine forest. Later the speaker says, “I had gathered a basketful of moments to remember” and I am confused. I thought she only chose one moment to record. Does the speaker mean she took lots of pictures and the basket was filled with them or is the basketful a metaphor? Additionally, at this point in the essay, it seems to me that the speaker would be aware that she doesn’t need anything tangible to remind her of happy times. On the other hand, it was the picture that reminded her of this. As a reader, I feel like I am experiencing a conundrum that takes me away from the speaker’s insight.

I don’t immediately understand how saying yes, the house is a tree house is speaking a larger truth.

I am confused about why the photo of Ellie at the window survived.

I feel told that the repeated line about showering those you love with love is annoying, but don’t feel annoyed.

I am surprised that the speaker is considering the “larger truth” of the fire.

I feel uncertain about the very last line—“Memories of love are what survive—because they are the larger truth.” Instead of reading as if this is truly discovered by the speaker, they read as if the speaker wants to believe in them. I feel forced here to accept a larger truth without experiencing the speaker coming to a new perception about the loss of the household of memories.

A small thing: I am distracted by wondering whether Tata is a person or an imaginary friend.

Step Three — Curiosity (Where I am curious to know more):

Where is the speaker writing from? Does she find that memories of both love and of not-love survive? How do memories survive if it was tangible objects that fostered the memories and now they are gone? What must the speaker do to keep memories when reminders are missing? Showering people with love creates memories of love, but is that why the speaker would take the action of showering them with love? The speaker says she chose one Ellie moment to record with a camera; how does she feel now about that choice? When the morning phrase shifts is the speaker surprised? What does she feel at the change? Why is the new phrase annoying? Is it from an actual song she knows?

****

Marjorie reported mulling over what she considered a “conundrum” I had uncovered with my questions about Ellie and the memories of good times with her centering on one photo. She also reported that she didn’t like the explanation in the last line either.

In the days she spent thinking about her essay, Marjorie often felt like giving up on the essay, but one morning, she awoke from a disturbing dream and while writing it down, had an “aha” experience about the ending to the essay. She re-titled the essay, “What Survives” because, as she said, “What survives is what we have right now to show people we love them. Paradoxically, ‘now’ doesn’t just survive, it thrives at some point. The now message in what I sent you is the one consistent with the gift cancer brought me. I’d wondered how I lost it in the fire. Clearly (now that I see it) the lyric brought me back to that quite blissful, lively way of being.

****

Here is the revision Marjorie sent after mulling and her “aha” experience:

What Survives?

Since forest fire ravaged our cool mountain getaway, turning generations of trees to stark black sticks and our cabin to a bed of ashes, I wake each morning with the same thought: It’s all gone!

I lie in bed, despair weighing me down like a rough, heavy blanket. Questions chill my bones. Why? Why me? Do I deserve this? Anger battles helplessness for air. Old losses—to disease, divorce, death—storm against the window. Mortality cackles from the corner.

Each morning, the same message greets me. It’s all gone!

And each morning, I move on and out into the world, putting the grim voice aside, inside. I attend to people or to writing, to nature or to learning, the things I live to do. Then, suddenly, in the middle of it all, my mind uncovers another treasure lost in the ashes.

Mama’s maple rocker and the mostly pink pillow she stitched in a crazy quilt pattern from scraps of Michelle’s baby clothes. I could smell a hint of Mama in those objects. They held only the good of her.

My stepson’s third grade painting. A tiny boy grips the tail of a huge white bird lifting them both from an emerald green mountain into a bright blue sky. Through the years, the colors remained as true as I remember Jeff himself.

Mama’s embroidered translation of Michelle’s second grade painting. Thick yellow and orange yarn recreated the sun shining on Michelle and Jeff as they slid down a rainbow in their red wagon. Michelle, like I, thought Jeff and his father would be a family with us forever.

A client’s charcoal drawing of a woman’s face, as serene as still water, just like her face, and then again, not like her face at all. Her husband gave it to me after she died.

Frank’s gift to me on our anniversary after my own cancer returned. A line drawing of two hands held each other above a poem about walking together in forests, on beaches, and in heaven after death.

And perhaps hardest of all: A particular photograph of Ellie, my five-year-old granddaughter.

It was her first sleep-over with Nani and Tata on the mountain. When I saw her gazing out of the second-story window, kneeling like an innocent at mass, I reached for my camera. Silently, holding my breath, I raised it to my eye. The lens framed the window framing her back, and beyond her, the dense pine forest, the high mountain ridge, and clear Arizona sky. It captured every sensation of the weekend.

We had meandered down the hill to the village, stopping to examine each rock and flower, like dogs sniffing their way along a path. Colors reflected in sweet mountain light while we played Pooh Sticks in the stream at the base of the hill, like Christopher Robin and his playmates. Dandelion balls posed along the road, waiting for us to send their fluff shimmering off with secret wishes and dreams. Ellie couldn’t know that my wish was for more years than doctors predicted, enough time to build solid memories of me that would live on in her.

We had baked a chocolate cake and she plastered it with Blue and Red and Green and Yellow patches of frosting, like a crazy quilt covering the cake and her mouth. I enticed her to eat more than frosting for lunch with PB and J sandwiches made with a heart-shaped cookie cutter.

A sudden thud startled her until I told her it was Frank cleaning out the fireplace. “I love your Tata so much,” I added. She tilted her head to the side, then flashed her big blueberry eyes. “Nani, I think you love Everybody!”

I thought to reassure her—“I don’t love everybody the way I love you”—and to defend myself—“I’m not a fool”—but her confident face said, “Let it be.” It’s okay, I decided, if she remembers me loving a lot of people.

When I snapped the picture of Ellie gazing out the cabin window, the camera whirred. She turned, but not immediately. Her mouth was set in earnest concentration, her eyes darted among ideas. She was pondering a big question.

“Nani,” her words stepped gently. “Is this a tree house?” I thought to say, “No,” bound by truth. But I confirmed what her eyes and ears had pieced together. “Yes. . . it sort of is,” I told her. Because her creation was the larger truth.

The photo of Ellie enchanted at the window held the whole weekend—especially my faith that we would play together at the cabin in the future.

Now my heart begs, “Does nothing last?”

Quit being maudlin, I scold myself. It’s just stuff. But my untamed-first-thought-morning-mind knows better. They were treasure tucked full of good times, sensations, relationships, hope. Now they are gone.

Then one morning instead of being greeted by the grim message I had come to expect, I wake with a familiar lyric singing itself in my head. As outrageous as a river raging through a roaring fire, it echoes over and over, “Shower the people you love with love.”

What?

“Shower the people you love with love.” The mocking sentiment inserts itself like a clown at a funeral.

“Shower the people you love with love.” As I bathe and dress, it repeats like a broken record. I can’t turn the old James Taylor lyric off.

“Shower the people you love with love.” The words harass me all through the day. They won’t leave me alone—until in a flash as if by magic, the dots connect, and I get it—the larger truth. The “it” I “get” is the resurrection of cancer’s greatest gift, the one I lost in the fire.

Temporarily.

The persistent truth is this: We have now to show people we love them. I can do that still, before they are lost to time, divorce, death (theirs or mine).

We always, only, have Now. Now is the gift that comes tucked inside the jolt of loss. Now survives to use as we choose.

****

Sheila’s Response to the Revision:

In this version, I was reading along with most of my curiosities satisfied and a delight in the feelings I was living through Marjorie. At the end though I did have a feeling response that brought me out of the essay:

Step One –Velcro Words: “the good of her,” and “clown at a funeral,” and “the dots connect,” among others.

Step Two — Feelings:
a. I definitely feel both the poignancy of losing the memorabilia, the love for the grand-daughter, and the author’s attentiveness to her and to the world and to joy despite, or because of, cancer and fire’s devastation. I am aware that the image of the quilt and lying under it on snowy days is missing, but I didn’t miss it. Perhaps, I was drawn to the images that connect the speaker with people and the remembered liveliness of times at her mountain home. I know that the earlier repetition of the word “quilt” in “crazy quilt pattern” didn’t really build emotion. But in this draft, emotion builds early with the questions, “Why? Why me? Do I deserve this?” The raising of these questions introduces other losses and the speaker’s agitated state is palpable. I am interested to learn that Michelle’s second grade painting was done during happy blended family years and that the ending of that family was one of the speaker’s previous losses.
b. Feelings that left me with a letdown feeling this time came with the new ending. First, a “persistent” truth is not the same as a “larger truth” so I didn’t feel the speaker was using her earlier thinking to inform the ending. I also felt as if the speaker was summarizing her change rather than letting me experience it with her. I was in need of seeing the speaker living by her new insight. I wished to see definite action.

Step Three — Curiosity:

I know from the start that it is a second home that has burned to the ground. I know that the objects uncovered are definitely those of memory sprouting here and there during the days that followed the loss of the house.
I understand why the objects that are lost matter to this particular essay—they are reminders of what is gone but not gone because the memories are still there and ultimately the speaker arrives at something perhaps more intangible than memory—NOW.

I am no longer feeling confused about the photograph of Ellie and the situation it was taken in. I notice that the “basketful” is gone now. I know what the author means by the larger truth concerning tree house and ultimately concerning life.

I am told the phrase she repeats about showering others with love is a familiar one and with the new analogies, she has convinced me that it is annoying to have it repeated again and again when she is mourning the fire’s destruction of her home and what it meant to her.

The phrasing this time clears up my confusion about who Tata is. The speaker states that the sleepover is with Nani and Tata and reports she told Ellie that Frank was cleaning out the fireplace. Then, she includes the direct speech, “I love our Tata so much.” This clears up my curiosity about who Tata is, although I didn’t Nani and Tata are Spanish for grandma and grandpa until Marjorie told me. Even so, reading those words in the context of this version of the essay didn’t take me out of the essay.

****

After receiving my new responses, Marjorie eventually sent the essay back with a new ending, one that provides much more than a summary. However, this new ending didn’t come she said until, “I gave up trying.”

I believe that when an essay is important to us, it brews in our unconscious. Portions of it pop into consciousness and dreams when we aren’t looking if we have been working hard on the writing. In The Courage to Create, Rollo May discusses the way “aha” experiences often come after we have transitioned from work to relaxation or from relaxation back to work. When we put away a piece of writing we have slaved over and pursue other activities, solutions to our writing problems do often present themselves.

Here’s the ending that came to Marjorie. In the essay, it goes right after the words, “…and I get it—the larger truth.”

The “it” I “get” is a resurrected cancer-gift, the one tucked inside the jolt of mortality. A treasure I lost in the fire. Temporarily. The inescapable truth is this: I always, only, have Now to show people I love them.

So now I cuddle and smooch and play with Ellie like a half-grown puppy. And when I hold her in my gaze, my heart beats faster. With others, too, I say, “I love you,” whenever it fits. It pops out of me like flesh escaping the top of a girdle. I don’t care if I sound foolish, inelegant, indiscriminate. I know I am not. And when people I haven’t seen in years appear in my mind, I search for them on Internet directories: a long ago therapist who helped me turn my life around; the junior high school English teach who modeled confident womanhood and told me I could write; the boy, long since a man, I thought I’d grow up to marry; the graduate school professor who shaped my thinking about all things being connected. We email, we talk on the phone, we meet each other if we can.

I let them know what they mean to me, while Now burns hot and bright.

This time around my responses were as follows:

The action with Ellie and the long list of people who occur to the speaker is very satisfying at the end because it takes readers into the new “now” and gains momentum for this way of being in the world. We actually experience the energy of unleashing love and gratitude. The truth is again the “larger” truth so it is in line with the thinking earlier in the essay that arose from the notion of a tree house.

Note: In the completed draft, although there are some fragments used stylistically, having to put more down on the page has encouraged this author to use full sentence over fragments in many places as well as use more variety in paragraph lengths. Some editing happens as a consequence of reacting to response, even when the writer isn’t concentrating on editing. The step of editing is most effectively used after the three-step response method has helped a writer fully develop the work. If you’d like to review editing information, read Wash and Shine the Fruit of Your Labor.

As always when I share the three-step response method with those developing their work, I feel a deep sense of satisfaction at how this method provides what authors need to fully communicate on the page, with both themselves and others, even when they have been frustrated with their material and their abilities to “get it said” on the page. In this case, Marjorie Ford digs deeper and deeper into what the lost objects and memories tell her today. In doing so, she changes fire from great destroyer, to illuminator and releaser of life energy.