New year, new habits: How to start writing with author Kelly Corrigan

TED Radio Hour

NPR

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.4 • 21.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Writing can help you process thoughts, preserve memories, chronicle the stories of you and your loved ones. But that's only if you can get past the blank page. In this bonus episode, best-selling memoirist Kelly Corrigan offers advice for putting pen to paper. Corrigan has written four New York Times-bestselling books about her life and family in the last decade, including Tell Me More and The Middle Place. She was featured in the episode, "A guide to being brave in relationships."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Manoche. I am here with one more bonus episode to give all of our listeners a look into what we make for TED Radio Hour Plus. So Plus supports all the work we do. And as a supporter, you get access to ad-free episodes as well as extra interviews with TED speakers and practical advice from experts.
0:22.4	You can go to plus.npr.org to find out more.
0:26.4	Okay, so here's what we got for you.
0:30.3	It is that time of year, maybe, when we feel a little wistful about what was and what's even to come. And maybe you have thought about
0:40.2	getting some of those thoughts down on paper, even writing a memoir, maybe for yourself, or even to
0:48.4	share with the world. So writer Kelly Corrigan was recently on our episode about how to be brave in relationships.
0:57.7	But I also wanted to ask her about how she approaches her craft, because Kelly became a best-selling author by writing about the mundane and ordinary aspects of her family's life and her own life,
1:12.3	but capturing those moments in an extraordinary way,
1:16.4	I want to read you a brief passage from her latest book,
1:19.7	which is called Tell Me More.
1:21.6	It's about spending time with her dad during the last few days of his life.
1:30.0	After we got him to bed that night, my mom explained that he came downstairs once a day
1:34.4	to sit by his new gas fireplace that turned on with a remote control.
1:39.6	She also said his pain was extraordinary.
1:43.0	Cancer that had been many years before in his bladder had
1:46.0	bloomed in his right shoulder blade and rooted in several spots along his spine. Still, for the
1:52.5	four or five hours a day when he was awake, my mom said he was himself, which is to say,
1:57.9	positive. During that first week, when he wasn't in his spot by the fire,
2:02.7	my mom, my brothers, and I cycled in and out of his bedroom, pulling up a chair if he was awake,
2:08.1	turning off his light if he had fallen asleep. There was so little to be done, so little that could be done.
2:14.9	We watched whatever was on ESPN, even bowling, and talked about Duke
2:19.9	basketball, Notre Dame lacrosse, and whether LeBron could hold off the warriors. I felt lucky
	...

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