Revealing something of yourself makes your writing more vivid, Martha Lear believes.
She is a successful journalist and formerly an editor with New York Times Magazine. Lear was trained to follow a strict professional code, trained never to put herself in her writing."I remember very well the first time I used the word `I' in a story. It was in the late '70s," she says. "I was doing an article about rape. I tried to approach it from every angle I could think
of - legally, politically, cross-culturally. In the last part of the piece I told a story of something that happened to me. It was not a rape, but physical aggression from a man. What surprised and impressed me afterwards was that that was what people remembered. Everyone commented on the personal section."
In 1980 she published "Heartsounds." It's the story of her life and the life of her physician husband from the time he had his first heart attack, at the age of 53, until his death, four years later.
"Heartsounds" is both a love story and a medical story. Lear predated the current movie "Doctor" by more than 10 years with her examination of the medical profession from the eyes of a doctor who becomes a patient.
Nothing could be more personal than her book. She wrote, of the night before his surgery, "I stayed until eight. I sat in a chair with my shoes off and my feet up on the bed, playing toesies with him. Skin hunger. And he sounding so easy-cool that it seemed there was nothing on his mind except the lazy play of our toes."
"Heartsounds" was a best seller - and a made-for-TV movie starring Mary Tyler Moore and James Garner. But there are perils as well as pleasures in writing of your own life, Lear says.
"Among the pitfalls is the temptation to make yourself look good." Autobiography isn't worth anything, she says, "unless it is mercilessly honest about the self. Too often people succumb to the temptation to hedge bets, flagrantly selecting material, leaving things out for the wrong reasons. Rather than truth-telling, they do a cosmetic job on themselves. Or they avenge themselves, getting even with people in their families."
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(Additional information)
Writer offers workshop
Martha Lear, author of the noted autobiography "Heartsounds," will offer a writing workshop on Wednesday, Sept. 4, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Whitmore Library, 2170 E. 7000 South. Her topic will be "Putting Yourself in Your Own Words."
The library will offer an opportunity to meet publishers and editors the following night at a session called "Publishing: The Ultimate Goal."
To register for one or both seminars, call 943-4636.