Actually sitting down and putting pen to paper, or finger to keyboard, can be intimidating to someone unaccustomed to writing. Vandervort agrees that writing is hard, but says that the process is worthwhile on several levels.”Writing is hard work, but it’s a way of staying sharp. You can do crossword puzzles, but this is more of a challenge. You tune up your memories, sharpen your mind.”She points out that the first draft can be difficult, but the re-write is a lot of fun.”Just get it down on paper,” she encourages her students.”It’s hard to get started, but once you go, the words just flow,” says Hermann.Oppenheimer says she welcomes the process of writing her life and memories as a way of reconnecting with her creative writing. The retired lawyer says she loved to write in high school, but lost the urge after a nasty college English professor squashed her writing.”From a very early age, the only kind of immortality I believed in was that of the artist. The painting or the book doesn’t go away. (In memoir writing) you immortalize certain people who played special roles in your life. I want to write about that.”Yates, whose first novel ”Jess” was published in 2001, says that writing is a very powerful thing to do.”People do things in their lives and then they forget about them. It’s such a good process to write about your life. I think it’s good for the soul.”