write memoir | write memoir
Jul.11.2011
Writing a memoir is like making your way through a maze—embrace the mystery. You will go to places where you don’t know everything. You’re not sure if you should venture right or left or back track some, but then you realize this journey of mystery and suspense is exactly where you want to be. It...
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Oct.16.2010
Are you toying with the idea of writing a memoir? Are you unsure or fearful of venturing out of your comfort zone to become the author of your true tales?
You’re thinking: I’ve never written anything before. I‘d like to write a memoir, but I don’t think I have the talent to make my experiences...
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Oct.12.2010
The Good Daughters—Two sides of the same coin, or should I say strawberry plants? (Once you read the book, you’ll know what I mean.)Through Joyce Maynard’s insightful writing, I found the off-shoots, Dana and Ruth, to be not only good daughters, but also strong women, each with a powerful belief in...
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Sep.25.2010
Memories are currency in more ways than one. What are we without memory? And what will happen to the important memories of our lives and the lives of those around us, if we don’t write them down?
On a scrap of paper I recently came across on my cluttered desk, I’d written down a thought about...
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Sep.06.2010
In answer to the many questions I've received on how to infuse more passion and emotion into your memoirs, here are a few thoughts on how to make it happen.
You set the tone of your story by injecting passion and emotion as you see it, as you feel it. We all have emotional memory, and it is best...
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Aug.07.2010
I don’t know a writer of memoir who feels empty while writing. They experience myriad feelings, but emptiness isn’t among them. They are engaged in the very personal, willful, and soulful act of creating a true story from memory, which is incongruent with the definition of emptiness.
Lately,...
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Jul.09.2010
... Back to the blurry line between fiction and nonfiction. I enjoyed the comments I received from searchers for truth after posting the first part of this short three part series. The following are a few extracted comments that hit home:
I received a Goggle alert announcing my death
The reality...
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May.17.2010
This time, while walking the memoir labyrinth, deliberately open your mind to the colors that appear when using your senses. Spend time thinking about how color affects each of your five senses, one at a time. And then expand your thoughts into combining, for example, taste with smell or sight with...
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Mar.09.2010
Writing through emotional pain is today’s focus. Physical pain (Remember the slap in the face mentioned in the last post?) can be rife with emotional pain. Incidentally, one woman sent me a message, after post #3, saying that she called the slaps she received from her mother “love taps.” That’s an...
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Mar.04.2010
Ann Seymour’s I’ve Always Loved You is a book everyone interested in writing historical memoir should read. It is a remarkable example in emphasizing how to sustain a narrative voice when history is a big part of the memoir.
Fascinating and heartbreaking are the first two words that come to mind...
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