Your truth can inspire! Linda Joy Myers, Author and Founder of the National Assn of Memoir Writers, shared a post today about vulnerability and truth in memoir. I don’t want to quote her suggestions in their entirety but you can read the entire post here. There was one point that stood out for me. When […]
Posts in the Memoir category:
Writer Conference Recharge
When the going gets tough, it’s tempting to close and laptop and back away. Writing is a struggle for all of us, and yet, if we back away, we’re just pushing The End further down the line. This morning I awakened at 4:45 in a terrifying nightmare sweat. It was the first time my memoir […]
The Creative Process
I love mornings. I wake up early and press the start button on the coffee, then slide back into bed to see who has visited me overnight and I respond right then because I’m all about “in the moment”. I go to pour some coffee, slide back into bed yet again and open Scrivener. It […]
The Setting in Your Manuscript
When I was in fifth grade I read a book with a vivid salt-sprayed setting on the coast of Maine, a mysterious place a few hours drive from where we lived in inland Massachusetts. The author’s words described it in great detail and I entered her world vicariously. The marsh grass swept the tips of […]
The Playlist of My Memoir
My memoir has a musical current running through it that begins with the energetic rhythms of the Charleston and ends with a sentimental Van Morrison tune. Blog posts on this page frequently have their beginnings in my musical memories, and many of them are gathered during my aerobic dance class. I’m used to writing with […]
The Metaphor of Me
Today I listened to an interview in which it was suggested that we look inward for the metaphor of who we are and what we do in the world… what’s going on in our life. My metaphor popped up instantly. I am a conch shell. A conch shell may be empty but it once was […]
Show, Don’t Tell
“Show, Don’t Tell” is the closest thing I know to a writer’s mantra. For every sentence that I write, I’m constantly berating myself—Did I “show”? Or did I “tell”? Did I remain “in scene”? Remaining “in scene” is my nemesis write now. Yes, write now. You read that write. Writing is all I care about, […]
The Scent of Writing
The scent of writing is all around me this morning in the form of a bouquet of lilacs. Yesterday, I placed the Mason jar bouquet on the shelf next to my bed, where I begin my morning reading and writing with my first cups of coffee. The scent of lilacs. How that returns me to […]
Humor in Memoir
On March 8th, I posted on Facebook that I was going to add Humor to my memoir. Humor. What was I thinking? Those who know the story of my challenging childhood were probably taken aback because only one person “liked” it (That was you, Nancy Harris.) and no one commented. With Facebook “likes” being the […]
Norman Rockwell and the Dolls
The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge had only three cars in the parking lot on this cool wintry-looking April day. I parked, knowing that I’d enjoy the luxury of having the museum almost entirely to myself. I tried to get here on a couple of other days, but made the mistake of beginning to write […]