The value of writer critique groups was brought home to me this week. I finally located a Memoir-specific critique group and joined their Write & Share meet-up on Wednesday at the Greenwood branch of the Seattle Public Library. Frankly, I arrived a little shell-shocked. Riding the ferry is always relaxing. Seagulls and sea spray off […]
Posts in the writing category:
Your Truth Can Inspire Others
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 […]
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 Writer’s Voice
While I was being chased by pugilistic geese and frightened by hoof-pounding Percherons back on our farm in 1955, I was almost totally unaware of the world that existed at the end of the road beyond our mailbox. Sure, there were those Sunday afternoon drives to my grandmother’s cottage for our weekly shampoo in the […]
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 […]
Publishing News, continued.
Publishing News is continuing to be somewhat grim. After the Booktrope fiasco, it appears that a lot of us have been talking about being more proactive about our futures, and checking around for similar writing on the wall. A. C. Fuller posted a link to the publishing nightmare that writer Claire Cook (author of Must […]
After Booktrope
After the collapse of Booktrope last week, what do we know about the future of alternative publishing methods? If you’re a writer who has been exploring how and where to submit your manuscript, you know that the publishing business has been changing at warp speed in recent years. Traditional publishing? Self-publishing? Book packagers? Team publishers? […]
National Teacher Day
May 3 is National Teacher Day. In Kindergarten, we were asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Girls were given the choice of mother, nun, nurse, or teacher—not necessarily in that order. We had to say our choice aloud. I knew that mother—from what I had witnessed thus far—was not a very […]