What’s new? Whatever is new in your life makes a great writing topic. It’s where the energy is. Even if you’re already working on something else, try this: 1. Make a list of what’s new in your life right now — the standouts. Go for 3 to 5 topics. It
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Have you heard the Zen saying: Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water? Replace “before enlightenment” with “to be a good writer” and you’ll have the formula.
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It’s springtime in Texas, when the bluebonnets are in bloom and women from around the country come together for a conference in Austin to learn more about lifewriting. It’s the “Stories from the Heart” conference of the national organization Story Circle Network, “for women with stories to tell,” April 15
Read MoreMemoir is about people and experiences. It’s about relationships, connection. And characters — the people in our life stories — are at the heart of it all. I see some of my students and clients writing memoir that can suffer from describing incidents one after another, neglecting the important fact
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It all starts with the first draft. A first draft gives you something to work with so you can get to where you want to go. It’s a necessary step, and hardly the last one.
Read MoreToday I heard author Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul and many others) speak. This biggest-ever bestselling author — Canfield has had 47 separate titles on the New York Times bestseller’s list since 1976 — talked about growing up a coal-miner’s son in West Virginia and charting a path
Read MoreFree Teleseminar Thursday March 7, 2013 4 pm PST 5 pm MST 6 pm CST 7 pm EST Join me for my free teleseminar on creating believable characters in memoir. I’ll be the featured speaker on a Roundtable teleseminar at the National Association of Memoir Writers (NAMW) on how to
Read MoreIt came as a surprise to me years ago to learn that NOT saying something could be considered lying, at least according to my stepmother, whose opinions on things like that mattered when I was in high school. “But I never said I [fill in the blank]!” I’d protest, when
Read MoreSome people worry their life stories won’t translate to the page, that they’ll sound dull (“this happened, then this happened, then this happened”). It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s all in how you shape it. Think of how we live. This happens and then that happens, and then
Read MoreWriting the stories of your life doesn’t happen in a day. It takes more than inspiration, writing when the urge strikes. It takes time and dedication. It wants the details that lift the story off the page, that take a reader there along with you, that share you with them
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