We can only hold so much information in our heads. Thank goodness for paper and pen! I am an inveterate list-maker, and offer the revision guide as a helpful tool for collecting thoughts and steering revision. The revision guide is a catch-all, holding our vision for the next draft and a list of changes that […]
The fastest way to see our writing with fresh eyes is to look through the eyes of a reader. Established authors might profess that they don’t reveal their work to anyone until it’s done, or complain about writing workshops producing works created by consensus. But writers who are still learning the craft need exposure to
In a minute you’ll read a writing exercise you’ll hate. Your hackles will rise and a bitter taste will fill your mouth. Every bone in your body will resist it. Here’s my challenge: Do it anyway. A first draft is a beautiful thing. Drafts are well worth growing attached to; they have raw energy, bursts
Better the Devil You Know: An Exercise Read More »
I’m a tender-hearted gardener. When last year’s cherry tomatoes reseed themselves, I don’t have the heart to pull them out. And so I end up with an abundance of late-ripening cherry tomatoes. What to do? Make tomato sauce. But cherry tomatoes are a hassle to peal, even after blanching, so I choose the lazy route,
“So what?” Insidious, persistent, biting, the simple question is a brain-bug infecting every writer I’ve ever met. It gnaws at our confidence. It stops our pen mid-stroke. It’s a plague infecting whole classrooms—whole cultures, even, undermining the generative instinct because it assumes a vacuous answer. There’s no justification for creative work, it seems. And it’s
Revisiting the “So what?” Question Read More »
In Vivian Gornick’s The Situation and the Story, she writes: The subject of autobiography is always self-definition, but it cannot be self-definition in the void. The memoirist, like the poet and the novelist, must engage with the world, because engagement makes experience, experience makes wisdom, and finally it’s the wisdom—or rather the movement toward it—that
Inevitable “I” Part 2 Read More »
If we show up in our stories as a character, our memoirs are stronger. Why? A reader entering a story needs shoes to walk around in and a pair of lenses to see through. We are embodied creatures. Even in the two-dimensional world of language, we need bodies or, at the very least, personality. Every
I’ve been surprised by how many beginning writers have a strange notion that whatever they’re writing—say, a chapter or short memoir or essay—must be certain length—say, twenty pages—and get tied in knots when their writing doesn’t conform. Ironically, everyone’s assumptions about the proper length for a piece are different. Where do these ideas come from?
Here’s an observation to chew on: A few times in my career as a writing instructor, I’ve coached retired therapists in writing their memoirs. These are people who have worked with their personal stories over decades; they’ve had extensive experience in therapy and have continued to explore their stories through supervision groups and continuing education.
Most prose writers at some point get overwhelmed by the scope of their material. Except for those deliberately writing short, stand-alone pieces, writers usually face projects whose scope or subject matter is larger than most human beings can fathom. The memories are too complex, the emotions too fearsome, the pages too many, the themes too
The Overwhelm Factor Read More »