If you’ve read my memoir, Under The Birch Tree, you’ll learn that as a young girl, I was a walker, circumnavigating the yards that surrounded my home as if to plot memories with every footprint. And to this day, I walk, traversing the woods along curvy earth trails marked by bumps and dips, or meander through the neighborhood, pivoting on [...]
Last month I wrote about how the definition of memoir, characterized by a single incident during a part of one’s life (not an entire life), can hold writers back from writing their memoir. As a writer, maybe you can’t see one outstanding incident to create memoir; there are many experiences that happened to you. And maybe you can’t see a [...]
Are you a writer who is working on a memoir and sadly believes it’s not one because you feel it doesn’t meet the definition? “Memoir is supposed to be about one specific incident during one part of my life, and I’ve got a few of them over a couple of decades,” you say. Though you may not be able to [...]
Prior to my memoir going to press, my hybrid publisher forwarded me “first pages.” As a first-time author, I was unaware of such a thing, a PDF file of how my finished book would look. First pages was essentially a last call, an opportunity to use a phone-a-friend lifeline to correct errors missed in copyediting or proofreading, and to check [...]
When I was seven or maybe eight, summer vacation was freedom. I would be free of classes, sitting, listening to a teacher, reading from a book, studying a blackboard. I would be free from test-taking anxiety and fear of maybe failing them. Having nothing required of me that would elicit emotional responses was my definition of a summer vacation. Until [...]
I slide open the screen door and step into the cool of an early morning. Soon, the sun warms my back as the earth spins her body. With deliberate steps and a steady pace, I would leave the silence of the asphalt to meet shifting crushed gravel, my path bisecting a dense green landscape illuminated by foggy sunbeams piercing slivers [...]
I was writing my follow up to “now moments,” a previous post, when I found the writing meandering. The twists and turns reminded me of the “crooked street”, Lombard Street in San Francisco, where I lived in my thirties. I didn’t know why I was experiencing a lack of focus. Now that I have loads of time with no demands [...]
This morning I ripped the month’s page away from the year. March, defined by thirty-one small white boxes, was filled with ink, a few arrows, and many cross outs. The month was a busy one for me as scheduling dominated my weeks. From an electrician called to my home to replace a switch, but needed to reschedule for a day [...]
I would be remiss if I didn’t write about my reflections during this time of isolation because of the corona virus, when connecting is at odds with social distancing. I know we’ll look back on this when future conversations will begin “remember when” stories that will never end. I think of memories being made now for those “remember when’s” later. [...]
Last month I posted “truth didn’t set me free.” It was about my experience one early January morning in a courtroom. I read the post a week later and then took it down. As a memoir writer, I didn’t like how I wrote it; there should be more meaning to the experience than what I had written. But I wondered [...]