The Architecture of Nonfiction
I particularly like #6 in the total article at "Nieman Storyboard" as it is my fishing rod - to reel me back in to where I started.
My Pink Book
Taken from a 2000 word essay, this short is the beginning to the unfolding of my spirituality. I heard the call. It wasn’t a whisper or a delicate voice or loud words urging me to transcribe thoughts to paper. The call did sound like an alarm, telling me it was time to awaken a dormant spirit. I was ready to [...]
Wild Mushrooms and My Memoir
I attended the annual Printer’s Row Lit Fest in Chicago this past weekend. Since I started writing over 10 years ago, I have been driving the 45 minute trip in June to the city to walk five blocks, on Dearborn, from Congress to Polk. My only driving force to visit the Fest at that time was to check out small [...]
Don’t Circle Your Target
Why write 3 full paragraphs leading up to your main point in your writing, when you can do it in one? I asked myself this question after reading a recent blog post, “The Art of Submission: Inquiring After Our Work.” Good title. I was interested in reading the post. Like most nonfiction writers, I read anything I can get my [...]
Shown, Not Told. How Stephen King’s “On Writing” worked for me.
I never thought I would ever pick up a book by Stephen King. I’m a writer of memoir, creative nonfiction. He is a writer of – not sure- but I’ll call it science fiction, mystery, and other far out stuff with aliens and the supernatural. I can’t say I have read any of his books. Not my general interest of [...]
I Buried the Lead
I am a writer. I have a degree in Journalism. I learned a couple of things during my college journalism classes. The first was that I was not going to be a reporter. I did not have a knack, let alone a desire to be a fact seeker and then report on whatever the news was. I’m not good at [...]
Writing – Hobby or Job?
The truth can sting like a bee to a warm, plump thigh. When a “shark” from TV’s Shark Tank bluntly tells the contestant, “This is a hobby, and not a business,” a fight or flight switches on. Either anger ignites his checks to red or he cowers in admittance that maybe the “shark” is correct. There is much conversation about [...]
Undeveloped and straying?
So here I have it, 66,000 plus words orchestrated to show my life experiences, baring my soul and sharing my bumpy journey through the years, my memoir. I have witnessed its transformation from 75,000 words in tones of discontent, wonderment, resentment, with some anger and perhaps sadness thrown in there for drama’s sake whittled to an essence of bare minimum, [...]
In Black and White
My memoir, “Under the Birch Tree” has been a work in progress for over ten years but it has been only the last year where I have been intent on completing it. It’s time for me to turn the last page and close it up. I have received critiques from two trusted editors/writers. Their feedback really came to the same [...]
Map Reading
I have been diligent for almost a week in rewriting my memoir manuscript, "Under the Birch Tree." I've acknowledged open doors signaling me that it's time to look up, and not at me feet, and walk through the timing as it is opportunity for progress. It's time to pick the book up once again, leaving behind the work of polishing [...]