Know When To Fold, a reblog
I found the lead to this story buried in the last paragraph. But reading through Allison Williams' thought process to get her to that point was a shared experience by most writers.
the magic of memoir
My essay is for all you memoir writers who speak to the conversation in your head as I have done when writing my memoir.
a writer’s lament
I seized an essay from my slush pile. I remember when I wrote the following; its history born from emotion. I was approaching the age of 40, not working full time and I was only a couple of drafts into my memoir when a critique of my manuscript told me fancy terms such as through-threads and theme, reflections and takeaways [...]
writing details
I implore the power of detail in my memoir writing. However, writing the details can be a distraction and a digression from the purpose of my words. Natalie Goldberg’s, Writing Down the Bones says, “We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips . . [...]
home
Home. A physical place or a state of being. It can even have emotions. Linear or ever-changing, it may travel like a river with ebbs and flows. Or maybe it is elusive. My memoir read like an autobiography. I was clear as I spewed vivid memories and recalled markers attained as my decades rolled on by. But I wasn’t clear [...]
the elusion of Mary Karr
What is it about Mary Karr’s writing? Her prolific self (award-winning poet, best-selling memoirist) and compelling character studies appear to infiltrate the memoir reaches of the genre. She’s on a professional writing level, elevated and honed, where I could and never would reach in my writing. Mary’s world would never rendezvous with mine. My memoir is the antithesis of her [...]
let it go
I wrote a memoir – 10 years ago – and then I rewrote it and then rewrote again, yet another rewrite and then wrote more. I acted on 5 professional critiques over those years as impetus for my rewrites. And I use the term “rewrite” loosely. I could easily make these changes – deleting information that has no reason to [...]