From the category archives:

Memoir writing

Memoir Creator: the story so far…

by Elly Danica

In 1988 my first book was published: Don’t: A Woman’s Word, a memoir of my childhood experience of sexual abuse. It became for a brief few months, a sensation in Canada, primarily because of an interview I did with broadcaster Peter Gzowski which was aired on CBC, the national radio network. My memoir has never [...]

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Memoir: Patriarchal Social Scripts

by Elly Danica

A new age in publishing has dawned and I am beyond excited to be a part of it. Last fall I was given a Kindle reader as a gift and I must say, while I love the feel of paper books and have a vast collection, I love the convenience of having 200 books on [...]

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When not to publish a memoir

by Elly Danica

Writing a memoir is first a self reflection exercise and only second, a distant second at that, something you may want to circulate to family and friends or publish.  There’s nothing that requires you to publish something just because you wrote it. Memoir writing is a process, and you can stop once the process is [...]

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When motivation is in short supply

by Elly Danica

It’s winter, the days are short and often cold. It’s difficult to get going at anything as we focus instead on staying warm and eating comfort food. Motivation is in a definite slump. Winter is also a perfect season for self reflection, musing on our lives and indulging in our memories. This is the important [...]

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Life writing – why it’s fun

by Elly Danica

Life writing is an opportunity to enjoy all the events and people of your life in a new and likely even more interesting way. Why? Now you have something delicious called perspective, and a wealth of experience that enables you to fully grasp the significance of what you’ve been through, you’ll see what you learned [...]

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Writing to save your life

by Elly Danica

There are times in life when the only way to find clarity is to write the hard stuff. We all have some of that, and fortunate the folks who don’t have very much.  No matter whether it is a little or a lot, its tough and sorrowful. Clarity is not the only thing to be [...]

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Memoir writing – using photographs

by Elly Danica

I have stash of photographs from my childhood years, a few from the years I was married and progressively fewer as I get older. There were years in my 30′s and 40′s when I wish I’d taken more photos and had more taken of me to record what I was doing, and how I looked. [...]

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Notes on an ordinary life – family reunions

by Elly Danica

A family reunion is a memoir writer’s dream resource. This is primary research on a grand scale. Imagine a collection of all the significant people in your extended family and their partners, wanting to get together simply to share stories. Okay, yes, they’ll want to party as well. You should probably consider going into marathon [...]

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Telling the truth

by Elly Danica

One of the most challenging things you will encounter as you write your personal stories is the need to tell the truth. Most of us live our lives with so-called acceptable versions of the truth, truths stripped of as much pain as possible, truth that is at best faint, at its worst no where near [...]

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Notebook – why you need one

by Elly Danica

Everyone who writes or wants to write needs to carry a notebook and pen. It doesn’t matter whether you write notes to yourself, grocery lists or ideas–you need a notebook with you at all times. Ideas can be flighty, if you don’t capture them when they land, they’ll be gone, too often for good. You [...]

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