Memoir writing – using photographs

October 20, 2009

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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Memoir as process: Self reflection

October 8, 2009

There are two sorts of people that I know, those who think about their lives and situations and those who would rather do almost anything so that they don’t have to spend a single second in self reflection. Self reflection for the latter group is apparently self indulgent, selfish, stupid and a waste of time. [...]

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Where are my stories?

October 7, 2009

When first sitting down to write a memoir you may have only a couple of events that really stand out, so that’s where you will logically begin. Then what? Here’s something to try to bring more of your stories to the surface. Take at least three sheets of  8.5 x 11 inch paper and tape [...]

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Notes on an ordinary life – family reunions

September 29, 2009

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

September 14, 2009

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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Memoir writing – using mementos & linked events

September 8, 2009

A memoir can be anything that records your life. A written memoir is just one of many options. Photographs, if you have a lot of them, supplemented by written stories is another method to capture your life memories. You can use your photos in an album with pages of text to accompany them or build [...]

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Notebook – why you need one

August 31, 2009

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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"Childhood is a branch of cartography."

August 17, 2009

“Childhood is a branch of cartography.” Michael Chabon in an essay called “Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood” in the July 16 issue of the New York Review of Books. Cartography, the science of map making suggests an interesting way to think about memoir writing. What we are making when we write a memoir [...]

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The Writing Life – Write now!

August 11, 2009

To write, you need so very little. You need an honest heart. And some paper. – Heather Sellers, Page After Page Writing, as too few of us seem to remember (I include myself in this), is first of all a practice. Something we need to do every day, like brushing our teeth. Without practice, writing [...]

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The writing life

August 4, 2009

The older I get the more important balance becomes. I have less room for over-indulgence in things that aren’t good for me simply because my body takes longer to recover from any badness. It’s a fact of life, but in many ways also a relief. It is relatively easy to notice when my body isn’t [...]

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