We have been talking about writing memoirs for most of the month so I thought we could wrap up May with The Personal Essay.
**I have lifted some info from The Write Life. I realize a previous topic on what not to do in a memoir got me into some trouble with an unhappy author. I hope
I was able to smooth things over with her.
When you don’t quite agree with something, say so, it enriches our chatroom experience. I don’t always agree with everything I bring into the newsletter or
blog.
Common mistakes while writing an essay about yourself
Here are eight common mistakes you should avoid when writing a personal essay:
1. Using essay to vent
Writers often use an essay as an opportunity to express a moralistic stand, rant about a controversial issue or vent about a family
member. Don’t.
2. Clearing your throat on the page
Most first drafts I critique come with at least three lines of superfluous throat-clearing that can easily go without impacting the
piece.
3. Writing long… way too long
Don’t be afraid of the butcher knife.
When you’re revising and polishing an essay, make sure what you’ve written is tight — there are no unnecessary words, no superfluous anecdotes and no
nonsense!
4. Overlooking day-to-day life as essay fodder
An essayist’s job is to extract universal meaning from the mundane facts and experiences of life.
5. Using lazy language
Many writers tend to use words and phrases repeatedly.
6. Being afraid of dialogue
Using direct dialogue is often more effective than telling the reader what someone said.
Instead of saying, “The pediatrician told us to get rid of our son’s thumb-sucking habit,” write “’If you don’t put a stop to his thumb-sucking before he’s
three, his teeth will be set and the damage will be done,’ warned our pediatrician.”
7. Holding back
If you’re determined to stay safely on the surface of your story, essay might not be the right form for you.
8. Taking rejection personally
Personal essays are deeply intimate, so it’s painful when editors reject them.
Most importantly, don’t forget to have fun. Writing is a deeply personal and challenging pursuit, but it should be an
enjoyable one, too.
Join us Sunday, May 24 at 7PM EDT at The Writer's Chatroom
The Chatroom will be Closed on Wednesday the 27 and Sunday May 31
I have been gathering information to share for The Writer’s Chatroom Memoir Month for so long the actual word, “MEMOIR” began to
distract me. Just look at it.
I haunt a few Memoir Writers Groups on Facebook and discovered many people feel compelled to write because they consider
themselves a black sheep and simply want someone to validate and understand them.
Some writers are filtering their Memoir through a very dysfunctional lens. They are writing to simply get all the crap out
there. I call this the giant flipping off.
Another type of writer becomes very confused about the difference between Journaling, Therapy, and Autobiography.
Every life is unique, worthy of a movie about the life and times of you.
The challenge you’ll face is getting the story out of you. When we write, we often hear ourselves think. We scribble or
tap, we walk away, and we come back, sometimes hours, days or even weeks later. It’s then that we re-read our own words and decide on what is most important to us or to anyone else who may read it. This is a process but a really important one, engaging our brains and helping us become more concise in expressing ourselves as we become better and better at it.
When you write your Memoir you are writing the Story of You.
Those writing their memoirs often have a burning need to do so.
When you write a memoir, you are writing your version of what you think happened from your own perspective. Someone else might
have another version, and years and years later your perception of an incident might eventually change.
It’s also important to note why you should not write a memoir—and that is for revenge. Revenge does not serve anyone well. In
fact, the best revenge is to live a good life. It’s also difficult to read a memoir that judges rather than reflects upon the past. Take Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes (1996), for example: he had a horrific childhood, but after reading his book, you empathize with him, but you don’t pity him. He wouldn’t have wanted that.
Your memoir is primarily pain focused, or an act of catharsis.
This problem often goes hand in hand with the first. Someone has experienced something traumatic, and as part of their therapy
or recovery, they write about the experience. Before long, they have a book-length work, and friends and family say (as a form of well-meaning support), “You should find a publisher.”
You probably shouldn’t. If your writing was:
undertaken as a way for you to deal with a painful experience
if that painful experience is in the recent past (within the last few years), and/or
if you have no other writing experience or ambition to publish …
… then publishing a memoir is rarely the next best next step. It’s great that you’ve used writing to aid in recovery, but it
doesn’t mean you have a book that will appeal to agents or big publishers.
Your memoir is really an autobiography.
This happens the majority of the time I read a memoir chapter outline or synopsis: it begins in childhood and ends in the
present day. In other words, it looks more like an autobiography.
You’ve written a series of vignettes. *
A vignette is a story that stands alone and is little more than an anecdote about your life. Some memoirs consist of nothing but
back-to-back vignettes. They might be beautiful and touching vignettes, but the manuscript lacks a narrative arc. There’s no real story; there’s no question that keeps us turning pages.
* This is what I had in mind last week. Now, I will reconsider.
I have included snippets from three blogposts. I hope before Month’s end you will check them out. Use what you want.. leave what
you don’t.
May is Memoir Month at the Writer’s Chatroom. We are getting a bit of a late start. Last chat, we talked a little about writing
a 500 word segment on some memorable event in our life.
We also talked about a Memoir being different from an Autobiography.
Let’s talk about creative ways to tell our stories.
Whether you curl up with memoirs on a frequent basis or pick one up every now and again, you know powerful memoirs have the capacity to take you, as a reader,
for an exhilarating ride.
When I teach people how to write and sell memoir, we talk about how to tell a compelling story. While all memoirs are different, the best memoirs all have certain elements in common.
My goal with this piece is to review some of those common elements, so you can weave them into your own memoir.
This is a fairly long post and there are 170 comments on the page. We won’t go through the whole thing in one evening.
Let me break it down a little bit and you can read it before chat, tomorrow.
How to write a memoir
If you’re planning to write a memoir, you’ll want to take your readers on a journey they won’t forget. In this post, we share tips for writing a memoir well,
as well as plenty of memoir examples.
Here’s how to write a
memoir.
Narrow Your Focus
Include more than just your Story
Tell the Truth
Put your Readers in Your Shoes
Employ elements of Fiction to bring your story to Life
Create an emotional Journey
Showcase your Personal Growth
The article ends with examples of types of Memoirs.
If you want to go ahead and work on an event from your life, go for it. Bring it to chat or hit Comment way down on the Writer’s
Chatroom Blog Page and put your words in there.
Chat begins at 8PM EDT on Wednesday May 13th
While We Own the Social Distancing thing, Let's own this Virus
“WE WILL ADD YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. YOUR CULTURE WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.”
May is Memoir Month
We are getting a bit of a late start. I'd like to go ahead and cover the topic from Wednesday before easing into the topic of memoir writing.
The Times they are a Changin'
Our world has been disrupted. It feels like we are in an episode of The Twilight Zone. As Writers we need to adapt.
We can work from just about anywhere but things like book signings and readings are out of the question.
Writers Conferences are going to be virtual for awhile.
Until the new world settles in we have brand new experiences, fears, triumphs and What Ifs to play with on the page.
This Covid-19 world is going to stay around, who knows, several months or a few years. Do you think readers are going to bury themselves in books? What genres will they choose?
In a Covid World, we may have a perfect profession. Our audience has limited travel but a book can take a reader anywhere imaginable and it will be a safe journey.
Maybe, Covid will give rise to a whole new genre. I wonder what it will be.
We already have the gift of being able to work from home, many of us are socially distant as a way of life. Now, our audience, our readers, will rediscover the freedom contained within the covers of a good book.
Drop into the chatroom at 7PM EDT on Sunday and let's talk about our advantages as writers.
Where is your Muse?
It is springtime. For most of you, anyway. We have been inside far too long. Now, we can all say we know what Cooped Up really is.
As parts of the world begin to reopen instead of taking time for reflection, wake up your muse and tell her you want to start looking forward.
Do you have a manuscript of two that could be dusted off and sent back into the submission circuit? Are you thinking about some virtual blog tours?
Have you been using this time to start new projects?
Poetry Month is wrapping up at the Writers Chatroom. Let's have a look back and a look forward.
Sunday is another Relaxed Topic Night. Join us at 7PM EDT
BYOP Night at the Chatroom
Still saving the world? As writers I think we are a group fairing quite well with social distancing. And as readers, well,
we are used to traveling to the inner souls and the outer limits without ever leaving our nice warm beds. Come on over for a Wednesday Chat.
There is a table in the back of the room filled with snacks. There is also a wet-bar but you'll have to mix your own drinks.
I prefer to drink from the ditch. (Whiskey & Water)
Bring your own favorite poem. If it isn't too long you can drop it into the room. If it is an epic poem, bring a link to it.
Wednesday is a Relaxed Topic Night during Poetry Month.
Portrait of a Girl With Comic
Book
by Phyllis McGinley
Thirteen’s no age at all. Thirteen is nothing.
It is not wit, or powder on the face,
Or Wednesday matinees, or misses’ clothing,
Or intellect, or grace,
Twelve has its tribal customs. But thirteen
Is neither boys in battered cars nor dolls,
Not Sara Crewe or movie magazine,
Or pennants on the walls.
Thirteen keeps diaries and tropical fish
(A month, at most); scorns jump-ropes in the spring;
Could not, would fortune grant it, name its wish;
Wants nothing, everything;
Has secrets from itself, friends it despises;
Admits none of the terrors it feels;
Owns half a hundred masks but no disguises;
And walks upon its heels.
Thirteen’s anomalous – not that, not this:
Not folded bud, or wave that laps a shore,
Or moth proverbial from the chrysalis.
Is the one age defeats the metaphor.
Is not a town, like childhood, strongly walled
But easily surrounded; is no city.
Nor, quitted once, can it be quite recalled –
Not even with pity.
As long as we are still at home keeping everyone safe I thought we could talk about that secret place where ideas swirl around in deep places waiting to be coaxed up to the surface. As long as it is still poetry month I will at least come at the topic from an oblique angle. I say this because many of you deeply appreciate
poetry but you get your writerly creds in short story, novel or nonfiction writing.
As long as we are still at home keeping everyone safe I thought we could talk about that secret place
where ideas swirl around in deep places waiting to be coaxed up to the surface. As long as it is still poetry month I will at least come at the topic from an oblique angle. I say this because many of you deeply appreciate poetry but you get your writerly creds in short story, novel or nonfiction writing.
Ideas
Where do writers find them? Is there a secret place? Let’s talk about ideas.
Remember, it is poetry month and I am taking a workshop. In one of the early lectures Ideas are the focus. I am supposed to make
a list of ten of them. Later, I need to expand on them. But the idea of finding and listing ideas is very simple and can apply to your fictional characters or your memoirs, I suppose any kind of creative writing is at risk of forming from an idea.
The workshop suggests a list of ten ideas and to find them we are assigned to make a list of our high points, low points and our
turning points. I am still working on mine because I don’t want to choose a high point that every parent will choose and I don’t want my lowest point to be so tragic I have to do a round of therapy as I explore it.
Turning points seem very interesting to me. What were the major turning points in your life? Your character’s life? Some of my
highest points became turning points in hind sight. Some of my most dreadful points with the passage of time are now things I would now list among my high points.
The list, if you make one will mellow or compost as you consider what it was about the event making it among the top ten
moments. What universal truth did you find in that moment in time? The truths as writers know can be pretty darned messed up. We don’t have to like our truth but we shouldn’t look away from their value. Your reader will appreciate your honesty.
Join us on Sunday for a mini-topic chat on Idea Mining.
Diary vs. Journal: What's the Difference?
While we continue to do our part to save the world, let’s talk about Keeping a Journal or maybe some of you Keep Diaries.
To me, the biggest difference between a Journal and a Diary is the Lock.
While I probably want my old diaries interred with my bones or tossed in with me before cremation, I might be okay if my family or friends came across one of my journals.
Let’s do a mini-topic on the Difference Between a Diary and a Journal.
