Beating the “Blahs”

” ENJOY THE LITTLE THINGS, FOR ONE DAY YOU MAY LOOK BACK AND REALIZE THEY WERE THE BIG THINGS.” Robert Brault in National Inquirer. I stared at the blank screen and notebook while attempting to start my NAMW Summer Workshop assignment for the week, building  the layers of thoughts,emotions,sensual details about my characters so as to know them better. I didn’t even know who I was going to write about. It seemed that a serious case of the “blahs” had taken up residence in my writer’s head. So I just went to bed and hoped that some inspiration from somewhere would kick the “blahs” out of my head when I awakened..I had work to do. It came in the form of a manuscript emailed this AM from my fellow writer friend...

Posted by on Jul 24, 2010 in character development, elements of story, Lifewriting Craft, memoir-writing | 6 comments

Unearthing Themes

“ EVERY ONE OF US HAS IN HIM A CONTINENT OF UNDISCOVERED CHARACTER. BLESSED IS HE WHO ACTS THE COLUMBUS TO HIS OWN SOUL.” Quoted in Words of Life edited by Charles Wallis Currently ,I am participating with an incredible group of women from all over the country in a summer memoir-writing workshop with Linda Joy Myers. I am amazed  at the depth and richness of the connections we are making through our stories. We review and probe into the stories,asking questions Tell me more about what your character looks like, her hair color, what does she hear,feel, smell, what were her gestures, what were the surroundings? All of these questions are meant to prompt each of us to dig deeper. We are fleshing out the details as we discover our “narrative...

Posted by on Jul 2, 2010 in character development, character POV, identifying themes, memoir-writing | 6 comments