August 2008

I need your help. On September 6, I’m moderating a panel of women memoir authors at the East of Eden Writers Conference in Salinas, CA. Each woman has published at least one memoir and two have two published memoirs.  

We already have a few questions to pose to the panelists. I’ve listed them below. If any of the questions we’ve listed resonate with you, let us know. If they don’t, let us know that as well.

But most importantly, I’d like you to imagine yourself in the audience of that session. What questions would you ask if you were sitting in that room?

You can post your questions as a comment to this blog. Or, you can email me using the information in the Contact tab of this site.  I look forward to hearing from you. Your reward? More about that in a minute.

Our current list:

Q1. Why did you write your memoir, in other words, what was your motivation?

Q2. What was the most difficult part of the writing process and how did you overcome the problem or difficulty?

Q3. If your memoir required research, how did you go about finding the information you needed?

Q4. What audience were you writing for? Did you find that the people who read your memoir are primarily the same audience?

Q5. What advice would you give to someone just starting to write a memoir?

Q6. What did you learn about yourself in the process of writing your memoir?

Q7. Do you feel that you were changed by the process of writing your memoir?

Q8. What was the biggest surprise that happened in this process?

Your reward for sending us your questions? We’re going to tape the session and post it on this website. You get to hear your questions answered.

Thanks.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Post #10 Capture your book’s message in audio and video.

As Matilda explains in her ebook Top 10 Reasons to Write Your Memoir, (see column to the right) writers are motivated by many things in their lives. Capturing the distant details of our lives is important to many of us. Some others want to set the record straight by telling our side of a story or event. For many of us, however, it’s about healing or finding direction in our lives. I think these last two describe Elizabeth Gilbert’s popular memoir, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.

We found this wonderful video on YouTube; it’s produced by Borders. Writers this is something you should all be thinking about creating for your books. Audio and video play very well on blogs and websites. And it’s easier than you might think. Please watch and tell us what you think.

We hope you’ll join us in a new online class.

Story Circle Network, a wonderful resource for women writers, is based in Texas. But don’t let the location concern you. Story Circle Network offers many services and support online. And now they are branching out into online classes. And Matilda Butler and I are part of the faculty. Please check us out: Start Small Finish Big.

We have a new class called “Start Small Finish Big: From Memoir Vignette to Publication, Part One.” We’re looking forward to working with women who want to break through “I want to” and actually start writing that memoir. More importantly, we have a strategy to get women published and even offer an opportunity for you to sell your work.

Our full class is offered through both the fall and winter semesters. We’ll hold conference calls for the whole class, post our articles on a blog for the entire class to read, learn from the online classwork we offer. It will be inspirational, motivational and help you move forward with your writing plans.

We look forward to seeing you online.

Workshop is held in a beautiful setting to call forth your inner muse. During the workshop, you’ll define the theme, message, scope, focus, and style of your memoir through a combination of instruction, discussion and writing exercises.

Fee: $125 includes instruction, workbook, gourmet lunch with wine, and a beautiful handmade Thai Silk Writer’s Journal.

Follow-on half-day reading and writing workshops are available based on scheduled determined by the group.  These are usually once a month, but more frequent dates are possible.

For more information on our Silicon Valley location or to register, email: Matilda@WomensMemoirs.com.

When our children were small, we took them on short walks in nearby wooded areas. As they got older, we showed them the pleasures of hiking the trails of Yosemite National Park and other places of beauty. No matter where we went or how easy or how hard the path, they loved to dash ahead to seek new adventures. Parental pace was much too slow for them. They ran ahead and then came back quickly. They wore themselves out by covering each distance twice. But that was part of their enthusiasm.

Reflecting on the different paces we manage at different times in our lives, consider this sixth and last Tao of memoir writing:

The child in us runs ahead on the path with boundless energy. The seasoned scout cautiously leads the way.

In writing, we tell others of delights or dangers, yet we are the same person.

There is more than one storyteller in each of us. We should let each of these voices come to the fore at different times to help others understand the many textures of our lives.

Writing Tip. Writing about a time of passionate youthfulness? Try using short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs. You will convey some of the boundless energy of that period. Writing about a period of aging or time spent caring for your elderly parents? See if longer sentences and paragraphs better reflect the slowness of those experiences.

If you think about music, recall that there are fast passages and slow passages. Similarly, words create a tempo for the reader and the memoirist controls this by varying the length of the sentences and paragraphs.

Exercise: Find a paragraph in a memoir that is particularly vivid for you. Analyze it: Count the number of sentences. Count the number of words in each sentence. Do several long sentences follow each other? Are short sentences used to create impact?

Then rewrite the paragraph. Try making a long sentence short. Make a short sentence long. You can do this by combining sentences or by cutting some in half. How do the changes alter the rhythm of the story? Which do you like better?