yourpassions.tk

“How long should a story be?” I’ve never taught a beginning lifestory class without having this question arise. I’ve never found an improvement on the classic answer: “As long as it takes to tell the whole story.” For an powerful example of how large a slice of life can be packed into 282 words, click over to the essay blogger Maureen M entered in TupperWare’s Chain of Confidence contest. This poignant tribute to her mother covers a lot of ground. It includes all basic elements of a complete story (who, what, when, where, why, plus plenty of suspense and tension) and I guarantee you will not anticipate the surprise ending. Maureen’s story is focused with laser-like precision, cutting directly to the point. There is enough content between those two dozen lines to fill at least a page for each word, but you may not understand the core story as well if it did. Whether you are writing a single vignette story or a book-length manuscript, be clear on your purpose and let the story tell you...

While I was in Mexico awhile back, I struggled to express ideas in my rudimentary Spanish. I had to build sentences word by word. One day I realized that building stories is much like what I was going through to build sentences. Let’s take a look at how one sentence unfolds. We go . This sentence is grammatically complete, but it does not express a complete thought. It begs for amplification. Where do we go? We go to mountains. That’s better. But what mountains? We go to Sierra Madre mountains. And when do we go there? We go to Sierra Madre mountains yesterday. Why did we go? We go to Sierra Madre mountains yesterday to take pictures. How did we get there? We go on bus to Sierra Madre mountains yesterday to take pictures. Now the sentence story is complete. We know who is doing what (going), when, where, why and how. Those same elements are needed to tell a complete story, whether the story is one sentence long or hundreds of pages. You probably notice an error in that sentence. The m...

Sharon Lippincott takes pleasure in announcing the birth of her new blog, A Los Alamos Girlhood . This latest addition to the Heart and Craft family of fine blogs arrived yesterday morning, January 18 and has been warmly greeted with instant acclaim. The blog, located on WordPress joins The Heart and Craft of Life Writing and Ritergal’s Tek Tips to form a trio of interrelated resources. Why a new blog? Why not simply include all that information in this one? It’s primarily a matter of focus and scope. This blog, The Heart and Craft of Life Writing , covers all forms of life writing, from raw, spontaneous free writing (aka rants) and journaling, through simple stories and essays to formal memoir. It explores interrelationships between the forms as well as giving tips on working in any given one. All content in this blog is valid for writing by hand as well as keyboarded work. Ritergal’s Tek Tips limits content to the mechanics of writing and includes anything related to using the c...

It’s probably time to start a new blog, specifically about the memoir I’m writing. I’ve been spending serious journal time doodling content and concept ideas, but had not found an entry point to begin writing. Yesterday magic happened. A random sentence I heard earlier in the day took root and moved me to begin a new document beginning with that thought. Before my eyes drooped so low I had to crawl between the covers, about 2500 words had bubbled forth, and they were nothing I’d envisioned or considered writing. Yet they were good. They are keepers. Yes, I’ll do some editing, but my elusive concept is clear now. I can see how the story will flow. The shape has been revealed. A key point that I often forget is that that although it sometimes hides behind the clouds, the story is within me. It’s there. It will reveal itself, and in my experience it will only reveal itself if I begin to write. That’s what I did last night. Begin to write . Call it Sarabelle (the muse who until last nig...

 What do Google , the Rootsweb database, my online Albuquerque Years eBook memoir, and this blog have in common? There could be any number of answers to that question, but the one I’m looking for is that they led to the unexpected email appearance a couple of days ago of a far-removed cousin on my mother’s father’s branch of the family. His great-grandparents are brother and sister to my mother’s great-grandparents. I already knew a lot about that branch of my family, and the bare thread of the story as it moves through nearly two centuries from Ireland to Scotland, to Illinois, to New Mexico, looping up to the Klondike, back to Seattle, and down to New Mexico again before it frays at the end. Several relatives have been hooked on genealogy for decades and have probably found all the documents there are to find. My diligent daughter-in-law has posted an amazing number of entries on the Rootsweb site, making the collective knowledge easy as pie to access. All that research has produc...

Remember that resolution I made to complete The Los Alamos Years (working title)? We have an ancient grandfather clock in the living room and this morning it reminded me that the year will fly past in a blur, so it’s time to get my fingers moving. I began by making a list in my journal of specific features of life in Los Alamos that distinguished it from other places I might have grown up. As the list grew, I saw overlap and interrelationships. Suddenly I realized a MindMap would be a far better way of making these thoughts visible and clear. Clear thoughts lead to clear writing. MindMeister to the rescue! There are several online mindmapping services that you can use for free. There’s also an opensource off-line one you can download for free, but I haven’t yet explored it. MindMeister is the one I chose today. It’s easy to use, but somewhat limited in formatting options. at least for the free account level. I did not specifically copy the list from my journal, but used it as a spri...

I’ve recently read several posts about the prohibitive cost of having your manuscript professionally edited. For a book of 200 or more pages, those costs can climb to $3000 or more, and that does not include layout (figure at least $2 per page) or cover design ($200 or more, maybe lots more).  What’s a poor patronless writer to do? Contrary to prevailing wisdom, I believe it is possible to learn enough to do a reasonable job of editing your own work, though input from others is invaluable. Below are some ideas to control the cost of editing, and to ensure that any funds you do expend will do double duty to develop your skills while enhancing your current manuscript: Find an excellent critique group — online or local. Get a copy of Becky Levine’s brand new book, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide : How to Make Revisions, Self-Edit, and Give and Receive Feedback , for guidance on making this process work. Use beta reader s, but be sure you choose discerning ones, not just ...