yourpassions.tk

The line between fiction and lifestory or memoir is finely drawn and permeable. The main difference is that our characters  and events come ready-made. and we have an obligation to portray them truly. That truth is shaped by the way we transfer them from memory to page, and that involves both heart and craft. Our heart shapes the slant of our stories. Craft fleshes them out for the benefit of readers. In general, fiction writers have taken the lead in the area of craft.   In my most recent post I mentioned K.D. Weiland’s blog, WORDplay . Aside from her rich array of blog and video posts, she offers a free 50 page eBook, Crafting Unforgettable Characters: A Hands-On Guide to Bringing Your Characters to Life. I urge you to click over and download this book right away before she realizes just how valuable it is. Although its focus is on creating and portraying fictional characters, if you adjust your filters, you’ll find a treasure trove of tips for capturing the essence of the ready-ma...

A friend forwarded me a link to a post on K.M. Wieland’s most awesome blog, WORDplay . The post , titled Should Stories Be Soapboxes , addresses the possible pitfalls of writing stories for the purpose of converting others to your line of thinking, whether that be religious, political, or philosphical. K.M.’s work is primarily addressed to writers of fiction, but it applies equally well to life story and memoir writing, and I urge you to enjoy the richness of her offerings. Lots of people may read this post and wonder, “Am I guilty of this?” or “How do I avoid this?” and “How does this apply to memoir?” I'll use a personal example of a situation that could go either way. I’m currently writing a memoir of my girlhood (covered in a separate blog ). The story follows the path my husband and I took as we toured Los Alamos on our last visit in August, 2000. One of the first landmarks I saw was the Christian Church. My family was involved with that church from its inception, and I have f...

My extended break from this blog lasted longer than anticipated, but I'm back at the keyboard. I am working on the new WordPress version, but that’s turning into a more complex project that I’d envisioned. I like WordPress so much that I want to use it for my whole website, and I have not yet discovered how to set everything up “behind a curtain” and then flip a switch to swap the old for the new. Meanwhile, dozens of juicy blog topics have come and gone... so we’ll continue here for now and I’ll make the switch very soon. This experience of working on the WordPress installation, with the alteration between intense focus and interruptions, and need to loop out for more research, is a sort of metaphor for amy writing project — maybe for life in general. I’m thinking back to the year I spent writing my master’s thesis. I chose a complex topic: Perceived Risk of Nuclear Power . That’s an odd topic for someone seeking  a degree in counseling psychology, but we all knew by then that I w...