yourpassions.tk

You know the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” That may be true if you already know what the picture is about. Otherwise a picture is a prompt for you to write a story, if only a fleeting one, in your mind. Consider the picture above. Two things are obvious: A woman wearing a fancy white dress and gloves is holding a lacy white parasol. Anything beyond that is pure conjecture. Right now I invite you to join an experiment. Skip down to the comment section and spend a minute or two writing a mini story about what you see in this picture. Write your own before you check to see what others have written. Check back later to keep track. I guarantee that no two readers will write the same story. With a dozen responses, three or four may be similar, but even those will differ in detail. I’ve used this exercise with various pictures countless times in classes, workshops and writing groups, and I never cease to be amazed at the variety of stories that pour out, especially w...

When I first began writing lifestories and teaching workshops to help others do the same, my emphasis was on preserving family memories and creating a legacy of personal and family history for future generations. That picture gradually enlarged to include documenting your way of life in what will soon be times gone by. In spite of a growing emphasis on transformational, healing and confessional memoir, historical documentation still serves a valid and important purpose, one that should not get lost in the scramble to bare more psychological skin. Well-written documentary memoir can be both fascinating and thrilling. British author Ian Mathie is remarkably skilled at this. I read each of his four  engrossing volumes of memoir straight through. I was unable to tear my eyes from the page as I read about his experiences during the 1970s in various parts of northern Africa where he worked as a water engineer for an unspecified British Foreign Service agency. Rather than commuting from c...

Your story seems flat. You knew that even before writing group members confirmed your suspicion. You’ve been working on descriptions. You’ve double-checked details to be sure give readers have a clear picture of the situation. You’ve scattered plenty of sensory description through your story, without clumping it or making it sound like you used a checklist. It still seems flat and shallow. How can you make it pop off the page? What magic will breathe life into it and connect with readers? A clue to a solution lies in this excerpt from a scene in Dinty Moore’s memoir, The Accidental Buddhist , where Moore is being exposed to the ancient art of meditation in a Buddhist monastery: … I turn out to have a particularly unrelenting monkey. He not only swings from tree to tree, he rips off big green leaves and chatters at the top of his monkey lungs, an angry baboon somehow set loose in an espresso bar. Zen students will immediately recognize this monkey as a metaphor for the sta...

Writers benefit from New Year Resolutions as much or more than anyone. I realize we are already four days into the year, and for many, thoughts of resolutions last about as long as ice cubes in New Year’s Eve drinks. But it's not too late. Durable, productive resolutions take time to craft. Besides, you need to do more than write two or five words about an outcome. You need to use your writerly skills to flesh out that description. Tell yourself or the world what it will look like, taste like, feel like (both tactile feel and emotional), and so forth. Then draft at least a rudimentary plan of getting from here to there, so you can track your progress. I have two goals I’ll mention here. One is relatively new. In November I featured a guest post by Elizabeth Kim, who wrote about her experience publishing two Kindle Short eBooks, Dancing In the Rain and What My Mother Didn’t Know . Each of her books is what I refer to as a story album. Each is comprised of six or seven poignan...