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A Brief Rant about Writer’s Block
I am tired of the term writer’s block. Please don’t misunderstand. I empathize with writers who are stuck, who can’t move forward with their writing, who struggle to get even a few words on the page. I feel for writers who are lost or discouraged. The problem I see with the term is that it Read more
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How to Use Family Photos to Fuel Your Writing (Part 2)
In this post, I continue my exploration of using childhood photos as a catalyst to writing memoir by experimenting with analyzing some of my own childhood photos. The first task when faced with stacks of family photos that are largely alike in their presentation of a single person or people, most often facing the camera Read more
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How to Use Family Photos to Fuel Your Writing (Part 1)
Memories provide a catalog of subjects for your writing. Especially if your genre is memoir, delving deeply into your past is a natural way to find your subject and focus. If you write about family, specifically about your relationships with your parents or siblings, tapping into your earliest memories can reap a storehouse of material. Read more
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When in Rome: A (Somewhat) Lyrical Tribute to the Lyric Essay
It defies strict definition. It encompasses a variety of forms. It demands more from the reader than other types of essays. It affords writers a measure of freedom that some find daunting. The lyric essay: the most artistic, the most poetic, the least informative, the least reliant on narrative conventions of all the styles of Read more
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Should We Write about Family Secrets?
At a writing workshop I attended a few years ago, the facilitator gave us this prompt: Write about something that your family would object to you writing about. Some workshop participants expressed discomfort with this assignment. Most hesitated before beginning to write. Their reluctance was understandable because we were being asked to open a long-locked Read more
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How to Restore an Abandoned Garden (An Experiment in Second-Person Point of View)
My thanks to Bear River Review, in which an earlier version of this essay was published. How to Restore an Abandoned Garden at a House You Bought in Ypsi First: Realize that you have moved into someone else’s house. Wander through the leavings of another person’s life. When you are a firmly established mid-lifer, get Read more
Do you write about yourself and your experiences? Do you write about traumatic events in your life? Or, do you struggle to find time and motivation to write?
If so, this blog is for you.
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