Inspiration from Belinda Pollard on how to use memoir writing in any of your writing. Excerpt from “Putting Your Self Into Your Writing, Exercise 1,” by Belinda: Memoir is a popular genre these days, as people tell their personal stories and inspire others to overcome obstacles, cope with life, or laugh at someone’s funny antics. But personal stories go much further than memoir. They are great additions to many types of non-fiction, especially self-help. They are wonderful in travel narratives. How-to can also become more engaging and effective if you tell about your own ups and downs as you learned a particular skill. And your fiction writing can improve as you learn to tell your personal stories well. I’ve edited biographies and memoirs, and other types of books that use personal story. One of the elements that work really well is when the author finds a way to give readers…
Laugh Every Time. Prompt #476
Write about something that makes you laugh every time. Or write about someone who makes you laugh.
Writing Makes Chaos Bearable
“Stories are how we make sense of our lives, how we attempt to impose some discernable order on the chaos of existence, and such attempts make the chaos bearable.” — Bret Anthony Johnston, “Narrative Calisthenics,” Poets & Writers, Nov/Dec 2008
Writing Exercises Are Like Foyers
“. . . writing exercises . . . are the way architects think of foyers: They usher an individual from one world to another. I use them as a means of transitioning from the outside word of reality to the interior word of imagination and language. . .” — Bret Anthony Johnston, “Narrative Calisthenics,” Poets & Writers, Nov/Dec 2008
Little Bee
Little Bee by Chris Cleave is a haunting tale, based on a true story (with significant altered details), of astonishing courage, awareness, understanding, unforgiveness, and selflessness. The story unfolds gradually. The last section, with twists and reveals, is a page turner. Excerpt from the back of the book, “Author Q & A” section: “You mention that the book is, in some way, about ‘the horror of being alive in a world where atrocities happen.’ Are there particular human rights issues you’d like to call attention to? In the face of such monumental tragedy as is exposed in Little Bee, how can one person make a difference?” “. . . Evil is not going to be vanquished. Our job is to resist it, and to plant the seeds of further resistance so that goodness never entirely vanishes from the universe. There are degrees of resistance. It starts when you give a…
New Letters
New Letters magazine works to discover and publish the finest new writing, wherever it exists. That mission implies encouragement of writers just starting or those who deserve wider readership. By placing the emphasis on excellence, we best promote the cause of the literary arts and affirm their transforming qualities. Editorial decisions arise from three core questions: Is the writing intense; does it advance literary art; does it offer hope? New Letters’ Literary Awards for Writers, established in 1986, offers a total of $8,250 in prizes annually. The Awards program discovers and rewards new writers and encourages more established writers to try new genres or new work in competition. In recent years, New Letters has won a National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s highest honor, received multiple Pushcart Prizes, often in a given year, and places selections often in The Best American Poetry, Essays, and other prize anthologies. “New Letters will continue to seek the best new…
Movie Magic . . . Prompt #474
~ “Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still, real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever.” How Green Was My Valley. Write about someone who lives on in you or someone you will never forget. ~ “We’ll always have Paris.” Casablanca. Write about something you will always have or something you no longer have and wish you still had it. ~ “I was to think of these days many times. Of Jem, and Dill . . . and Atticus. He would be in Jem’s room all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning, To Kill A Mockingbird. Write about someone who is always there for you. Or someone who needs you. ~ In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, there’s a scene where Butch and Sundance run up a mountain to avoid the relentless posse, finding…
Listen To Your Heart
Today’s guest blogger, Nancy Julien Kopp, has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul books 22 times! Her story: A good many years ago, I submitted to a Chicken Soup for the Soul book for the first time. The story was a simple one, a childhood memory, that I thought might work for the Fathers and Daughters book. Maybe. I hesitated to send it. Why? My pride told me it was impossible because rejection hurts a lot. Experience added that I hadn’t been writing very long, and the Chicken Soup editors received hundreds, maybe even a thousand or more, submissions for each book. My chances were pretty slim. Reason stepped in and sneered at me as it said it was pointless to submit this story. What would it matter to the rest of the world? Then they laughed and I whimpered. All three had ganged up on me, and then a funny thing happened. My heart…
Wish you didn’t know. Prompt #475
Write about something you wish you didn’t know.
The Movies. . . Prompt #473
Today’s writing prompts are inspired from movies. ~ Thelma and Louise, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Little Miss Sunshine. Write about a road trip. ~ Dirty Dancing, Saturday Night Fever, Footloose. Write about how you learned to dance. ~ The Sting, two con men outcon a con. Write about a time you were tricked, or you tricked someone. ~Forrest Gump. Life is like a box of . . . [fill in the blank and continue writing].