Do you want to write true stories, but worry about hurting people’s feelings? Megan Kaplon, in an interview with Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk: “When working on academic projects, she (Helen Macdonald) experiences anxiety about being correct, about saying the right thing, but writing memoir has been a freeing force.” “When it’s yourself, you feel the truth inside yourself. . . It becomes something utterly manifest when you know you’re writing something from the heart.” – Helen Macdonald Quotes from “Giving sorrow words,” The Writer, July 2015 Marlene’s Musings: In my opinion, you cannot go wrong when writing from the heart. Sometimes, when writing memoir, it’s wrong to write for an audience. Write for yourself. And if you find an audience, then hooray! But first, write from your heart. You can use these guidelines when writing about difficult subjects. Some of my favorite memoirs, where, I think,…
Author: mcullen
Marlene Cullen is enthusiastic about encouraging people to write, even those who think they can’t write. Her series of books, The Write Spot anthologies, features writing that entertains as well as inspires writing. Every story, vignette, and poem in The Write Spot books include writing prompts motivating readers to become writers.
Marlene hosts The Write Spot Blog, a treasure chest of inspirational gems for writers.
Fulfilling her passion for writing and sharing with others, Marlene has created unique writing environments such as Jumpstart Writing Workshops, where participants often experience transformational changes. Her workshops provide essential elements for successful writing.
Marlene is the founder of Writers Forum of Petaluma, a monthly literary event featuring presenters talking about the craft and business of writing.
Marlene's awarding winning short stories and essays have been published in literary journals, anthologies, and newspapers, including Tiny Lights, Building Bridges, More Bridges, Redwood Writers anthologies, and The Write Spot anthologies.
She is a member of the California Writer's Club.
The Big Brick Review is ready for your submission.
The Big Brick Review wants original, non-fiction pieces up to 555 words by July 31, 2015. Submission must be in the form of a personal essay, prose, excerpt, or ramble that builds on the narrative of our lives, finding new insight to old struggles…old insight to new struggles…and all shades-of-gray in between. Pieces that include the concept of ‘building’ (which authors can interpret as creatively as they choose (it’s a noun! it’s a verb!)) are especially favored. For more info, visit Submissions Guidelines. Marlene’s Musings: Go for it! What do you have to lose?
When you set the mask aside . . . Prompt #171
From Write From the Heart by Hal Zina Bennett, one of my all-time favorite books. During a trip to Disneyland, a priest became fascinated with the costumed figure of Mickey Mouse. Every time Father Sean turned around, there was Mickey Mouse shaking hands with people, talking with kids, keeping everyone’s spirits up. And Father Sean began asking himself, “I wonder who that person is under that costume? What are they like at the end of the day, when they take off their Mickey Mouse suit?” Instead of being who we really can be, we take on masks like the Good Little Girl, or we become the Black Sheep of the Family or the Rebel. Early on, we learn that if we are to be loved and cared for we’d better buckle under and be what is safe for us to be. Prompt: Who or what is the character deep inside…
Bella Mahaya Carter writes about courage, love, and intuition
Guest Blogger Bella Mahaya Carter writes about courage, love, and intuition. In fall 2014, I attended Hay House’s I Can Do It! Conference in Pasadena, California. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to attend what was being advertised as a “mind, body, and spirit retreat.” The conference featured luminaries in the fields of self-help, personal growth, and spirituality. Looking back over that experience, I felt like a kid in a candy store with a twenty-dollar bill in my pocket. I’d been scared to go. I was just coming off a year of grief and debilitating anxiety. I’d felt like I couldn’t breathe, and an irrational thought that I’d quit breathing and drop dead in public haunted me. So the thought of being at a venue with three thousand people unnerved me. Why was I going? I asked myself. What was I looking for? What did the words I Can Do It!…
Memory is a trickster . . . Prompt #170
Today’s prompt is inspired by Your Mythic Journey by Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox. “We love the present tense. Be here now. Yesterday is gone and best forgotten: our tradition is to have no tradition. We aren’t Europeans buried in ancient tombs and cathedrals and medieval ruins. We were born yesterday and we will be young forever. Over thirty is over the bridge. Age embarrasses us; remembrance is a function of senility. We exile the aged to Sun City leper colonies so they won’t impair our illusion of endless summer. But history is not so easily dismissed. Repressed memories, national or personal won’t stay down. To be alive is to have a past. Our only choice is whether we will repress or re-create the past. Childhood may be distant, but it is never quite lost; as full-gown men and women we carry tiny laughing and whimpering children around inside us….
Things falling apart is a kind of testing . . .
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: “Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” Marlene’s Musings: Add room for writing. Part of your healing journey can be to write your way through and out of grief. Your problems may seem to expand and shrink as you remember and write. One day things may seem dreary and impossible. Another day (maybe even an hour later), life may look brighter. Click here for ideas how to write about…
How to write without adding trauma.
This week we’ll discuss how to write the hard stuff without experiencing trauma while you write. Notes and guidelines Whenever a writing prompt is suggested, feel free to write whatever you want. You never have to stay with the prompt. Don’t stop and think, just follow your mind and write wherever it takes you. What’s on your mind is more important than the suggested prompt. Keep writing, don’t cross out, don’t erase, don’t stop and think . . . keep your pen moving. If you get stuck: Rewrite the prompt. Literally, write the prompt and see where that takes you. Or write, “What I really want to say.” And go from there. If you don’t like where you’re going, start over. Start over by rewriting the prompt. Or just start writing about something different. When we have an emotional situation, we tend to replay it in our minds. Perhaps we…
Night Wings: A Soulful Dreaming and Writing Practice
In 2005, I attended a talk by Sally Nelson, author of Night Wings: A Soulful Dreaming and Writing Practice. Nelson talked about foreshadowing life experiences in dreams. She suggested we track the things that surprise us in our dreams and that we are really foreshadowing real life events. She said dreams come from some place beyond the ego and to try to understand our dreams, we can ask, “What is the ego grappling with?” Nelson kept a dream journal for years and had several dreams that didn’t make sense. Then, in December 2004, she, her fiancé and their combined children took a trip to Thailand. Her son had been injured before the trip but they decided to go anyway. They were supposed to return home on a certain date, but decided to stay a day longer. Sally, her fiancé and one of the daughters were on a boat at sea…
Did a single decision change your life?
Real Simple magazine Essay Contest: Did a single decision change your life? Would your world now be completely different—even unthinkable—if, at some point in the past, you hadn’t made a seemingly random choice? Maybe you stayed a few extra minutes at a party—and met your soul mate. Maybe you decided to have lunch with a friend or quit a job or just took the long way home. If you can’t imagine the rest of your life without what happened next, write it down and share it with us. Enter Real Simple’s eighth annual Life Lessons Essay Contest and you could have your essay published in Real Simple magazine and receive a prize of $3,000. Deadline: September 21, 2015 Photo by Jim C. March
What I like and don’t like . . . Prompt #169
I facilitate writing workshops in Petaluma, CA called Jumpstart. We use prompts to spark our imagination. For this type of free-writing, you can respond from your personal experience or from someone else’s personal experience. You can write as your fictional character would respond to the prompt. You can use these prompts to get deeper into your fictional character’s mind. The idea for this prompt is inspired by the poem, “What I Like and Don’t Like,” by Philip Schultz.