Marlene Cullen’s collection of short essays compiled in The Write Spot: Memories unfolds like a gently-made, multi-colored origami box. Each story is its only piece, its own regretful, loving, confusing, humorous, illuminating tale, yet held together by one theme that touches us all—our fathers and our memories of them when we were children, and our awakenings about them as we became adults. The Write Spot: Memories is for anyone who has had a father—whether present or absent, loving or distant, authoritarian or goofball. Authentic and relatable, each story is written with deep insight and love. —Julie Wilder-Sherman I love this book and the way it encourages, instructs and gives writers practical ideas to keep on writing. The stories are captivating and written from the heart. Each author ends with an honest description of their Inner Critic and how they tame it! I read this book twice because of the honest…
Tag: Jumpstart Writing Workshops
The Marvelous Journals of Miss Virginia Pettingill by Gilbert Mansergh
The Marvelous Journals of Miss Virginia Pettingill, reviewed by Susan Bono: I expected to be charmed by the outgoing and adventurous Ginny Pettingill, a 7th grader who uses her journals to capture her own personal discoveries as well as portray life in Gloucester, MA, shortly after WWI. The fact that the narrator is fashioned after the author’s mother added extra piquancy to the read—did the real Virginia have the gift of sight? Was she really a witness to the dawn of the “talkies” and could she have organized one of the first beach cleanups? I loved how the delights of the past were brought to life, but I was also struck by the shadow side of this lull between wars. It was indeed a time of tremendous excitement and progress—automobiles and motion pictures, Prohibition and Women’s Rights. There were new inventions, like Kotex and electric Christmas lights. But the people…
Fake it until you make it.
I facilitate Jumpstart writing workshops in Petaluma, California and here, online, with you. People new to writing have a hard time saying “I’m a writer.” So did I, until my writing teacher, Pat Schneider, made me say it out loud. And now I’m encouraging you to say it out loud. Come on. I’ll say it, too. I am a writer. Again, louder. I AM A WRITER. There now. . . and if you weren’t able to say it louder, fake it until you make it. No need to fake your writing. . . Just fake having confidence in your writing. And now . . . select a prompt and Just Write!
The Kathy Myers “Book in a Box” Method (patent pending)
Guest Blogger Kathy Myers writes: Computers are great and all— without them, this blog wouldn’t exist and then what would I do? But when I was younger, my image of a writing life was less technical and more romantic: Jo in Little Women, writing her books in a drafty attic wearing fingerless gloves against the winter chill, or Jane Austen dipping her nib and contemplating her next chapter, while her parents plan a ball where she can meet eligible bachelors. Ah, the good old days. At a Jumpstart Writing Workshop in May, I wrote a fictional scene on the prompt “It happened because . . . ” Marlene Cullen, always benevolent and encouraging to writers said, “That would be a good beginning for a romance novel.” Jumpstart was on hiatus for the month of June, and this coincided with a flirtation I’d been having about trying the fabled “sit-your-ass-in-a-chair-and-write-a–thousand-words-a-day” method…