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How Do I Write My Memoirs?
Are you stuck trying to write your life story? By the time we become seniors, most of us have come to the realization that we’ve left it too late. We think we’d like to write our memoirs, but we never got around to asking our parents the important questions: How did they meet? Who was their first love? How did they become the people they ended up being? How Did I Get Here? Then there are the questions about our own history: What was I like as a toddler? Who was my best friend in kindergarten? Where did my first pet come from? What was my first word,…
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Part Five — The Seven Universal Emotions — Disgust
Disgust is another of the universal emotions displayed and recognized across all cultures, though the stimulus which triggers disgust often varies from one culture to the next. Even those who are blind or deaf will display and understand this emotion. Disgust originally involved the senses of sight or taste in response to something revolting. The emotional expression of disgust likely has a biological origin, enabling us to show others that something is unsafe and to be avoided. Disgust is the most physical of all the basic emotions, accompanied by a sensation of nausea and a reaction of retching or choking. As we evolved into a more social species,…
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New Year’s Resolution 2023
So, what’s the difference between a passion project and a regular project? It’s kinda self-explanatory, isn’t it? “Passion” is the driving force behind a passion project. It’s something you do for love. If you’ve been part of my community for any length of time, you’ll know there’s been a sad lack of communication from me for a while and it’s because of a passion project that’s been on my mind for a very long time. My blog, my newsletters and my series on the Seven Universal Human Emotions have been much neglected of late. For the past several weeks, I’ve been involved in creating an…
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Part Four — The Seven Universal Emotions
Just as an artist mixes shades and tones of different paints to get just the right hue, so do we write scenes and characters to get just the right emotional response from our readers. Each of the seven universal emotions, surprise, anger, sadness, happiness, disgust, fear and contempt, represents a spectrum or family of different feelings. We have many different words to describe feelings that are similar but vary in the degree of their intensity. Also, we must remember that emotions never happen in isolation. There are always layers of other emotions that help to add nuance to the primary emotion. Writers need to be aware of these…
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Part Three — The Seven Universal Emotions
In Part One, I mentioned that, through the work of psychologist Paul Ekman, we’ve learned that there are seven main expressions common to every culture. Emotions occur in response to some kind of stimulus (actual, imagined, or re-lived) such as: a physical event a social interaction remembering or imagining an event talking about, thinking about, or physically reenacting a past emotional experience No matter where in the world we live, no matter how remote, we all display the same expressions for the same emotions. Even congenitally blind people who have never seen these emotions on other people’s faces spontaneously show the same facial expressions. Anger When things go wrong,…
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Part Two — The Seven Universal Emotions
In Part One, I mentioned that, through the work of psychologist Paul Ekman, we’ve learned that there are seven main expressions common to every culture. Emotions occur in response to some kind of stimulus (actual, imagined, or re-lived) such as: a physical event a social interaction remembering or imagining an event talking about, thinking about, or physically reenacting a past emotional experience No matter where in the world we live, no matter how remote, we all display the same expressions for the same emotions. Even congenitally blind people who have never seen these emotions on other people’s faces spontaneously show the same facial expressions. What Are Facial Expressions?…
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Everything I Know About Character Development, I Learned From My Dog
In a recent conversation at the dog park, some owners were discussing the idea that when it comes to sussing out the intentions of other people (and dogs), our dogs are far more perceptive than their owners. It occurred to me that I too, trust my dog’s instincts more than my own. At the very least, his response to other people gives me a second opinion I can factor into my first impression. On more than one occasion, my dogs have alerted me to questionable characters in time to avoid uncomfortable situations, and now that I’m better attuned to their body language, I can see even more quickly…
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Essay Series — Blog Post (continued)
Part Six — How to Format and Schedule a Blog Post Why Format? A blog post is not a book. It’s not an article. It’s not even an essay. An essay has one main purpose — to communicate to the reader the point the writer wants to make. This could be informing, changing an opinion, teaching a topic, or sharing an anecdote. But a blog post has many purposes in addition to its content. Yes, it does the same things as an essay but it has a multitude of different ways to convey information in the fastest, most efficient way possible, not all of them text-based. A…
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Essay Series — Blog Post
Part Five — How to Write a Blog Post 1. Why write a blog? — Your Purpose Your purpose informs and directs everything you write, from the material you include, to your style, voice and content. Once you figure out WHY you want to write it, you’ll be well on the way to knowing what you want to write about. Your Purpose is a through-line that ties everything together, giving you a roadmap which lets you see what fits and what doesn’t. But as long as you’re missing this key ingredient of Purpose, your blog will continue to be disjointed, scattered and lacking in cohesion. Defining your Purpose…
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Essay Series – Personal Essay
The personal essay is an autobiographical narrative or story relating a significant personal experience that shaped or changed the writer. A good one can inspire readers and move them to ask questions or take action. The purpose of a personal essay is to introduce the writer to readers. It presents the writer as a personality, a character in a factually accurate narrative. Personal essays entertain and engage the reader with attention to literary style and technique. They’re based on truth, and they illustrate the writer’s outlook through the use of personal experiences and conclusions. Readers want to know and understand who the writer really is, not just the events that…
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Essay Series – Informal Essay
Part Three — The Informal Essay The informal essay is characterized by the personal element — self-revelation, individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner, humour, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty. Its main departure from formal essays is its use of personal pronouns, using inclusive references to I, we, or you, where a formal essay tends to be more distanced and remote. In informal writing, we create a direct contact between ourselves and the reader. Informal essays are much more personal than the formal essay. Informal essays mean we can express our personal opinion rather than simply presenting the facts. We’ll still include some facts, but we’ll be offering our…
