Productivity
How to keep yourself on track when your muse goes AWOL.
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Creative Writing, Organization and Research, Point of View and Character Development, Productivity, Prompts, Theme, Purpose and Outcome, Thoughts, Opinions and Philosophical Discussions, Training, Lessons
Questions and Answers
How NOT To Write Your Memoir Most people, when they start to write their memoirs, think they have to stick strictly to the facts, that their story has to be a list of the things they did, in the order that they did them. This simply isn’t true. It leads to the belief that they have to write their entire history — an autobiography, which, for most people is messy, disconnected and hard to follow. This means that they end up with a list of dry, dull facts, like some kind of desiccated checklist that may reflect the events of their lives, but doesn’t say much about…
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New Year’s Resolutions
Why do we want to start over and remake our lives every January 1st? Is it guilt for overindulging over the holidays? Is it disappointment that we haven’t achieved what we imagined to be our true potential? Or self-pity, shame, self-hatred, or doubt about our own self-worth? When did it start? Is it all the negative little voices in our heads that point out all our faults? Perhaps in the distant past, long before we were able to form a coherent thought, someone indicated that they didn’t approve of something we’d done – pooping in our diaper or making too much noise crying. Maybe as we grew…
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Whose Story Are You Writing?
A common question that crops up when writing your memoir is: “What if my sister, my mother, my weird uncle, or whoever else I mention in my story, objects to something I’ve written?” Ask yourself two questions: 1. Is it my story to tell? 2. Is it relevant to my own life’s story that I do want to tell? If episodes of the story centre around someone else’s actions, the second question becomes the deciding factor. Problems arise when you include information that reveals things about other people – things they may not want others to know about. Perhaps your younger sister did something hilariously embarrassing as a six-year-old, but…
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Lost Memory
One of the problems of writing your memoirs as you get older (and most of us don’t think about doing so until we’re in a position to think about the generations that follow us) is memory. When we’re young, we’re capable of amazing feats of memory (at least, I think so — I’m not sure I can recall exactly!) We could memorize masses of information — for school, for our jobs, for recipes, for hobbies, for any number of activities in which we took part. As we age though, sometimes it feels as if our brains have become constipated, full of useless trivia we no longer have any interest in…
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Practice and Discipline
It seems to me that there has been an enormous subterranean shift in the overall values of society since the inception of the internet and particularly since our enthusiastic adoption of mobile devices. We no longer value hard work, discipline and practice as the road to self-improvement. In my youth, a major component of education was an emphasis on learning basic communication skills, in writing, in mathematics, and in the study of history, geography and basic natural sciences, so that we could better understand and interact with the world in which we lived. Good students expected to go on to university in order to further their education. Employers expected a…
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Creative Resistance
In any creative endeavour, it’s critical to pay attention to where you encounter Resistance. These are the places which will give you the most trouble, but when you finally “get it”, will give you the most value and insight. For a brilliant treatise on Resistance and how insidious it can be for creative people, I highly recommend Steven Pressfield’s books, “The War of Art”, “Turning Pro” and “Do the Work”, in which he examines the many ways Resistance can make itself felt. He anthropomorphizes Resistance in such a way as to give it intention and desire. That desire is the work of our unconscious, finding sneaky, near-undetectable ways to sabotage…
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Writing Groups – Getting Your Muse on Track
Joining or Setting up a Writer’s Accountability Group If there’s a writing group in your area, you can ask to join. There are so many benefits to being part of a group of like-minded writers — camaraderie, skills development, brainstorming and support. Some groups are exclusive, but many are not, so it’s worth inquiring. If you can’t find one to join, you might consider starting one of your own. In last week’s article, I wrote that I’d post some guidelines you can use to start your own writers’ group. Once you’ve found another writer (or several), before you begin you must decide what will be the focus of your group.…
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Writer’s Block – When Your Muse Goes A.W.O.L.
How accountable are you? Are you self-motivated? A self-starter? Or are you like most of us, beating yourself up because you have writer’s block, your muse is off on vacation somewhere and you just don’t feel inspired to write today? This Week’s Blog Post is Personal I have to admit, I’m just as afflicted with the “procrastination gene” as anyone, but I’ve learned a few ways to get past it. It’s not enough to say, “Oh, just get over yourself!” and dredge up the willpower to put down that trashy novel or turn off the boob tube and start to write. No, I need a system to make myself accountable. Generally…
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10 Memoir Prompts To Get You Started
What Should I Write About? Some of the first questions people ask when beginning a memoir are: What should I write about? How do I choose which events and incidents to include and which ones should I leave out? What’s Important? Sometimes a writing prompt or suggestion can help you to get your first words down and give you a sense of direction, but it helps if you have a clear idea of why you’re writing your memoir in the first place. Purpose And Theme Your subject matter should be determined by your purpose and your theme. These are the glue that holds your story together. Without them, your story…