The so-called “writing life” will sweep me toward Chicago as the 2012 AWP Conference and Book Fair draws near. This is my first time attending the event; I don’t know what to expect beyond the advice and wisdom espoused by AWP veterans.
A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. – Virginia Woolf — Women writers just love old Ginny. We quote her chestnut about the ‘room of one’s own’ at the drop of a pen. The quote isn’t limited to fiction, but writing in general. Usually, it’s centered around the “room” part – the need for a physical space
“My mother and I are sitting in the small dining room of her town-house; we are sitting at the table she’s had since I was a girl, but I am nearly fifty.” Thus begins Beth Alvarado’s memoir Anthropologies: A Family Memoir. This first sentence sets the tone and style of the book—clear pictures and underlying emotions presented in brevity and concise language that reads like poetry.
… appoggiaturas generate “tension in the listener,” … it’s this tension and release that results in the “tears and chills” of deep emotion.
As writers, we can’t rely on appoggiaturas to elicit this type of response in a reader…or can we?
In How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This? Carla, also known as The Singing Patient, outlines realistic coping strategies and supportive advice along with anecdotes of how she deals with several autoimmune diseases. Her unique approach is sincere and instructive.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not one to run out and buy the latest celebrity memoir, but when I was offered the chance to read and review Soleil’s new parenting book, Happy Chaos: From Punky to Parenting and my Perfectly Imperfect Adventures In Between, I wasn’t about to say no.
The blank screen. The blinking cursor. The sudden, irresistible urge to dig out that last chocolate bar from the Halloween stash in the back of the pantry. Writer’s block can take a lot of forms, but it still plays the same old tune, a tick-tock insinuation that maybe, this time, the words are really gone.…
Revision. The idea of revision is interesting, especially in terms of revising a memoir, because I have to decide which moments from my life, from the year covered in the book, should stay and which moments should go.
I spoke with some young writers yesterday. They happen to be poets, and had just read a couple of chapters from The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser. We were talking about establishing good writing habits, and one student said, “I always make sure it’s quiet where I’m writing, and I try to make…
i allow myself many vices: cigarettes, more cigarettes, various Apple products [my apartment is wired to Apple’s hive mind], and Moleskine journals. while i don’t believe in the so-called “writing life,” there is value in journaling one’s thoughts. i guess. still, i buy Moleskines because somewhere in my reptile brain, a $17 journal makes me more of a writer than, say, a $0.99 notebook from Walgreens.
