If you follow Opening Salvos, you know that I interview women memoirists to get their perspective on effective ways to start a memoir. Each discussion has generated insights into multiple approaches. I’ve learned from the conversations and hope you have also. Even if no one technique is right for you, understanding alternatives will help you better consider what will be most appropriate for the memoir you are writing.
This week, Kendra Bonnett and I had the pleasure of a lengthy conversation with SCN founder, Susan Wittig Albert. As you know, Susan’s newest book is Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place. Late in the interview, I asked Susan about her decision to have a Prologue, which presents one opportunity for an opening, as well as Chapter One, the more formal beginning to her memoir. I urge you to listen to her thoughts as I think you’ll find some wonderful insights.
Click here to go to the interview with Susan, available on Women's Memoir website. But before you leave this site, I'd like to share one of Susan's points that will may give you a reason to start journaling or confirm the wisdom of the journaling that you are already doing.
For this Opening Salvos, I’d like to break with tradition and discuss a point from the interview that puts a completely different perspective on openings. Consider your journaling as the preparation for your opening. Because Susan’s guest blog and writing prompt on Women’s Memoirs focused on the importance of journals, I began to see a new way to think about openings.
“I began keeping a journal when I was 26 years old, in 1966,” said Susan. She says that her memoir would not have been possible without reference to those journals that gave her details about both her internal place and her external world. These journals keep her anchored and provide the data for the memoir.
Right now, you might be thinking, “Well, it’s too late for me. I’ve never kept a journal.” Susan offers encouragement to start your journal now. You can write daily in a physical journal, on the computer, or even in a blog that can be kept private or opened more widely. You can start today or on a special occasion. Two of Susan’s favorite times to start a journal are January 1--a kind of welcoming the new year--or on your birthday--a celebration of the next year in your life.
What’s the difference between your journal and the memoir you are writing? Susan has thoughts on that as well. Just CLICK HERE to listen to our conversation with Susan. If you missed her guest blog and writing prompt, CLICK HERE.
Get writing and keep writing. Our life stories are important and should be documented.
Welcome to the Story Circle Network’s new season of Podcasts.
Join us this month for a chat with Susan Wittig
Albert while she interviews Susan Tweit before the "Be Our Guest"
program in Austin, Texas, on November 2, 2009.
This podcast is presented in 2 parts.
So brew yourself a cup of hot tea, grab a comfy chair, and join me in the circle.
Episode contents:
Interview (0:48-11:00) Part One - Susan Tweit shares some insights about her recently published memoir, Walking Nature Home.
EcoArts Walk, Lake County, N. California. Reflections.
I once cried during a critique.
It was an MFA upper-level course in visual storytelling taught by two eminent photographers. I had petitioned to get into the course, arguing that my life experience fulfilled the lower-level entry requirement. I’d gotten in, participated, and then blown it by crying during a critique of my work. Before the next class the instructors ambushed me at the top of the stairs and strongly suggested, to the point where I felt threatened, that I drop the course.
To sit back and observe critique as a sociologist, anthropologist, or psychologist can be an entertaining pastime—as long as it’s not your own work on the table. I’m surprised there aren’t plays, comic strips, and situation comedies based on the stereotypical types that surface during critique: the Ding-Bat, the Sonorous Voice of God, the Professor, the Meanie, the Raconteur.
Unfortunately, critique—peer or professional—is rife with possibility for misuse, misunderstanding, and misery. In the very worst situations there can be a scoring of points that turns the critique into a virtual blood sport. The writer’s work takes backseat to the critiquer’s social and personal agendas. Small wonder that some writers dread the very word.
Critique. For myself, I dreaded it. I hated it. I learned from it.
Fortunately, after the disastrous experience in the photography class, I had the joy of encountering a teacher, Betsy Davids, who fully understood the meaning of critique and its purpose. She regarded critique as a form of appreciation, a time of joining with the piece and giving back to the artist who created it.
During critique she grew quiet and made the piece the object of contemplation. She then took the class on a tour of what she saw and how she responded to it. She responded to each element—texture, color, shape—and how it affected her feelings and body. Her response to our artwork was fully considered and intimate.
Betsy was there for us, not to make herself more grand. She was there to help us and to know our art and art making more fully. If there were goofs, gaps, or gaffes in our work, she knew how to point these out gently. Her responses inspired us to go back to the work and try to improve it.
Although Betsy was critiquing visual art, her process would have been equally beneficial for writing. Good critique focuses on the writing—not the writer, not the critiquer. Its purpose is to help the writer make her own work stronger. Ideally, there’s no place for chest thumping or ego massaging or denigration of the writer such as in the experience I related above.
Oh, and how did that incident turn out? I’m proud to say that I held my ground with the two professors, stayed on in the course, and earned an “A.”
In our next post we’ll talk about how a group can best benefit individual writers.
_____________________
Column written by Janet Grace Riehl of St. Louis in collaboration with Stephanie Farrow of Albuquerque.
Pose questions about practical creativity; give ideas for future cycle themes; and join in the dialog in the comment section below.
See that little tree growing out of the tiniest crack in an otherwise solid rock surface. We marvel. What enables that sole plant to succeed? We can't help but anthropomorphize it and admire its tenacity when, in fact, it's just doing what nature has always done...persevering. A seed finds an opening and takes full advantage.
See that successful painter, photographer, playwright, novelist, poet...author. Again we marvel. Those of us in the arts know just how rarified is the air the great ones breathe. There are awards, great reviews, lucrative book deals, bestseller bragging rights up for grabs. We aspire. We dream. But what does it really take for us to succeed?
Matilda and I had the opportunity to ask Sue William Silverman this very question. We interviewed her as part of our Women's Memoirs Author Conversations series, and I invite you to take a little time to listen. Sue is the author of two, successful memoirs; a new book on the craft of writing; a poetry collection; and countless essays. Her response, in a nutshell, is "be tenacious." From her writer perspective, she advises us not to be afraid, never give up, and don't worry about failing. It's all part of the process.
From her author-as-marketer perspective, the answer is much the same: Yes it takes some skill and a little luck (e.g., finding the right publisher and agent can help), but above all else it's a matter of showing up every day, writing and not getting discouraged. "Everybody in the arts gets rejected," she adds, "if you're putting yourself out there." So be tenacious, and never stop believing in yourself.
Could it be that simple, you ask? Simple? Yes, I think so. Easy, no. The hardest thing is to keep charging forward in the face of disinterest or outright rejection. But that's what the great ones all have in common. Have you ever heard the saying, My overnight success was 20 years in the making?
Be tenacious today...and every day going forward. And remember the words of American author and wit Margaret Halsey: "Bulldogs have been known to fall on their swords when confronted by my superior tenacity."
Sue's comments got me thinking about blogging success. Increasingly authors are using blogs as part of their marketing effort to reach audiences through the Internet. If you've tried it, you know how hard it is to keep writing and posting on a regular schedule. It takes tenacity to keep coming up with ideas and finding time away from your job, your chores and your other writing to pound out a blog. But the hardest part of blogging is overcoming the apparent loneliness. Write for weeks on end without a single reader comment and you're ready to scream, "Is anybody there?"
I want to leave you with some hope and a reminder that you're always being read, whether or not you ever see a reader comment. When it comes to the Internet, your biggest (and most important) reader is Google. It's the fact that Google is reading your blogs that gradually builds your prominence in the search engines. So be tenacious and keep writing and blogging. Google's waiting for your words. And take courage from Amelia Earhart: "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity."
These days we've got so much to be excited about at Story Circle Book Reviews. New reviewers, new books, new opportunities...where to start?
You already know, I trust, that we have a website, and as you're surfing the 'Net, I hope you'll visit often. We just sent out our latest e-letter and have chosen a new Review of the Month: The Journal of Hélène Berr by Hélène Berr. It was reviewed by Susan Schoch. Check this out this fascinating read, as well as our Editors' Picks. Our reviewers have just outdone themselves lately. Kudos to all of them!
For mini-peeks at what's going on with us, you can now follow us on Twitter. We'll be letting the world know what's happening. We already have new followers,including several publishers, and we'd be delighted if you all signed up to follow us too.
When you come by the website to visit, be prepared to stay awhile. Get comfy and grab a cup of tea. There's a lot to read. Donna Remmert reviewed Josie's Story by Sorrel King. Josie's brave mom has written an account of loss due to a horrendous error on the part of a hospital, and relates how she is now an advocate for hospital safety. A sad story but one with such purpose...
Another review with medical ties is Nothing was the Same by Kay Redfield Jamison, reviewed by Duffie Bart. Redfield is a psychiatrist who happens to suffer from bipolar disorder. She lost her beloved husband of twenty years to cancer and she chronicles her grief and her depression, as well as trying to distinguish between these two powerful emotions. A compelling love story with a message...
If you or someone you know suffers from a chronic illness, be sure to read Kathy Waller's review of Dancing at the River's Edge: A Patient and her Doctor Negotiate Life with Chronic Illness. This is one case when we allowed a male author, or co-author, because Richard Lockshin is the personal physician of Anita Brill, the book's other co-author. In alternating chapters, they share about the same issue--Anita's chronic illness--from two different viewpoints. An interesting and hopeful account...
Are there daughters or granddaughters in your life? Judy Miller, one of SCBR's editors, reviewed Book by Book: Your Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs by Cindy Hudson. It is all the title claims and more. How I wish I'd had this book around when my daughters were younger. We often read together and discussed books, as I related in an earlier post, but how much fun would it have been to include their friends and their friends' moms? This is a fantastic way to keep communication lines open and flourishing. A fine gift for yourself or for the moms in your life...
Daughters told their stories in two of our reviewed books. I Have Something to Tell You by Regan Hoffman,reviewed by Susan Schoch, recounts the life of a young woman who is HIV-positive and once so afraid to share that burden with anyone. This too is a story of hope as Regan has gone on to do remarkable things with her life. Penny Leisch reviewed A Princess Found: An American Family, An African Chiefdom and the Daughter Who Connected Them Allby Sara Culberson. The author, who was adopted at as a baby, seeks out her family of origin and finds that her father is indeed an African tribal chief. This is her personal story but also touches on adoption issues. Emotional and very interesting...
These snippets give you such a brief look into these wonderful stories, so I know you'll want to read each review (and each book?) for yourself.
Then there are the interviews! We love catching up with favorite authors and visiting with them about their books and their writing. You can learn more about Cindy Hudson, Susan Wittig Albert, Heather Cariou (speaker at the upcoming SCN National Conference), Diana Allen Kouris and Susan J. Tweit by just clicking on their names. Some of the interviews were done by our reviewers and some are courtesy of SCBR's good friend (and occasional reviewer) Susan Tweit. Fascinating questions and answers that give insight into these immensely talented women...
Let me share a huge treat in store for all of us in the Austin area. Susan Wittig Albert, author of Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place and Susan J. Tweit, author of Walking Nature Home, will appear together at SCN's Be Our Guest program on November 2 at First United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. Go here for all the details. Both of their memoirs have been featured on SCBR, and now here is the opportunity to meet them both and hear them discuss their books. I do hope as many of you as possible will attend.
Did I say we were excited at SCBR? Maybe that was too mild a word. We are animated, impassioned, ebullient, invigorated and exuberant!! Join us--you may find this is contagious!!
When my new media expert badgered me into joining Twitter last summer, I was grumpy. What in the world could I do on Twitter, in 140 characters or less, that wouldn't just seem stupid? I thought about something my husband, Richard, taught me when he was a university professor honing his teaching skills: the concept of added value. In his case, that meant finding what he brought to teaching that students couldn't get from textbooks, videos or the internet. In applying that idea to my presence on Twitter, I thought about what I could do on Twitter that would be useful and reflect my voice and perspective.
After a bit of fumbling around, I realized, haiku. Richard and I have always played with haiku when we're on long road trips as a way to capture moments and experiences that might otherwise be forgotten in the rush of getting from A to B. (When I say we "play with" haiku, what I mean is we come up with the haiku in our heads and speak it aloud to each other as we drive along.) It occurred to me that Twitter is like a radio station of sorts, and I could post a daily haiku as a way to "broadcast" a snippet from wherever I find myself out to the social media universe, like a virtual locator beacon. "I'm here, and this what's happening in my landscape."
So I started posting a daily haiku as my contribution to Twitter. (It cross-posts on Facebook, thus saving some digital energy.) It doesn't have to be anything as grandiose as this view of the mountains that rise above our valley shot from the highway coming down the last passon our drive home. A detail can be as telling as a whole view. Sometimes something I notice in the garden prompts a haiku, like this one:
Clear dawn turns to rain frost forecast—harvest like mad! fall comes tomorrow.
Or this one:
Fog hid the dawn sky then crescent moon at sunset day passed in between.
Or something I notice as I look out the window:
Rising fast and high fifty vultures slip-slide south silver under wings.
The practice has made me more attentive to where I am and what's happening in the world around me, so that I've even come up with haiku from Richard's stays in the hospital, like this one from a difficult night in the ICU:
Outside snowflakes reign inside lights blink, sensors beep life sighs, in and out.
The gift of finding a haiku worth posting on Twitter nearly every day (I'm not perfect!) is that it asks me to find a bit of grace in the day, no matter what comes. And the practice of turning that bit of grace into haiku gives me experience in finding the essence in the moment and communicating it in words. As life-writers, it seems to me that an important part of what we're doing is finding the essence in our experiences and figuring out how to communicate it. That makes Haiku excellent practice: it's short, it exercises our vocabulary and hones our awareness, and it can be done anywhere at anytime and memorized until it can be written down.
If you want to try a daily practice of seeing and communicating via haiku, here are the basic rules:
Three lines in a 5-7-5 pattern (five syllables in the first line, seven the second, five the third--haiku experts say that this rule isn't firm, but I find it a useful discipline)
Based in nature or natural phenomena
References--directly or indirectly--the season
The gift? I've found beauty and grace in the toughest moments, from Richard's time in the ICU, to the morning I woke way too early and lay in bed wide awake and tired, until I opened the blind:
Crescent edge silver ghost moon rises escorting Venus and Saturn.
Are you having a hard time with the beginning of your memoir? You’re not alone. Even if you have written many vignettes or dozens of chapters, you still may not know the answer to how you’ll open your memoir. On Friday, Kendra Bonnett and I interviewed Nancy Bachrach, author of The Center of the Universe and asked her to share her experiences in crafting the opening to her memoir.
The interview went something like this: “Nancy, I wonder if you’d talk a little about the opening to your memoir and your decision to make this your opening.”
“The opening is the hardest to write,” said Nancy. “I rewrote my opening at least 1000 times. I didn’t know where to begin. I only knew what the last line would be.”
It turns out that Nancy begins her memoir with an Author’s Note. Why? She told us that while her book was being edited by her publisher Alfred A. Knopf, she kept asking, “Don’t you want to know if my story is true?” She explains that the editor kept replying the way a shrink would -- “Is there something you want to tell us?” Finally, her editor suggested that if she wanted to make a statement to her readers, she could write an Author’s Note. And she did. A very funny Author's Note. It turns out that it was a great way to begin her memoir as it established her tone as well as her role as the narrator of the story. I was already smiling by the time I got to page 1.
Nancy’s mother-daughter story, told with ample dark humor, is true although she took a few liberties. In the wake of the James Frey controversy, she wanted her readers to know how she arrived at her perspective on her mother’s life. And, yes, she says that the memoir really isn’t her story. It is her mother’s story and she’s the narrator. But from the moment you begin reading the Author’s Note until you reach the last page, you feel you’re sitting with your best friend, the one who always makes you laugh, no matter how difficult the situation.
If you’d like to hear the complete interview with Nancy with her many insights into memoir writing, CLICK HERE. She also talked about finding your voice even if you’re not naturally funny like she is; telling your mother you’re writing about her or keeping it well locked since Nancy’s mother found her memoir in a drawer; handling the different views of siblings; and many more topics.
A few days before our interview, Nancy posted a guest blog and memoir writing prompt. If you're interested, CLICK HERE.
If you're like me, you belong to a gazillion organizations. You're active in a few, an onlooker in more. Some offer resources, most offer just membership.
SCN is one of those organizations that invites you to become an active participant and to use the many resources we offer. If you're serious about documenting your life experiences--through journaling, memoir, drama, poetry, or other art forms--we know that the more you practice, the more you will gain in insight, clarity, and (yes!) skills, techniques, and knowledge. But few of us can do this alone. It takes a village. We're that village. We're here to help.
We've put together a list of the ways that SCN can help you tell your story. We've posted the list here, but let me suggest just a few, from my own experience.
If you want to write, you need to read, and read, and read some more. If you're writing about your life, you need to read other women's lives. We help by pointing you to the very best books by, for, and about women, at our book review site, www.StoryCircleBookReviews.org.
If you want to write about your life, you need to be journaling. Yep, every day. Don't have a clue? You can read a book. We recommend SCN-member Christina Baldwin's Life's Companion. It's my personal choice as a book for the journaling classes I teach. Or you can take a class in SCN's online program. Our fall journaling class is closed to new enrollments, but watch for another offering in the spring.
If you want support in your lifewriting practice, join a story circle. There may be a group in your community--if not, we encourage you to start one. We also offer online writing circles, an online reading circle, an online chat group. We sponsor workshops. And best of all, we come together as a village--a village of women lifewriters--in our biannual Stories From the Heart Conference. The next one's coming up in February, 2010. We hope you'll be there!
Women's stories are a precious personal, family, community, and cultural resource in a fast-changing world. SCN wants to help you tell yours.
Our families and the mainstream culture all give us their own
definitions of success. These glimmer in our minds. If we are not measuring up
to these expectations, we are drug down. Any external definition of success guarantees unhappiness. We need
to find our own tailored definition of success.
This individual definition is especially important in the
arts and in our writing. Go to a party, and say you’re a writer. The responses
you get in the United States are shaped by popular culture and run like this:
“Would I have read anything you wrote?” (In other words,
“Are you famous?”)
“Do you make money doing that?” (In other words, “Can you
make a buck off this? Did it make your fortune for you?)
These types of conversations can leave us feeling that if we
haven’t appeared yet on the Oprah Winfrey Show, or made the New York Times Best
Seller List, that we are wasting our time. Without fame and fortune, where is
the glory? Gotta think big.
Maybe not. Sometimes, when we are following a passion, it’s
better not to define success in terms of OPE (Other People’s Expectations).
What are your expectations and desires? Thinking on a small to medium scale,
might prove more productive.
Open Sez Me
Each of us has our own set of opportunities. We can improve
our chances of creating our version of success by asking these four questions:
·How do you define success?
·Are you willing to work to get
it?
·How would you recognize it if
it walked in the door?
·What would you do if you had
it?
Defining Success, Your Way
Do you need to make money from your writing? Do you need an
audience? If so, how big an audience do you need? What purpose does your
writing need to serve?
Here’s is a sample writing success definition based on the prompts
above.
1)Writing success for me means
being able to write regularly as I continue to refine my craft. Writing is
important for me, but I don’t count on it for my livelihood. I write mainly for
myself (or family and friends or critique group and writing buddy).
2)I’m willing to set aside time
to write at least an hour a day, even if it requires effort.
3)If it walked through the door,
my writing success would wear a handmade shawl I knit myself. I’d be
progressing in my craft. I’d be learning new things about myself and the world
around me.
4)If my writing success came
true, I’d be satisfied that I was doing my best, and content with my progress.
Grow your definition
as you do.
Put in your first definition in the washing machine and see
how it spins. As time goes by, your definition of writing success my evolving
to adapt to changing circumstances and desires. Keep current with that personal
definition.
If your definition lags behind or is out of sync with your
life, you will also be unhappy. For instance, the sample definition above may
need to include the wish to increase your outreach to a wider audience. Include
that. Or, your audience becomes more defined as you focus on particular topics.
Keep in touch with yourself and stay true.
Column written by Janet Grace Riehl of
St. Louis in collaboration with Stephanie Farrow of Albuquerque.
Pose questions about practical
creativity; give ideas for future cycle themes; and join in the dialog in the
comment section below.
As
fall settles in with cooler weather and flaming color, the world seems to
mellow a bit.No longer the hectic pace
of summer vacations and constant weekend trips.The kids are back in school and everyone has returned to the work-a-day
world. There’s a bit more free time, perhaps.But not at SCBR…
At
Story Circle Book Reviews, the pace is picking up.Fall means new book releases as the industry
gears up for the holidays, and so, at SCBR, we are reading and reviewing. The
publishers are being generous this fall, and we have received some wonderful
new titles, with more on the way. As the reviews come in, I am amazed at the
talent in this group, and I am awed that these women give so much of their time
to the task of reading and reviewing. They believe in our mission, and they make
it possible--bringing to you and to the Internet community the newest and the
best in women’s literature.
Do you
like memoir?Susan Schoch recently read
and reviewed A Homemade Life by Molly
Wizenberg.Her obvious enjoyment of the
book and her keen insights certainly inspired me to put this book on my wish
list. (No snickering now—I know we’ve talked about my passion for books and my
undying support of Amazon.I’ll admit to
a burgeoning wish list there).
Seriously,
if you read Susan’s review, you’ll be aware immediately that this was no casual
read.She took the time to not only read
but also to observe and study.All of
our reviewers strive to do this. These are not your done-at-the-last-minute, thank-goodness-for-Cliff's-Notes, book reports.These are carefully thought-out pieces of writing, done out of a love
and respect for good literature and the generous spirit to share them.
Kathy
Waller’s review of Have I Got a Story for
You by Patricia Hoglund is fun and light-hearted, much like the book
itself, according to Kathy. This is part memoir, part creative writing tool, a
good two-for-one find.This would be a
wonderful gift for any aspiring writer you know, and, of course you’ll no doubt
want to pick one up for yourself too. And, as a bonus, it has a beautiful bright cover--we think about that for gifts, right?
Speaking
of gifts, please do consider doing your book shopping at Amazon, and please do
it through the Amazon link on any SCN site, including Book Reviews.Click on that icon to connect to Amazon, make
a purchase, and SCN gets a cut from Amazon for that sale.Susan Albert just mentioned the SCN Fund-raising
Drive in her newest Herstories blog post.This is a way we can all help—and how great is that—makes book buying a
good deed! (Mention this to hubby) Sincerely, folks, I’m seriously being serious here now.
Another
great reason to access SCBR—to find a good book for your discussion group.In
September,over at Lifewriters, an SCN
online group, Susan Tweit’s memoir, Walking
Nature Home, a former SCBR featured book, was used for our book discussion,
moderated by Susan A, participated in by Susan Schoch , yours truly and many
others.Susan T answered readers’ questions and gave
wonderful insight into the writing of her book.(Someone said we have a gaggle
of Susans in Lifewriters.I don’t know about that exact
word, but I’m glad to be included in such an auspicious group!)
By the
way, author Susan Tweit is a book reviewer at SCBR. As is SCN’s founder, and prolific author,
Susan Wittig Albert.
I don’t
make promises lightly, but here is one I will make to you. There will be many
new superb books reviewed and introduced on SCBR in coming months.Please visit often and recommend the site to
all of the bibliophiles in your life.You’ll see why we’re so excited and so enthusiastic.
Beyond
visiting the site, there are several other ways to support SCBR.Become a reviewer!I know you’d enjoy it. You can read up on the
criteria here at Become a Reviewer.Second, we’re always looking for suggestions.Have we missed your favorite author?Is there a particular title you like to see
reviewed?Let us know.You can email me anytime.I’d love to hear from you!
Recent Comments