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Nov 19

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Inspire your writing with these quotes by famous authors

Every few months or so, I have to reorganize my writing life. Supposedly, I have one office for my home business and a second smaller office for my writing space.

Over time, what usually happens is that the business office becomes a dumping ground for everything that doesn’t have a home in another part of our house—boxes, mail, shipping materials, marketing materials, products, Halloween decorations, boxes that need to go to storage, etc.—and I end up working and writing in my writing room. Since this is the room with the view, so to speak, I don’t really mind but, after awhile, I’m overflowing with papers, files, and books…thus, the reorganizing. Read more

Nov 18

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Four ways to write about life, part 2

In my last post, I wrote about different approaches for writing memoirs. In part two, you’ll find four more ways to write about a slice of life.

Pet memoirs. Pets have a tremendous impact on our lives and experiences with them make for great storytelling. Dog Years: A Memoir by Mark Doty and Ever By My Side: A Memoir in Eight Pets by veterinarian Nick Trout are two examples of animal stories that endure.

Coming of age. Published in 1967, Stop-Time by Frank Conroy is a classic American autobiography. Rocket Boys by Homer Hickham is the story of Hickham’s goal to work for NASA and how he and his classmates found a way to make their dreams to launch a rocket and win a science competition come true. The book was later made into a movie called October Sky.

Physical challenges. The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory by Kenny Fries is beautifully written account of how his specially made shoes help him adapt and move through life. In Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy wrote about her struggle with cancer. Grealy was diagnosed at age 9 with Ewing’s sarcoma, a cancer that attacked her lower jaw. Grealy went through many surgeries, as well as chemotherapy and radiation. Her memoir examines her suffering, the meaning of beauty in society, and her struggle to be accepted for who she was.

Survival stories. In Night, Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel wrote a riveting account of his survival in the Nazi death camps. Norman Olstead writes about surviving a plane crash and his coming of age in Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival.

For four more ways to write about life, read part one of this post.

Nov 14

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Four ways to write about your life

There’s more than one way to craft a personal or family story. Consider how you could create a form that fits your personal style and passion.

If a memoir is a slice of life, you might want to write one based on your recipes, gardens you’ve grown, or cars you’ve owned. Find more ideas about structuring your life story in the examples below.

A life in lists. In a workshop I attended, Patricia Charpentier, author of Eating an Elephant: Write Your Life One Bite at a Time, shared different approaches to writing a life story, including one made up of lists. She once worked with a man who never wrote a complete sentence. He processed his life by making daily lists. Charpentier said the man had been making a list every day for 30 years. Topics included, “What I like about so and so,” the headlines of the day, and what movie was showing.

If you’re interested in writing a life story in lists, check out Listography Journal: Your Life in Lists by Lisa Nola. Read more

Nov 13

Draw on all five senses when you write a sex scene

In my previous post, I wrote about the “Bad Sex Scene Award” and how NOT to get one.

In Elissa Wald’s article “The Do’s and Dont’s of Writing Erotic Fiction,” one “do” is to draw on all five senses when you write a sex scene.

One way to do this is to break down the scene as follows:

First, make a list of the senses: sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Then, think of the characters involved in the scene and your scene’s setting—where is the scene taking place? Bedroom? Living room? Tree house? Dining room table? Middle of the forest? Read more

Nov 12

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Are you intoxicated with every word you write?

If you’re a writer, you no doubt love to play with words. Words are the basic building blocks we work with to make our prose fly. And, one wild word may turn a pedestrian sentence or paragraph into one that dances the tango all over your reader’s imagination.

Screenwriter and producer Joss Whedon recently spoke at the event “Make Equality Reality” about his hate-on for the word “feminist.” He says that part of being a writer is living inside the smallest part of every word…the sounds, the syllables, the meaning…as if you’re intoxicated with the word.

Watch his hilarious take-down of the word “feminist.” Whether you agree with him or not, it’s the word that counts in the end. Always the word.

Nov 11

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The Bad Sex Scene Award: how NOT to get nominated

London’s “Literary Review” has just announced its winners for the 2013 Bad Sex Award—Britain’s most dreaded literary prize.

The prize is meant to “draw attention to the crude, badly written, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel and to discourage it.”

This year the nominees included author Amy Tan’s, “The Valley of Amazement,” for this line: “He flayed against me, until our bodies were slapping, and he took me into the typhoon and geologic disaster.”  Read more

Nov 7

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See how these famous writers outlined their work

As I experiment with outlining my novel, I’m learning that there are as many ways to outline as there are writers and types of writing.

For the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling made a hand-written table that contained the outline of her entire series.

Joseph Keller’s outline for “Catch 22” was meticulously ordered like an Excel spreadsheet.

Dylan Thomas’s outline for one poem contained a list of words.

William Faulkner wrote the outline for his short story “A Fable” on his office wall.

To see more famous authors’ outlining methods check out the Daily Mail’s article by Tara Brady here.

If you’re a writer who outlines, how do you go about organizing your thoughts?

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