Today's guest post is by Darah Zeledon, aka The Warrior Mom, wife and mother of five young children. Darah and I are online buddies, and I know her as smart and funny. If you don't believe me, read "Top 10 Embarrassing Things My Kids Have Said & Top 11 I’d Like To Say." I knew Darah was … [Read more...] about The Warrior Mom: Why I Write About My Painful Past
creative writing
What Keeps Me From Writing? Gourmet Food
This time last week I was arguing with a salmon. The Whole Foods butcher had boned it nicely, but left some unappealing tan flesh attached to its underside. I was struggling to scrape that off before chopping the fish into chunks for a soup I was making. I had already cleaned the sand from between … [Read more...] about What Keeps Me From Writing? Gourmet Food
Must-Have Memoir Writing Aids: Updated 2018
Some of the most useful, powerful, and perhaps lesser known resources I recommend to my students who are working on memoirs, life stories, and family histories, and use in my own memoir writing are listed below. They include electronic and hard copy resources. Let's continue the tradition of … [Read more...] about Must-Have Memoir Writing Aids: Updated 2018
What Keeps Me From Writing? My Furniture
No, not my home office furniture. That would keep me from writing, but my dear friend Ava just gave me her husband’s ergonomic office chair. It was a conversation with Ava that made me aware that, although I’m not a “neat freak” by any stretch of anyone’s imagination, housecleaning takes up a lot … [Read more...] about What Keeps Me From Writing? My Furniture
Memoir Writing Teaches Us About Ourselves
If you've begun writing a memoir, you might have noticed that the process is revealing aspects of yourself and your past that you failed to recognize before. It's a little like assembling a jigsaw puzzle that you're still seeking all the pieces to and slowly beginning to understand their … [Read more...] about Memoir Writing Teaches Us About Ourselves
How the Warrior Mom Finds Time to Write
Yesterday I introduced the writer, Darah Zeledon, mother of 5 small children. Today we continue our interview with this Warrior Mom, who manages to slip in time nearly every day to work on her memoir or add a post to her blog. What do you do when an idea hits you and you're otherwise engaged? Ideas … [Read more...] about How the Warrior Mom Finds Time to Write
How Does a Mother of 5 Find Time to Write?
I met Darah Zeledon, the Warrior Mom, through one of the LinkedIn groups for writers that she and I both belong to. She'd posted an essay she'd written; I loved it, so I contacted her to tell her so. Since then, we've become fast online friends. We seem to share a similar high-energy enthusiasm and … [Read more...] about How Does a Mother of 5 Find Time to Write?
You Don’t Have to Write Every Day to be Successful
There. I've said it. You don't have to write every day! I should know. I published my first articles and essays, and drafted dozens of pages of my memoirs while being employed in one of those jobs in which "full time" meant 60 hours a week. How'd I do it? I certainly didn't write every day. But … [Read more...] about You Don’t Have to Write Every Day to be Successful
Does Your Memoir Cheat Your Readers?
In memoir writing, it’s critical that we invite our readers to relate to our life stories. If we don’t, we are cheating them out of the very reason they bought our books—to share our experiences. Here are some of the memoir and life story writing tips I ask my students to keep on their desks beside … [Read more...] about Does Your Memoir Cheat Your Readers?