Our bodies create stories. Give yourself a minute to take that in. While we are unconscious, we weave narratives. One-third of our lives are spent sleeping. On average, we can dream anywhere from one to two hours every night. Moreover, we can have four to seven dreams in one night. Five minutes after the end of the dream, half the content is forgotten. After ten minutes, 90% is lost. How can we get to know ourselves in a new way by investigating our dreams? I've been keeping track of my dreams since I was a teenager, and even before then I had dreams that were recurring as a child. As … [Read more...]
Join Me for the Stunt Writing Livecast on YouTube!
Join me this weekend and let me help you get started with your writing resolutions for 2017 using the Stunt Writing method! Sunday Dec. 4 from 5 pm PST to 5:30 pm PST I will be livecasting on my YouTube taking questions in real time. To join me, you can go to out channel www.youtube.com/memoirclass and scroll down for "livecasts" and click "set a reminder", as seen below. Or click this link at 5 pm PST and join us live and bring your questions! Need to push yourself in 2017? Try Stunt Writing from MemoirClass.com! A stunt is a feat of daring, an act with a beginning and end, focused … [Read more...]
Stunt Writing Featured on the Secret Library Podcast
I am so excited to share my appearance on the Secret Library Podcast, in conversation with the always amazing Caroline Donahue! She created the Secret Library Podcast (available here on iTunes) because, "Most people believe that books are created in cabins all alone, where authors pound away on some manner of keyboard. Then they hand this masterpiece off to a publisher and it feels very much like it goes down a tube and comes out the other side as a book. By speaking to authors and other book lovers, I'm diving into the mystery that is the book world today." We spent an hour chatting about … [Read more...]
Writing & Describing the Depth of Feeling
I received an email today from my mother, in the postal (snail) mail. It was a printed copy of an email I sent to my dad in 2002, which although it came in time for Father's Day I was too sad to open it with my father's passing. In the last few weeks I have come up with a lot of creative ways to describe how I feel such as, "covered in molasses" for my sticky inability at times to leave the house or that I am wearing "vaseline glasses" to describe that under water feeling where you feel a little bit separate from the world. I've told people that I am raw. Raw like someone took that 70s Lava … [Read more...]
Stunt Writing Experience: The Complete Series
As my Stunt Writing class on the Canvas Network is starting to reach its end, I wanted to put together all of the posts that I wrote trying push myself past teaching and opening myself up to the process. There are quite a few things that knocked me off course. I had an incredible work load, and didn't have as much free time as I would have liked in order to do more research and read more about what scholars, psychologists and other practitioners think of the Mind/ Body Connection. But in the end it is all the same inquiry: how do I react in situations that involve synching my body and mind and … [Read more...]
The Stunt Writing on the Canvas Network: The Challenge!
A stunt is a feat of daring, an act with a beginning and end, focused on showing off a specific skill. The Stunt Writing For Personal Experience class includes prompts, lectures, readings, and discussions for writers of any age, at any level. Inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous quote, “Do one thing every day that scares you,” Stunt Writing For Personal Experience is a process that uses writing as a tool for you to learn about yourself, and gain skills in communicating your own unique story. Why take the Challenge? I think that it is easier to get beyond your boundaries but with a … [Read more...]
7 Books That Shaped Me
I've been thinking about this list by Elizabeth Gilbert about the 7 books that shaped her. It is so hard to winnow it down, especially since often how you react to a book depends upon the intersection of when and why you read it. So many books just knock you sideways and you never know when it will happen or why until you take a moment of contemplation. Here are mine: The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White and published in 1970, I was born in 1971. Louis the swan is caught between two worlds and not capable of performing perfectly in either so he has to forge his own way. There is … [Read more...]
2015 Thoughts on Writing Craft: Word Palette
The Wittgenstein quote has been knocking around in my brain as I read. What words are out there that could be reshaping my work and providing new colors for my word palette? I recently signed up for Word of the Day online to remind myself of the immense vocabulary available. I have started looking up words that I always "think I know" but don't have a clear understanding of, such as aphorism. I've also started underlining when I read, looking for inspiration from a fantastic turn of phrase. As a word lover, I am sad to say that I think a lot of online journalism lacks the beautiful prose of a … [Read more...]
Personal Narratives as a Form of Protest
Over my holiday break I read two very different personal narratives. Totally different writers, writing styles and stories, but I believe that they work the same way. Writing is a liberating act by creating order out of disparate experiences, but each story also carves out room in the conversation about human life. And by doing so, these writers open up possibilities for all of us, because they show different sides of the experience of what is true in this world. One book is The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch, who writes, “Whether it was or it was not, there were words. Not just my … [Read more...]
Family is Where Our History Lives
I spent this last Thanksgiving with my fiance’s family in a new location. I am slowly beginning to understand what it means to enter a family as an adult. Family is where our history lives. They are the people who can say, “that is the face mom used to make” and tell stories about their grandparents even though they may have grandchildren of their own. I really began to consider of all of the miracles and brushes of fate that bring us to the common table. The next time you gather, listen for the others that are present at the table in the stories we tell. Some fought in a war, some built … [Read more...]