Yesterday, we talked about adding figurative language to writing. Today, I want you to suspend that process for a while. Today, we are going to begin writing a paragraph or two about November, and I want you to suspend your search for metaphors and similes for a while. In fact, I want you to suspend…
Category: Memoir
Harvest Your Past Memoir Challenge Day 3 – Using Similes and Metaphors to Empower Your Writing
A few days ago, I launched a free memoir writing challenge. I began by referring to Cynthia Rylant’s picture book In November. If you have not read that post yet, please do. In that post, I showed how Rylant had captured the essence of November in precious few words, and I asked the participants of…
Harvest Your Past Memoir Challenge – Write More to Write Better – Write to Heal Yourself
Before I tell you about today’s Memoir Writing Exercise, I want to share a true story with you. Today, I am a fairly prolific writer, but a few years ago, I couldn’t force myself to write. After my spirit had suffered several blows, I had become creatively mute. Depression had set in, and it seemed…
November is National Memoir Writing Month – Harvest Your Past Day 1 – Describe November
I write memoir for several reasons — least of which is to create a book of memoir. I write memoir to prime my writing pump. I write memoir to allow my writer’s voice to rise to the surface. I write memoir to connect with the author within myself. A few years ago, I coined the…
How to Create a Garden Journal – More about the Nature Writer Dorothy Wordsworth’s Nature Writing
If you are wondering how to create a garden journal, the most obvious answer is: Write. As usual, however, obvious answers are hardly ever true answers. Many times, they are insults thrust toward what a true answer might be, and while I often tell journalists and writers to do just that — just write! Nature…
Thanking God for the Sun, the Rain, and the Apple Seeds: Thanking God for Nature
During the month of September, I like to celebrate the birthday of a man who, centuries ago, carried his Bible and a sack of apple seeds across parts of the unsettled northeast and shared them there. That man’s name was John Chapman, but because he planted apple trees everywhere that he traveled, folks called him…
6 Words: Memoir Challenge – Exercise 2 – Write to Beat Writer’s Block
Ok. Yesterday, you should have listed 6 concrete words that signify yourself in some way. Today, we have a short writing exercise. 6 Words: Memoir Challenge – Exercise 2: For each of the 6 words that you listed, write one simple paragraph to express the way the word is significant to you. Write is an…
6 Words: Memoir Challenge – Exercise 1 – Beat Writer’s Block
For many years, autumn has been the time of year that I do most of my writing, and during the month of October, I am hosting a Memoir Writing Challenge: Harvest Your Past. I have decided to throw in an extra memoir-writing challenge before October, to help you prime your writing pump. Bottom Line: The…
Let’s Take a Deep Dive into Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes
Let’s Take a Deep Dive into Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Let’s Read to be Amazed. October is going to be an amazing month for me. Alluding to Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting, October of 2022 is at the tip-top of the Ferris Wheel of My Life. On October 18, 2022, my debut picture…
Describe the Land around Your Childhood Home
Your journal assignment for today is to describe the terrain or the countryside of the area around your childhood home. When I say describe, I mean just that. Provide sentences that capture how the countryside looked. Don’t just say: “I grew up 40 miles south of Fort Smith, Arkansas. Fort Smith has a population of…