I wrote this post for the Elwood Writers blog in October 2021 - view here. The post is in answer to Helen McDonald's questions about why we write our individual blogs, and who our intended audience is. Why I Write my Blog I set up the Writings and Musings blog because I wanted to have an online … Continue reading Why Writings and Musings?
Category: Craft of Writing
The Inciting Incident
What is the inciting incident that sparks your memoir? The question might apply also to fiction writers. It is any turning point in a life that changes something towards the remarkable. For memoirists, says US teacher Kaylie Jones, it's the moment 'the rock came through the window’; the day one's life went ‘careening out of … Continue reading The Inciting Incident
The Eye watching the ‘I’
Among her other skills, US teacher Kaylie Jones runs memoir-writing workshops. At the first one I attended, she explained that the good memoirist uses the omniscient Eye to watch over the more personal ‘I’ of the narrator. In seconds flat, she was at the whiteboard drawing an eye in the sky observing and informing the stick … Continue reading The Eye watching the ‘I’
Ten Good Sentences
Ernest Hemingway has advice for writers: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." We know this is harder than it sounds. Secretly, of course, we are looking for more than one. So was he. But one sentence is a good place to start. A while … Continue reading Ten Good Sentences
WRITINGS AND MUSINGS OF MARGARET MCCAFFREY 