Flannery O’Connor writes, ‘ … anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.’ If you, like me, write about your family – unavoidable in memoir - how do you do that without hurt? One of my brothers, upon hearing that I was writing about … Continue reading Putting the Family in Memoir
Tag: DAUGHTERS
The Inciting Incident
What is the inciting incident that sparks a memoir? This question might apply to fiction writers too. It is any turning point in a life. For memoirists, Kaylie Jones says it's the moment 'the rock came through the window’; the day one's life went ‘careening out of control’. The inciting incident is a great place … Continue reading The Inciting Incident
The Right to Write
In a writing workshop, teacher Kaylie Jones encouraged us to give ourselves permission to write. Busting myths, she said, is what the writer must do. The right to write might be more pertinent to the memoirist than it is to the fiction writer, as for us there is less distance between ourselves and the story. … Continue reading The Right to Write
Finding that Mentor
It’s said that writing can’t be taught. But why not? Tobias Wolff taught George Saunders at Syracuse University, and look where that got George. All the way to the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2017. Saunders speaks admiringly of Tobias, who once warned him: “Don’t lose the magic.” Early in his career, George’s fiction … Continue reading Finding that Mentor
Plumbline
I was half way through my MA thesis, or so I thought, when my teacher asked: “Margaret, what is your plumbline?” I had no idea - a) what my plumbline was, or b) what a plumbline was. I knew I wanted to write about my torn relationship with my veteran father who’d died in 1976. … Continue reading Plumbline
Making a Scene
‘Keep the drama on the page,’ says Julia Cameron, author of The Artists Way. She means make your work dramatic, not your life. In drafts of my writing I see I have a series of themes and anecdotes, but not so much the stuff of drama. Take a recent story about my working on Dad’s … Continue reading Making a Scene
Finding your Writing Voice
Miles Davis once said: “You have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.” For me this is true in writing. It has taken me a long time to write like myself. In other words, to find my voice. But once small glimmers of it appear, an exciting voyage begins. Writer Lee Kofman … Continue reading Finding your Writing Voice
WRITINGS AND MUSINGS OF MARGARET MCCAFFREY 