Mini Memoir Moment: The Power of Place in Your Writing

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

How the Home of Your Past Influences Your Present Preferences

Think about a place of your childhood. What first comes to mind? Whether it’s the family kitchen, the grandparents’ woodshed, the baseball field, or the big tree in the backyard, our earliest memories are attached to a place. Places stick in our minds because they embody something more than the physical space they occupy. The places of our lives, especially those of our childhood, are saturated with emotional and psychological associations.

Mini Memoir Moment: Writing About the Relatives

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

If you shake your family tree, you may be surprised at the nuts that fall out. People—both present and past—in your life are a rich source for your personal stories. Even if you are writing a straight genealogical account, try to find an incident, a particular characteristic, gesture, habit, or saying that captures some essence of a person and contributes to the heart, as well as the fact, of your story.

Mini Memoir Moment: Me—Ways to Write about Yourself

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

I know “notorious badman” Sam Bass didn’t write his own “Wanted Dead or Alive” poster, but I couldn’t resist using the description of him with its surprising last sentence to make a point for this lesson. The fine print on the poster reads:

Mini Memoir Moment: Looking back—How You Changed Along the Way from There to Here

Edie here. I absolutely adored Marcia's first book and now she has a second that just debuted! Going South: with the God of Jacob's and My Mistakes is a book you're not going to want to miss. I inserted more info at the end of the post. Be sure to congratulate Marcia!

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

The interest in any story, yours included, is not so much what you did, but what you made of it—what you learned, how you changed. That’s not to say if you walked across that bridge in the photo, you wouldn’t have a story to tell. But more than just the fact that you did it, how did you do it? What did you experience when you first saw it? Why did you decide to tackle it? If your feet bolted to the boards halfway across, how did you manage to make it the whole way? How did you feel after you accomplished it? Did it change you in any way?

Mini Memoir Moment: Objects as Gateways to Memories and Keys to Stories

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

Anyone who has moved, downsized, or tackled a vigorous spring-cleaning is well aware of how much stuff mysteriously makes its way into our cupboards, closets and garages over the years. We struggle over what to keep, what to jettison, and what to pass on to someone else in hopes they will treasure it as much as we did.

Mini Memoir Moment: The Story-Generating Power of Lists

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

Punch lists, shopping lists, to-do lists—they keep us organized and help us note progress as we complete each item. However, we can also utilize lists to activate our memory-making muscles, generate ideas, and enrich our stories.

Mini Memoir Moment: Family Legends—Are Memories True?

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

After playing baseball in high school, my father played in a semi-pro league in the ’30s. He picked it up again in the ’50s after returning from war. He was a catcher and apparently a good hitter with a .436 batting average, although does admit to striking out against the great Satchel Paige. 

Each of my siblings and I have a mental image of Dad bending over home plate with a big rip up the seat of his uniform. Whether this is from an old newspaper clipping or from one of his games we might've attended as young children, I don’t know. But the picture doesn’t seem to exist. It makes me wonder if it were a family story, told so many times we collectively imaged it.

The Exuberant Exclamation Point!!! It’s Not Going Gentle Into That Punctuation Slush Pile

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

I’m sitting in a hospital waiting area for open-heart surgery patients—one of whom is my husband. The text notification on my phone pings with a message of concern from a friend. The message ends with three exclamation points and the following clarification (just in case the three marks failed to convey the intensity of sincerity):  “Lots of exclamation points to indicate sincerity and concern.”

You Have a Great Scene, But What to Do With It?

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

I’m sitting in a sterile hospital room with my husband. He’s here to find out the impact genes, age, and eating habits (I won’t discuss all those fast food and Dunkin’ Donuts wrappers I find in his truck) has had on his heart and arteries. A nurse enters and instructs him to take everything off and put on the blue-print dressing gown folded on the bed. “It opens in the back,” she says. Bob starts to undress. He understands her directive conveys another message: from this point on he will relinquish his right to privacy, what he usually keeps covered will now be laid bare. 

Writer's Corner - Those D Words: Disclaimers and Defamation

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

A disclaimer: Growing up, I wanted to be an archeologist, astronomer and missionary doctor. The latter ambition lasted through two years of pre-med until a meltdown in a chemistry exam ended it. Among other pursuits, I’ve couriered architectural blueprints from one city office to another, hung telephone directories on doorknobs, filled vending machines, written a book, and taught. But never once did I consider being lawyer. So don’t construe the following as legal advice. It is simply intended to raise points of consideration, because whether we write fiction or nonfiction, facts or fabrications, we write about people. And some may not like what we have to say.

Steal Like An Artist and Learn from the Best

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

I teach a class called Steal Like An Artist, a title I promptly stole after reading Austin Kleon’s book with the same name. We study examples of good writing, some to model, some to simply admire in hopes there’s such a thing as learning by literary osmosis. Although I know there’s a lot to learn from reading bad writing, I seldom use it as an example. It’s a philosophy I adopted a long time ago after reading a response Mark Twain gave to a question about his river piloting days.

Writing Your Story as a Spiritual Discipline

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

“I know some of you would rather haul bricks than write, but I think you’ll find these exercises valuable. Definitely not like your old 8th-grade essays.” I looked across the room at the twenty-five or so pairs of eyes fixed on me. Some were curious, others clearly doubtful.

Feeding Their Muse: Authors in the Kitchen

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

Years ago when my husband (a polyester-clad, New York City dweller from Queens) asked me (a back-to-the-land, tepee-dwelling ex-hippie) to marry him, I asked him how he felt about dinner. After a moment of stunned silence, he said, “As in eating it?” 

Clearly he was mortified by images of grazing in the garden after a day’s work and would need a properly concocted meal. Over the years, I’ve learned to make some cd’s, as he calls them—culinary delights—although I never acquired an attachment to the kitchen. That’s why I was surprised when a friend said she’d thought of me when she came across a cookbook. Turns out her association was all in the title: Lit A’ La Carte: Favorite Recipes of Famous Authors.

Stealth Words: A Writer’s Overlooked Weapon

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

The title did it. Compelled me to halt the project I was intent on and head straight to the library. I was familiar with The Secret Life of Beesand The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but The Secret Life of Pronouns?What on earth could these unremarkable little words be doing behind the scenes that warranted such attention? 

Am I Purposed to Write?

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

I like to encourage people, to inspire them by sharing examples of others who have done something of interest. But today, I’m taking the “misery loves company” approach for those of you who may have returned from a conference high in hopes but are now scraping bottom, or those of you who can’t get even your mother to buy your book. Take heart. Here’s what a few giants who have trod that road before you have to say:

One Writer's Story of the Takeaway

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

Several years ago my memoir manuscript, Call of a Coward, won the nonfiction award at a writers conference. The following week, puffed with pride, I shared the first few pages at our critique-group meeting. To be sure, even if I didn’t mention my recent honors, I was certain everyone would be impressed with my excerpt.

A Writer's Mighty Metaphor: Is Life Really “A Bowl of Cherries?”

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

“Metaphors hold the most truth in the least amount of space”—Orson Scott Card

Metaphors. Poets use them. So do special arms of U.S. intelligence. Aristotle said mastering them was a sign of genius. He also said they couldn’t be learned from others. Far be it for me to take on Aristotle, but I think there are ways we can hone our skills to incorporate this powerful literary element into our writing.

Creative Nonfiction: 3 Ways to Bridge Gaps and Turn Facts into Narrative

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

Stashed among the pages of my father’s genealogy chronicles, the faded photocopy of three men leaning on their 1885 era firearms begged a story. The trio had been commissioned to explore and map a portion of the newly acquired territory Alaska. One of them was a distant relative. By researching archives, genealogy records and old photos, I gathered facts. But how could I turn the historical facts of a report into an engaging narrative? Is it possible for a writer to suggest the motives of someone long dead and still remain true to the expectations of nonfiction?

DO Sweat the Small Stuff When You Write

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

Even if you’re a southern woman who “glistens” instead of sweats, when it comes to conveying emotion-evoking images, do sweat the small stuff. Like seeds in a shell, it’s the little details and rituals and routines of life that pack the power.

Self-Publishing—A Way to Preserve Those Family Stories

by Marcia Moston @MarciaMoston

For many of us, it’s not until after our parents, grandparents or elderly friends have died and taken their stories with them that we think of all the things we wished we’d asked about.