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 Gratitude is the heart's memory
--French Proverb
Giving thanks, gratitude, blessings--this is the time of year to remember your blessings and all the things, large or small, to give thanks for. This attitude of openness and receptivity, pleasure and fullness radiates from you into the universe.
The Holidays
by Linda Joy Myers, President, National Association of Memoir Writers
 Welcome to all new members and newsletter subscribers!
It's been a busy month at the National Association of Memoir Writers. We were lucky to be able to interview Sue William Silverman on a live call where all the callers could talk to her directly about their memoir questions. Sue is a wonderful resource for skills and information about memoir writing. She generously shared her writing process about writing her deeply emotional and revealing memoirs, and answered important questions about truth and the different narrators in a memoir, and other topics. She will address the issue of voice at our member-only teleseminar in February. Click here to listen to her interview.
 It was an exciting month for me-- my review for Mary Karr's Lit was accepted by Story Circle Book Reviews and was awarded book review of the month! And even more fun, I attended Mary's reading at Book Passage and got my picture taken with her! She has so much wisdom to share about memoir writing and her own passage of self-development through authoring three memoirs.
We launched our first Mini-Workshop of the series which will continue through the spring. A lot of people signed up, eager to find ways tips to organize their memoir and learn about the timeline technique. The details about the next mini-workshop are in this newsletter and you can sign up on the NAMW website.
It is the season of celebrations with family and friends. At this time of year we appreciate the blessings, and even the challenges, of the old year while we imagine our hopes and dreams for he New Year. Soon it will be the Winter Solstice, a time where the world tips from the darkness into the light. In this darkness rest the seeds of our future, anticipating the warmth and light of spring to give birth to new creativity. But for now, we burrow into the darkness and warmth, nurturing our creativity, allowing the darkness to enfold us as we meditate on the cycles of the seasons.
During the holiday season and everyone tries to decide what to buy their friends and relatives. My favorites are books, CDs, and DVDs of movies that I love. And anything that will stimulate my creativity and help me with my writing--journals, new pens, and paper.
Here at NAMW we are offering the lowest price of the year for our memberships--$107. We need to raise our membership prices in the new year, so now's the time to take advantage of our low price--whether for yourself or a friend. Simply enter coupon code CYBERMONW33KSALE and click 'apply,' to receive the $20 discount off a regularly priced new membership or renewal rate of $127. For renewals, click here. To purchase a new membership, click here. The coupon code will work for both renewals or new memberships. The sale ends Monday at Midnight EST, so please act quickly if you want to receive the discount pricing. If you have questions about the sale, just email info@namw.org for more details.
Please also remember to join us for Rebecca Lawton's Member-only teleseminar next week on Friday December 11, 2009. Members will receive full call in details via email a few days prior to the teleseminar. More details about the teleseminar can be found below. Please also make sure you scroll to the bottom of this newsletter for a great writing exercise and article that Rebecca shared for this newsletter in anticipation of next week's Member-only teleseminar!
Best Wishes of the Season!
Upcoming Events at NAMW
We have several events and new workshops that are being planned for the coming months at NAMW that will be helpful to the development of your skills as writers, memoirists, or personal historians. You can find all the finalized events outlined below, but please be sure to check out the NAMW website for new additions.
 December 4, 2009--TODAY!--Still Time to Sign Up!
--Free for general public & NAMW Members
FREE Preview for Mini-Workshop Teleseminar: How to Write Your Memoir and Still Go Home for the Holidays with Linda Joy Myers--to sign up, follow above link--it's not too late!
Times: 4 PM PST | 5 MST | 6 CST | 7 EST
 December 11 and 18, 2009
--Members Receive a Discounted Rate-- Become a Member to receive Discount!
--Memoir Mini-Workshop Teleseminar for December 2009 2-session Memoir Mini-Workshops with Linda Joy Myers
Times: 4pm PST | 5pm MST | 6pm CST | 7pm EST
 December 11, 2009
--Free for NAMW Members--Become a Member to participate!
Planning and Publishing In Spite of Ourselves with Rebecca Lawton
Times: 11am PST | 12noon MST | 1pm CST | 2pm EST
 January 22, 2009
--Free for NAMW Members--Become a Member to participate!
What Really Makes a Memoir--from an Agents Point of View with Literary Agents Michael Larsen & Elizabeth Pomado---Watch the NAMW website for Full Details!
Times: 11am PST | 12noon MST | 1pm CST | 2pm EST
NAMW Featured Member:
Karen Walker, December 2009 NAMW Featured Member
Click here to read more.
Holiday Memories
 The holidays can be times of deep emotion--everyone is "supposed" to be happy but sometimes ancient conflicts burst out, and old unresolved issues arise for another round of discussion. For memoir writers, you can use these moments to develop a sense of objectivity in the face of family drama--think of it as research. When you have time, take note of the particulars in the family dynamics, how family members talk, the cadence of dialogue. What are the sources of the ancient conflicts? Who is the most positive person in the family? Is there a scapegoat, and why?
For many writers, memories of the past can be hard to uncover until the person finds herself in the same setting, visiting the home town, or sitting in a living room that evokes times gone by. When you visit a place where you grew up or spent a lot of time in the past, be prepared to capture new memories as they arise. Keep your journal handy, and pen at hand. Just don't tell everyone you are writing a memoir, or they might clam up or harass you about what you are putting in it! Nothing riles up a family like a memoirist in their midst!
Many families have rituals that carry meaning, such as tree trimming, choosing new ornaments, Hanukkah candles and latke parties. Each of these rituals have deep and enduring emotional significance, and it can be helpful to capture scenes from the past using scenes from the present as your jumping off point, a memory trigger.
Holidays can be a focal point for our memories, hopes and dreams. Thinking about holidays in the past can help you deepen your understanding of your family.
Reflect upon your holiday memories, and discover what meaning you find in them now.
- Describe your childhood home during the holidays--how was it decorated? How did your neighborhood, town, or city look during the holidays?
- Was there another favorite house or home that you enjoyed during the holidays? Write with sensual details--color, sound, smell, and taste.
- What is one of your favorite photographs from a holiday? Describe what is in the photograph, and write about why it's your favorite.
- Write about your favorite holiday food, recipe, or story that you associate with holiday rituals--cookie baking, special cakes, or any ritual food that has meaning to you.
- What was your most wished for Christmas or Chanukah present? Did you receive it? Write about your feelings.
- Write about past holidays--were they happy or sad for you? What did your family do to celebrate?
- Is there a New Year's celebration you remember best? How old were you, and where did you celebrate?
- What rituals do you bring from past holidays into your celebrations now?
December 2009 Memoir Mini-workshop Two-Part Series PLUS Preview
Part One: Working with the Inner Critic
Date: December 11, 2009
Times: 4 PM PST | 5 MST | 6 CST | 7 EST
Note: In case you can't join us for this call, you will receive the audio recording via email.
All creative artists, including writers, must wrestle with negative and doubting inner voices, the kind that are defeating and discouraging. The source of the inner critic can be from society... [Read more]
Part Two: Discovering and Writing Your Truths
Date: December 18, 2009
Times: 4 PM PST | 5 PM MST | 6 PM CST | 7 PM EST
Memoir writing, especially in this post James Frey age, is about writing the truth as we know and experience it, yet we become worried about "truth"--what is it? Who defines it? How can we handle it in our memoir?... [Read more]
San Francisco Writer's Conference
The 7th Annual San Francisco Writers Conference (SFWC) will be February 12, 13, and 14, 2010, at the Mark Hopkins Hotel.
Keynoters are Steve Berry and Jacquelyn Mitchard. Memoirists and people talking about and teaching different aspects of memoir will be Herbert Gold "Still Here!", Adair Lara, Jane Ganahl "Naked on the Page," and Wendy Merrill, "Falling Into Manholes." Victoria Zackheim's new collection is also memoir-oriented.
Past SFWC Presenter, Catherine Friend, shares and article below. Be sure to check it out! And for more details about the San Francisco Writer's Conference, please visit their website.
 Excerpt from CHAPTER TEN: Wishing and Hoping
by Rebecca Lawton
Dear Readers, I look forward to meeting you during the December 11 NAMW teleseminar. Before then, I'd love it if you had a chance to read this excerpt from my book with Jordan E. Rosenfeld, Write Free: Attracting the Creative Life (BeijaFlor Press). This excerpt encourages you to use your singular talent--writing--to get what you want in you career and life. Enjoy! Rebecca Lawton
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.
--Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Wishes are powerful urges. They come from deep within and, when not suppressed, have much to say about how we long to live our lives. Wishes are like clouds towering on the horizon saying, "Notice me." Wishes come with big packets of feeling energy attached. Say you've had your eye on a magazine in which you'd like to publish your work. You can approach it several ways: one, with certainty that you'll find a way into its pages if it's right for you, or two, with hopelessness and doubt. Which attitude do you think inspires the kind of action that produces positive results? Which attitude leads to contacting the right editor, writing with vision and imagination, and sending the best work you have to offer? It all starts with a wish; it continues with inspired action supporting the wish.
Try this!
The Wish List
The Wish List is a simple grid with amazing powers. Writing your intentions in The Wish List lifts your energy about them and mobilizes help in all forms. All it takes to get started is a pen, your journal, and your deep desires.
I. Open your journal to a clean, two-page spread. Write the date in an upper corner.
Recording the date is essential. You'll want a record of when you began this game, for comparison to later Wish Lists.
II. On the left page, create two columns for the full length of the page. Label the first column "1 Month" and the second "3 Months." On the right page, create two more columns. Label the first column "6 Months" and the second "1 Year."
Example:
| 1 month |
3 months |
6 months |
1 year |
III. In each column, list your vision of what you wish to have in your life during those time periods.
Don't worry about how you're to achieve your wishes. Just honor that you want something, and note that you intend to manifest it.
Example:
| 1 month |
3 months |
6 months |
1 year |
| Write every morning |
Assemble three morning writings into essays |
Publish at least three essays in journals of my choice |
Enjoy status as author with several published essays to my credit |
Some tips:
Play this game slowly and with an awareness of your feelings as you go. And please don't worry about "missing deadlines." If you don't hit the intentions in the time frames listed, you simply get to reframe the timeline. The Wish List is meant to be refreshed as often as needed to renew your feelings about goals. More often than not, you'll be amazed at how often the intentions have become reality, and not so far off from the proposed time.
But don't take our word for it. Try it for yourself!
 14 Tips on Writing Your Memoir
by Catherine Friend, author of Hit by Farm, offering the following Advice at the 2007 San Francisco Writers Conference
1. Memoir is a slice of life, not the whole thing. Don't share funny stories from your childhood or college days unless those stories directly relate to the 'slice' you're writing about. Keep that 'slice' as narrow as possible.
2. Make sure you tell your story, not your parents' or your brother's or your neighbor's. If these people have stories that fascinate you, and you're involved in the story, focus on how the events affected you. Tell the story using your life as the lens or filter.
3. Know your motivation. Why are you telling your story? To teach? Warn? Entertain? As therapy? If revenge is on the list, you might want to reconsider until you've cooled off.
4. Speaking of which, let your emotions age, like wine. If you're writing about something emotionally difficult, give yourself time to move beyond those emotions. If a memoir's narrator is incredibly angry or passionate on the page, then there's no room for me, as the reader, to experience those emotions. It sounds backwards, but the less emotional you are on the page, the deeper the emotions your readers will experience.
5. Don't start at the beginning. That's boring. Instead look for that defining moment, the one that told you your life was about to change. For me, that was the day I knelt behind a ram and squeezed his testicles. And don't get hung up on finding the perfect beginning, since that will likely be the last part of the book you write anyway. Just start somewhere.
6. Be willing to write about what went wrong. Sorry, but no one cares about the things that have gone right in your life. It's the mistakes and disasters that are interesting. I wrote not about my education or job successes, but about planting 200 grapevines upside down. When things go wrong, it creates tension
7. You are the main character, so don't be perfect. Embrace your quirks and accept your flaws. This honesty will help you connect with readers. The fact that I'm grossed out by manure and don't like to work hard tells readers I have no business farming. If you let readers know you aren't perfect, this creates tension. A memoir is just like a novel when it comes to tension---the more, the better.
8.How do you feel about yourself? If you think you're adorable and awesome, I don't want to read about you. If you despise yourself, I also don't want to read about you. Instead of self-love or self-loathing, aim for self-curiosity, or self-amusement. "Gosh, I wonder why I did that?" This can turn disasters like the upside-down grapevines into a compelling story.
9. Look for threads running through your story. Find two or three themes, and then make sure all your material connects to one of these threads. If you do this, you'll write a tight, cohesive memoir. Also, whenever two threads cross in a story, you'll create---once again---tension. Every time that farming interfered with my writing, talk about tension.
10. Put your story in context. What's happening in the world around you? Step outside yourself and consider family, community, state, nation. Yes, you're writing a memoir, but that doesn't mean it's all about you. The story of your car accident on August 12, 2001 may not include national events, but if you're writing about your car accident on September 12, 2001, you'd better step back and look at how this fits into bigger events.
11. Truth vs. Fact. Because memoir is creative nonfiction, it's meant to be shaped into a story. You don't always need to stick with an exact timeline, but you do need to stay truthful. If you find yourself saying, "But that's the way it happened," step back and see if you can reshape the truth into a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Do this not by making things up, but by looking at the event as a storyteller.
12. Speaking of which, break your material down into stories. Don't treat your slice of life as one big story. It's really many little ones, and approaching your memoir this way will make it more enjoyable for others to read. Just think about how you tell the story to a friend over pizza---you don't share every detail, you slow down at the good parts, and you end with the piece of the story that amazed you.
13. Memoir is based on memory, and memory is unreliable. So if you look to family or friends to validate your memories, don't be surprised if they're different than yours. This is your memoir, so you get to tell your version.
14. Relax and have fun. Don't take yourself or your story too seriously. Play around. Convert one story to a grocery list, another to a poem. Read lots of memoirs. Think outside the box. It may take a while, but you will find the best way to tell your story.
Visit ThePowerOfMemoir.com for more details.
I wish all of you the very best holiday season. Keep writing! If you have any questions, or would like to suggest a workshop topic please let us know. Email us at: info@namw.org.
Warm regards,
Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., MFT
President & Founder
Be Brave. Write Your Story.
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