Schedule for the Two Day December Memoir Mini-Workship with FREE PREVIEW!

Workshop Presenter:  Linda Joy Meyers, Ph.D., MFT, NAMW President

Free Preview: How to Write Your Memoir and Still Go Home for the Holidays

Date: Friday December 4, 2009
Time: 4:00 PM PST | 5:00 PM MST | 6:00 PM CST | 7:00 PM EST
Miss the Preview? You can receive a link to the audio recording of this session by signing up for the Two-Day Workshop Teleseminar!

Part One: Working with the Inner Critic

Date: Thursday December 17, 2009
Time: 4:00 PM PST | 5:00 PM MST | 6:00 PM CST | 7:00 PM EST
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Part Two: Discovering and Writing Your Truths 

Date: Friday December 18, 2009
Time: 4:00 PM PST | 5:00 PM MST | 6:00 PM CST | 7:00 PM EST
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Miss the preview call or can’t attend both of the classes that make up the two-day session? Sign up for the two-day December Memoir Mini-Workshop Teleseminar and you will receive the audio recordings of each of the calls shortly following each session! 

Become a member of NAMW and get a discount!

$75.00 for NAMW Members | $95.00 for the General Public

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Full Workshop Details

Free Preview Topic: How to Write Your Memoir and Still Go Home for the Holidays

Date: Friday December 4, 2009
Time: 4:00 PM PST | 5:00 PM MST | 6:00 PM CST | 7:00 PM EST 

Miss the Preview? You can receive a link to the audio recording of this session by signing up for the Two-Day Workshop Teleseminar! 

Everyone takes a collective breath at conferences and in my workshops when the words “memoir” and “family” appear in the same sentence. Hearts beat faster and pulses race, as visions of upset family members point imaginary fingers. Sometimes this is all it takes to silence a beginning memoir writer; others go into overdrive trying to figure out how much to leave in or take out so the family won’t be displeased, or worse, uninvite them to family gatherings.

This kind of stress needs to be managed for the writer to continue to unfold a very personal story, and to dig into the deepest truths that must be done for a memoir to work as a vibrant and important story. This is what memoir writing is all about—finding our voice and telling our truths.

During this workshop, the line will be open to answer your questions about this touchy subject. Linda will address the issues she has encountered both in her personal writing journey and the ones where she’s mentored others.

The following two workshops in the mini-series will be Working with the Inner Critic—an offspring of the “outer critics” and Writing Your Truths.Be sure to join us for some of the most important subjects that memoir writers must face: putting their family and friends in their story, making them “characters” in the memoir, and dealing with various levels of truth. When unresolved, the memoir writes screeches to a halt, hounded by guilt and those imagined pointing fingers. Then the inner critic wins, and the writer is silenced. When you have the proper tools and perspective all of these challenges can be overcome and you will be free to write with a full clear voice.

Part One: Working with the Inner Critic

Date: Thursday December 17, 2009
Time: 4:00 PM PST | 5:00 PM MST | 6:00 PM CST | 7:00 PM EST

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,

“Why do you have to write THAT? Just get on with your life.”

Or from family, “How dare you air our dirty laundry!”

Sometimes we have internalized the inner English teacher—the kind that demanded perfection,

“You can’t write, you don’t know how. Just stop while you’re ahead.”

There are “nice” inner critics: “You’re tired, you’ve had a hard life. Just have a glass of wine, put up your feet, and start on that story tomorrow.”

And many people, especially if they were mistreated, criticized or abused, have a harsh inner critic:

“You should be ashamed to put such drivel on the page.”

“Shut up! How dare you speak like that? You will kill us if you say that.”

One of the worst: “You are soooo boring. Stop now.”

Everyone I have coached over the years has some kind of inner critic, and we must all wrestle with it and come to terms with it if we are to write.

In this workshop, we will keep the line open so you can share your inner critic voices—and some of you will have “outer critic” or family voices to add to the chorus—so we can come up with a method that you can use to help you keep writing.

Sue William Silverman said in her NAMW interview that rewriting and being committed to writing your story is the way to succeed, and Mary Karr said, “being a writer is not about talent, it is about perseverance.” So let’s trust in these experts and their experience. They both had to combat their inner critic too.

Join us to find new tools to work with your inner critic. I promise to tell you how really BAD my inner critic was, and how hard I had to work to tame it so I could keep writing.

Part Two: Discovering and Writing Your Truths

Date: Friday December 18, 2009
Time: 4:00 PM PST | 5:00 PM MST | 6:00 PM CST | 7:00 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?

When we choose to write a memoir, we dive into the rivers of memory for our version of what happened, to remember our own experiences and to tell them straight, adhering to the basic truths of our experience. Yet competing voices interfere with our process of writing our truths, from the inner critic to the family. And we worry about the veracity of our memory. Dare we tell our truth? Do we even know what it is?

Most memoir writers struggle with “truth” in its various forms, whether it means expressing the difficult truths, admitting the truth to themselves, or putting it on the page for others to read. In this workshop we will investigate truth—and you will have a chance to express your doubts, worries and questions about the subject of truth on your journey to writing a memoir.

Some of the questions memoir writers ask: What if the family does not agree with my truth? Who’s right when it comes to family events? How can I keep family and friends from getting angry at my truths? Can someone sue me for telling my truth?

Because I’m not an attorney, I can’t advise you on the legal issues, but I can talk with you about your questions about writing your truths, which can be a stumbling block.

In a later workshop, we will focus specifically on family dynamics, which interlock with the issue of truth. In this workshop, we will talk about what gets in the way for you and come up with ways for you to proceed despite your voices of doubt.

We will leave the line open so you can talk about the questions you have about your own truths, and what gets in the way of you writing your memoir with full commitment and energy.