How to Write Your Memoir & Still Go Home for the Holidays: Focusing on Plot While Telling Your Truths and Defeating Your Critic

Everyone takes a collective breath at writing conferences and workshops when the words “memoir” and “family” appear in the same sentence. Our offering for December will help you conquer the emotional facets of memoir writing, and also help you stay focused on and learn about plot development–one of the more technical aspects of memoir writing–while contemplating the holidays and  family members–past or present.

Course Dates:

Session 1: Friday December 3, 2010
Session 2: Friday December 10, 2010
Session 3: Friday December 17, 2010

Time:                  4pm PST | 5pm MST | 6pm CST | 7pm EST

Instructor:  Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., MFT

Pricing:
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Session 1–Friday December 3, 2010
Writing Your Truths

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?

In this session, the phone line will remain 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.

What you will learn

• How to recognize and define truths in their various forms
• Understanding your battles with the truths of your experiences
• How you can keep family and friends from getting angry about your truths
• Knowing who’s right when it comes to family events
  

Session 2–Friday December 10, 2010
Defeating Your Critics

In this session, 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.

What you will learn

• How to tame your inner critic
• Tools to keep writing
• Why becoming committed to writing your story is so very important to your success as a writer
• Recognizing how our “nice critics,” are just as bad as our “bad critics”

Session 3–Friday December 17, 2010
Plot for Memoirists

Most memoirists think they have a plot when they start to write—after all, they know their life events, right?

A series of events does not create a plot.  In this session we’ll discuss and learn about the tools you must have to define and create a plot within life story.

What you will learn

• Why plot, scene, and story are necessary to your memoir
• How to find your plot in the chaos of memory
• How plot is created from scene
• What are the necessary parts of a scene?

About the Instructor:

Linda Joy Myers, Ph. D. is the author of The Power of Memoir–How to Write Your Healing Story, Becoming Whole:  Writing Your Healing Story and Don’t Call Me Mother.  Linda has been a therapist in Berkeley for over thirty years, and combines her background in art, clinical work, and writing in her work. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College, and offers unique memoir workshops and trainings in the Bay Area and nationally. She is former president of the California Writers Club, Marin branch, and a member of Women’s National Book Association. Myers is an award-winning memoirist, fiction, poetry, and non-fiction writer, her first book Becoming Whole: Writing Your Healing Story was featured on the Marin Bestseller’s list.

Excerpts from her memoir Don’t Call Me Mother have won several prizes, including first prize at the Jack London Writing Contest and was ranked in the top five percent of the Writers Digest Nonfiction Contest. Her memoir Don’t Call Me Mother won the Bay Area Independent Publishing Association Gold Medal Award.

Find Linda Joy on the Web:

Linda’s Blog:  http://www.MemoriesandMemoirs.com

Twitter:  http://www.Twitter.com/MemoirGuru

We hope that you can join us for this timely workshop on How to Write Your Memoir & Still Go Home for the Holidays: Focusing on Plot While Telling Your Truths and Defeating Your Critic. If you have any questions about this workshop or the many benefits of membership NAMW members receive, please contact us at 1-877-e-memoir or via email at info@namw.org.  And remember, be brave.  Write your stories!