Denis Ledoux's Blog, page 38

Four Reasons to Take a Break from Writing

When should you take a break from writing?

Writing is hard work, and there will be many times when it seems too difficult. You sit at your desk and nothing much comes. Your impulse is to get up to do something—anything—else, as long as it’s not writing! You think of the lawn that needs mowing, the closet that needs cleaning, etc.

But, stop and ask yourself if you may simply need to take a break from writing and need some physical activity, rather than avoiding the work.

A break can be sh...

Watch out for Word Re-inforcers

Letting words mean what they mean…

In a previous post, I wrote about using words more precisely than we often do. Specifically, I pointed out redundant usages.

Today I would like to rant about a few other phrases that have come my way recently. I call them word re-inforcers. They are like redundant words but are focused on making words mean the same thing but more acutely.

Examples of word re-inforcers Amazon recently offered me a “free gift.” Awfully good of them to make gifts free. (Whe...

How to Pick up Your Memoir Writing Again When You’ve Slacked Off?

How do you pick up your memoir writing again?

If you have stopped writing because of a holiday, a vacation, an illness, or lassitude (read: “It’s too hard! I want it to be easy!”), make today—now—be the time you pick up your memoir writing again and write to the end.

Like all long-term projects

Many things happen to long-term projects to put them on hold. Being on hold can only last a while—then, it’s time to get going again. Like people who leave their Christmas trees up until February (...

Your Life as a Myth Part 3

The following is the third installment of a three-part series on the use of myths and archetypes in memoir writing. In this first post of Your Life as a Myth, I wrote about both archetypal patterns in general and about the martyr archetype. In the second post, I wrote about the orphan and the martyr. These posts are excerpted from Turning Memories Into Memoirs / A Handbook for Writing Lifestories.

In the first installment of Your life as a Myth I wrote about the martyr archetype and in the...

Your Life as a Myth Part 2

The following is the second installment of a three-part series on the use of myths and archetypes in memoir writing. In the first part of  Your Life as a Myth, I wrote about both archetypal patterns in general and about the martyr archetype. In today’s post, I  write about the orphan and the prince-left-at-the-pauper’s-door. Both frequently make appearances in a memoir. These posts are excerpted from Turning Memories Into Memoirs / A Handbook for Writing Lifestories.

What is the orphan arch...

Your Life as a Myth Part 1

The following is the first installment of a three-part series on the use of myths and archetypes in memoir writing. In this first post of Your Life as a Myth, I write about both archetypal patterns in general and about the martyr archetype. In the second post, I write about the orphan and the martyr. In the third post, I write about general considerations of using myths and archetypes. These posts are excerpted from Turning Memories Into Memoirs / A Handbook for Writing Lifestories.

 

Myths...

Writing About Family Stories You Don’t Agree With

How do you write about family stories whose interpretation you don’t agree with?

We all have family stories that we have heard over and over again. When they are told in family gatherings, no one expects any contradiction. After all, the stories are the accepted “truth” about someone in the family. The problem is that you don’t agree with the meaning people ascribe to it.

How do you write about these family stories you don’t agree with? There’s no problem when you are in agreement with the...

Going Beyond Family Myths to What Really Happened

Family myths aren’t always true.

Your family myths may be stories your people choose to tell about themselves regardless of what really happened.

What are myths?

Myths are stories we tell about how the world seems to us to be organized. Most of us are familiar with the religious myths Greeks and Romans told as they sought to explain their world. These have survived as labels for archetypes and psychological energies—and for naming running shoes and submarines.

The myths we tell are so power...

An Effective Strategy to Work Through Writer’s Block

Why let writer’s block stop you?

“What can I do about writer’s block?” I am asked regularly by stumped writers.

“Pretty much the same as a plumber does with a plumber’s block,” I’ll respond.

People twitter at this reply. Perhaps it’s because they take my response to their writer’s block question for a joke and they’re anticipating a good punch line.

But, this is no joke. A good plumber, I tell these “blocked” writers, goes about his job whether he’s inspired to lay in the pipes of a new bat...

Writing Your Memoir One Story at a Time—It Adds Up

Make Writing Your Memoir Less Daunting

Writing your memoir does not have to be an intimidating task. Envisioning your autobiography as a series of stories makes the sizable task of writing the stories of a lifetime tolerable and ultimately enjoyable. Lifestories, written singly just as they are told, one by one, add up—sometimes effortlessly—to a memoir.

Whenever I have written a book, I have written it several pages at a time. Were I to ask a beginning writer, “can you produce a 140-page s...