Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 14

Fixer Upper: Renovating and Revising (Your Memoir)

By Stephanie Denman

Standing in the apartment I’d bought in Italy from 7,000 miles away, sight unseen, in a village I’d never heard of, I struggled to catch my breath. The amount of work needed was overwhelming. It’s the way I feel every time I look at my manuscript. 

The foundation was solid, but the flat was a mashup of two homes plastered together with an exposed hole in the middle where grimy, moss-covered front and back porches collided. Decorated over decades, the interior layered...

Understanding Memoir: It’s Not About What You Did, It’s About What You Did With It

By Trish Lockard

One of my biggest challenges as a freelance editor and writing coach is encountering potential clients who don’t yet understand the definition of memoir. 

Believe me, I get it! When I started my editing business seven years ago, even I misunderstood what it was. I had dreams of working with elderly folks in my county in East Tennessee to help them document their lives while they still could. I confused memoir with life legacy stories, which is the most common mistake pe...

On Shame, Dread, and Book Launches

By Sara Hosey

If you’ve written a book that you can’t share with the people who love you, or if you have a book coming out and you find yourself sweating and squirming as you imagine others actually reading it, come sit by me.

I was deeply ashamed before the publication of my first book—and it wasn’t even a memoir! I had worked on my novel, Iphigenia Murphy, in secret, only telling my partner that I had written it once I’d found a publisher. (For the record, Jess, my partner, is wonderf...

Fact Checking: We Went to the Cafe and Got the Village onto It

By Sara King

The cafe was a TV repair shop when I was young, but it’s a social hub for locals now. The High Street’s little changed, except that Dad and his contemporaries rumble along on walkers; girls I went to school with have grandchildren round their skirts; and faces I don’t recognize are introduced as neighbors whenever I go home. Still I’m hugged and kissed and welcomed, fifty-plus years on. Still I feel accepted; one of the village’s own.

Four thousand miles away, at altitude a...

Rejection is a Piece of Cake

By Darlene P. Campos

When my husband and I were engaged, we attended a wedding cake testing at a bakery. The owner brought us different samples and while the flavors were not lacking, each had a strong taste of almonds. Though I love almonds, I do not like them in desserts. When the owner asked for my opinion, I gently told him the almond extract was a little overwhelming. To my shock, he replied, “You didn’t like it because I only cater to high-end brides.” With that, I gave him a greater...

The Big Picture: Plan Your Book by Zooming Out

By Allison K Williams

We often write memoir by starting with an experience, a revelation, or the realization “someone else needs to know about what happened to me.” And we often get bogged down in the middle. We know the ending: we’re here, we’re healthy, we’re thriving (we hope!). We sometimes know the beginning, the moment we were furthest from the goal.

And then there’s the messy middle.

What scenes belong?

My book feels slow, but I don’t know why.

My writing group loves thi...

Stay a Little Bit Longer: The Art of Zooming In and Lingering

By Ethan Gilsdorf

“I’m not quite seeing this,” a student might say in one of my workshops, trying to grasp a vague or murky moment in a memoir. “That’s not entirely clear,” another might comment. “Is there more here?” I might suggest. “Dig deeper?”

These comments are addressing the reader’s desire to more fully enter into the experience a writer thinks they have created. In personal essay, memoir and creative nonfiction, we want to bring to our pages a sense of verisimilitude, of intrud...

Don’t Lose Your Nerve: Discovering Disabled Forms and Structures

By Sarah Fawn Montgomery

Disability happened swiftly. One moment I was fine and the next moment I was not, several spinal injuries leaving me unable to feel my hands and feet or control their movement, relentless nerve damage painfully pulsing through each of my limbs. I could not feed or bathe myself, let alone read or write. Doctors warned recovery would be slow and difficult—if it was even possible. They cautioned against trying to write, an activity that had always helped to give my li...

Outrunning the Inner Critic: In Praise of Fast Drafting

by Darien Hsu Gee

A few years ago, a writer friend struggled for months with a memoir project, writing and rewriting the same five chapters. She’d craft beautiful sentences, then delete them. She’d restructure scenes, then change them back. When I asked how much of the book she’d completed, she told me, “Just these opening chapters. I can’t move forward until I get them right.” She eventually abandoned the project entirely.

What my friend needed wasn’t more time or talent—she needed to ...

Kayaking Isn’t Like Writing

By Judith Hannan

I had to work to get my kayak into the water the other day. The air had warmed enough, I thought, to melt the ice. But a sheet remained where I launch my boat. Beyond, I saw calm water, a sole swan, bufflehead ducks and a rising sun. I needed to start my day among such beauty so I began to portage, dragging my kayak along the slippery shore until I arrived at open water. I sat, pushed off, sighed.

I love sitting on the water, being on the level of sea birds, staring int...