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Member-to-Member

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on by

Do you have a writing question your peers can answer? Do you have answers your peers might find useful? Books you are reading to tell us about, references and activities for writers? Interact here!

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Member-to-Member — 5 Comments

  1. I have found a treasure online, a free video class lecture my fiction writing/memoirist Ayelet Waldman, who I have just interviewed for my radio show on KPTZ FM. It will air soon and become a podcast with a link in my Writing It Real KPTZ.org archives. Here’s the link to this fabulous class:https://www.creativelive.com/courses/telling-your-truth-through-writing-a-conversation-with-ayelet-waldman.

    You have to sign in with your email address and that’s it!

    Sheila

  2. Hi Sheila & WIR Community!

    I want to invite each and every writer in the ‘Writing it Real’ Community to join me for a New Year 21-Day ‘Start Writing Your Memoir’ Challenge that begins January 5, 2017. You can Register NOW by going to http://playequalspeace.com/startwritingyourmemoir/ #startyourmemoir

    I am currently writing and playfully organizing my memoir manuscript ‘I Would Have Named Him Peter’ with an eye to publishing my story next year. My memoir revolves around my experience as a surrogate mother for my psychotherapist and her husband. My surrogate son will celebrate his 30th birthday on March 5, 2017. Its important to me that the story of his birth and the ‘postpartum’ that followed be shared to celebrate the son I haven’t seen since giving him away + and the creativity that was birthed as a result of my personal experience.

  3. I am writing in the first person and have trouble finding interesting and clever ways to begin sentences without using “I” all the time. Anyone have any suggestions? Do you need to see the actual text to come up with suggestions? Is there any kind of formula or standard approach to this?

    • Hi Nancy,
      You are asking a very good question. Sentence variety is key to interesting writing that has a rhythm that engages readers. Complex sentences alternate in some way with compound sentences and simple sentences. Where the dependent clause falls in the sentence varies. Here is an idea:

      I went to the store. I saw that the sun had set. I wanted to buy groceries before the snow fell. I wasn’t happy to drive in the dark.

      Might become:
      When I left for the store, the sun had already set. It was going to snow several feet, and I wanted to buy groceries before we were shut in for days. The darkness seemed a foreboding.

      I am just playing here to set an example of how you might look at sentence variety. Here is a link to a reference you might like to get started concentrating on sentence variety: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/573/01/

      Any other thoughts from WIR members?

      • Thanks, Sheila, for the information; it is very helpful. And, I cannot thank you enough for the link to the Purdue OWL. It’s great to have an online reference I can go to in a second!

        Since I have been a BnB owner and innkeeper for the past twenty years and not involved in the teaching of English anymore (except for self-teaching through my continued writing). I find my memory of the rules and usage of our language somewhat faded.

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