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ON WRITING—INSPIRATION, INTENTION, FRUITION

01/25/2012 By 2 Comments
Inspiration

Or is it intention, inspiration, fruition?  Many years ago, inspiration led me to write a book, a guidebook filled with exercises and stories to take “most anyone” on a journey along a writer’s path. For the past few years, my intention has been to craft it well, to make it different and special, and then to send this guidebook out to the masses. That is now coming to fruition—this spring TellTale Souls Writing The Mother Memoir: How to Tap Memory & Write Your Story will be published – March or April, well before Mother’s Day, anyway.Back to the order of the nouns. Fruition needs to stay put on the list, since it marks the end point, the fulfillment of the desire to transport your thoughts to paper through a heartfelt story or to Wow! the world with a brilliant 400 page page-turner.  However, whether to put intention or inspiration first on the list isn’t so cut and dried.  But, does it matter?  Let’s take a look at both intention and inspiration.Is it your

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‘Tis the Season…so please tell me what you believe in

12/22/2011 By 2 Comments
Woman in creative thought

Merry Mother Memoir and a Happy New Writing Year    I BELIEVE. TELL IF YOU DO, TOO, AND WHY.      With love from The Story Woman to you thoughtful, amazing TellTale Souls

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GHOST DANCE OF TELLTALE SOULS

10/30/2011 By 2 Comments
Ghosts Dance

Memories dance like ghosts in our heads until we realize we have the power to set them free.GHOST DANCEI crept inside and found youoh ghosts of persistent passion,sacred dancers, anticipating me;chant-like voices calling, cries summoning—seeking communion… Concentric rings of shadows embrace,spirits soar united, receiving, awakening,inscribing one more soul, ghost dance resumes;mothers, sisters, daughters, the throng consumes—we nod in recognition… I chose the ethereal path seeking you, andfound ageless, fervid wisdom, thick liquid;otherworldly things now manifest in core.children of grace, voiceless ones, my time to guideyour dance… All ghosts of mothers, burgeoning with radiance;spirit flames now molten sterling strokes on canvas;hands molding clay, forever blending, bending, gushing—releasing memories encoded in repose, etched in seed—for youprogeny.  This poem was meant to inspire those daughters and sons hesitant to take first steps intowriting the Mother Memoir

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Blindness Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

10/23/2011 By Leave a Comment
Cat winking

“Beauty” is in the eye of the beholder—this saying is hard to dispute, most everyone agrees, and I’ll go it a step further and say “blindness” is in the eye of the beholder. All too often we view others and our surroundings with a blind eye. We have preconceived ideas about people and things making it difficult to lay our assumptions aside to look at matters in a different light. Don’t be blind to possibilities.It is most probable that the inner makeup of your characters has greater depth and complexity than you realize or give them credit for. The particulars you take in at first glance or the filter through which you view people you know intimately is riddled with blind spots. To write well, look at everyone you include in your stories as individuals unto themselves. Get into the heart of whom they are, without painting them into a box you thought fitting. Take off the blinders and look at the potential to incorporate a wider, more robust view of your characters while

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Nectar Taunts the Lazy Tongue

07/30/2011 By 2 Comments
Nectar tips tongue

(To unscramble this poem on memory & memoir, click “read more.”) Buds evoking what’s to come,Nudging traces in pool of haze, marking time,Just grazing.Nectar naively taunts the lazy tongue,Seeking shadows bent in silhouette. Faded light to bright the now begun.Mind grasping, gasping for perception In collection.Spike the feast, rattle the gourd,Reckon whorled resurrection. Unknown known as inky marks traverse the run,Find teasing taste of sweet vermouthOr bitter truth.Sometimes I remember to findReason coursing season.The Story Woman asks you to write Mother Memoir by using the seasons of recall to let your memories roll into your unique bio-vignette.

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Flash Fizzle: Fiction or Not?

07/04/2011 By Leave a Comment
Sparklers by Orin Zebest

It’s the 4th of July brought to us by the one, the only, Declaration of Independence.  I love the idea that our Founding Fathers were willing to die for our country's independence. We’ve become of nation with too many so-called leaders, hungry for power, who live for the vote regardless of what is right for the people of the United States of America—a far cry from the group of people in 1776 who had true character and conviction and the courage to do the right thing by founding a country based on principles that made us strong and indebted to no one.Would you sign your John Hancock or simply pin your hopes on a sparkler?  Beware the hot wire left in the grass; the burn makes for blisters that weep well after the flash fizzles.Photo by Orin Zebest

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Joy in Writing Short & Getting Published

06/14/2011 By Leave a Comment

“You write because you have to.”  I heard this sentiment expressed several times by a few long-time authors during a “The Joy of Writing Short” panel put on by California Writer’s Club at Book Passage.  I picked up words and phrases about the world of publishing like: cruel, fickle, tough, competitive—and getting more so all the time. But don’t let those words dampen your spirit; they said all this while talking excitedly about being writers and authors. The panelists were memoirists, short story writers, and magazine article writers: Zoe F. Carter (www.ImperfectEndings.com) is the author of the memoir Imperfect Endings: A Daughter's Story of Love, Loss, and Letting Go; Joan Frank (www.joanfrank.org) is the author a story collection, In Envy Country; Frances Lefkowitz (www.FrancesLefkowitz.net) is the author of the memoir To Have Not; and Peg A. Pursell's (www.pegalfordpursell.com) 93-word story, "Fragmentation," was the title story of the (February 2011) Burrow

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Salacious Spirit of Spring – Mother Nature’s Daughter

04/21/2011 By 2 Comments

Are you in love with Mother Nature or her daughter? I know you’re budding out, pert and peppy in all your glory, Spring. I feel you beckon me with your flirtatious ways, flowing sap and saucy spirit, so that I can’t resist your charms, but that only means trouble is looming on the horizon. Our love affair is fraught with predictable problems, and I should know better than to trust you after all these years. With you, Spring, I get bees that sting, sunburn, in spite of the block, and broken fingernails from poking around in your fertile bed. But that’s not the half of it. You make me hot – my temperature rises with hope held high for planting. Were it not for you, I wouldn’t envision brilliant flowers and juicy tomatoes that taste like tomatoes making their grand entrance all around after teasing them with gentle love and holy water. But I know my dreams will be dashed by loving you. You make me love you, and then you invite your ill-mannered friends to our garden

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Imperfect Endings, Zoe F Carter’s Memoir

03/27/2011 By Leave a Comment
Zoe Carter

She Summoned DeathWhether or not one believes the choices this family made in Zoe Carter’s memoir, Imperfect Endings, are right or wrong, Carter is an undeniably powerful writer, who has an easy way with words on a complex, but timely issue. She has taken the difficult, to say the least, subject of life and death and crafted it into an unforgettable personal story laced with wit, wisdom, humor, compassion, insight, and abundant food for thought. To be honest, when I first picked it up I wondered if I wanted to “go there.” I’m glad I did—I found it incredibly moving.I know it took more than a little courage for Zoe Carter to write this provocative slice of life. Imperfect Endings meant paring familial façade to the bone and sucking out the marrow, which she did unabashedly.How does a daughter say, “Yes, Mom, I’ll watch you die slowly by your own hand.”  I’ll be a party to your staged sit-in with death.Hauntingly beautiful are the two words that washed over my

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Writers Speed-Date with Agents & Acquistion Editors

03/11/2011 By Leave a Comment
WNBA Logo black background

 Authors and Writers “Speed-Dating” by the Bay at our 8th Annual Signature EventNew this year:  Keynote Luncheon (see below) Meet-the-Agents and Acquisition EditorsSaturday, March 26th, 2011  9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.Sinbad’s Restaurant, Pier 2, San Francisco$50 WNBA member, $65 non-member, or $75 at the door(Bonus:  Coffee and “How to Pitch Training” included from 8:00 to 9:00 am)Space is limited (we sold out last year) – REGISTER SOONRegister via PayPal at www.wnba-sfchapter.org or mail your check made out to WNBA-SF to P.O. Box 244, Half Moon Bay, CA  94019New this year!Keynote Luncheon – 12:30 – $30.00 - Menu selections on our website.WNBA author Zoe FitzGerald Carter will share her journey to the publication of her memoir, Imperfect Endings, recently optioned for film. Join us for lunch and rub elbows with agents and acquisition editors.Note:  Must be registered to attend Zoe FitzGerald Carter is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School and has written for

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