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 intention to write because you feel you must get a certain story told, or did a Tarot seer say she saw a book in you?

True story—Anne, a friend of mine, who claims she has no desire to write, said the Tarot pointed her towards authoring a book.  Now the idea is eating away at her, although inspiration hasn’t knocked, and she still has no intention to write a book.

Another woman, Joy, clearly had the intention to write a story about her mother, so she signed up for my class, “Keeping Spirits Alive.”  Joy wrote a terrific short and true Mother Memoir and became so full of inspiration that she’s now writing a novel.

So, where does this leave you? Do you need inspiration to weld its power first, as it did with me, since I had no intention to write a book way back when? Or are you filled with intention? You have a burning desire to write, but don’t know where the inspiration will come from?  It does matter.

I’ve spent the past dozen years inspiring daughters and sons to write The Mother Memoir.  If you have the intention, take a journey with me, and you’ll find the inspiration you need.  If you have inspiration, I’ll guide you along a path to find your voice, learn to capture character, and write a compelling story to fulfill your desire to write.

I BELIEVE. TELL IF YOU DO, TOO, AND WHY. 

     With love from The Story Woman to you thoughtful, amazing TellTale Souls

GHOST DANCE

I crept inside and found you

oh 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, and

found ageless, fervid wisdom, thick liquid;

otherworldly things now manifest in core.

children of grace, voiceless ones, my time to guide

your 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 you

progeny.

This poem was meant to inspire those daughters and sons hesitant to take first steps into

writing the Mother Memoir to become TellTale Souls.

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 writing memoir.

When you search for the inner framework of characters (for example, when writing the Mother Memoir it would be mom’s essential spirit you’re out to discover), you can perceive their character in your mind’s eye, you can sense them, but most importantly, you can decide to let go your well-formed assumptions about them and let full, undistorted sight take over from a new, more inclusive vantage point.

To heighten understanding through action, take some time at this very moment to complete the short writing lesson I’ve outlined below. In this exercise you will tap into your memory bank and find a highly impactful incident in which the personal interaction you exchanged with someone is palpable. This is a practice designed to get you working your way out of “not seeing”—remember blindness is truly in the eye of the beholder.

• Bring the impactful incident into focus and write several paragraphs describing the emotional details of this incident as seen through your mind’s eye—just like you usually do.
• Next, stand firmly in the other person’s shoes and write a few more paragraphs from his or her specific vantage point—something you probably aren’t used to doing.
• Now, merge the emotional details you envisioned the other person experienced together with your perceptions and write a little more.

Were new vistas opened? Were you surprised by what you saw? Has the context of your well-formed picture of what occurred in this incident changed? Is your eye now beholding new shades of light and focus, previously not seen or related to? Now, go write like you’ve never written before.

Become a TellTale Soul by writing your Mother Memoir with help from The Story Woman.

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 vermouth

Or bitter truth.

Sometimes I remember to find

Reason 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.

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

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 Press Anthology entitled Fragmentation and Other Stories.

Writing short fiction and articles for magazines, newspapers, and literary journals was their focus. The short Mother Memoirs I encourage and teach you to write weren’t covered, but then that’s my job, and, as you know, I blog on it weekly.

Below is a summary of the pointers and highlights of this lively discussion as the panelists answered questions from the audience on writing and publishing:

• Each magazine has a distinct voice and a style. Edit your work to fit the magazine. Do your homework.

• It’s not just about how good a writer you are. You need sources, and you need to learn the business. 50% of getting something published is writing. 50% is the other stuff like connections, social networking, marketing, and, yes, luck.

• Luck plays a very significant part, but you also must write something that is very, very good in order to command attention in a saturated market.

• 7-10 years is the usual length of time to get a book published; it doesn’t matter if it takes 25 years to get published, it’s worth it.

• Persistence is huge in marketing. Be prepared for warfare. Believe in your work and keep moving forward with persistence to point of fanaticism (I wouldn’t go that far!). Grow yourself as an authority in your subject matter, and keep getting it out there.

• How to get published in magazines:
  • Study the magazine for the right fit
  • Shorter pieces (1,500 words) are easiest to get in
  • Find the name of an editor to direct your query to
  • Tell them about why you’re the best person to write this article
  • Send a “clip,” which is your portfolio or examples of your published writing
  • Read their submission guidelines – this is not only necessary, but also respectful
  • Traditional magazines have a 3-5 month lead time

• A good email query letter is your best bet. Be sure to keep track of your submissions and queries in an organized way. The panelists agreed that Doutrope Digest is a great, free resource.

• Move into online reality, but make sure the blogs on which you post have quality. Online publication is great because it gets you out there & your work disseminated quickly. Online networking can lead to people asking for your writing. (Writer’s live in a capsule. It can be a lonely life, so social networking is a great way to meet people.)

• Don’t lose the power of the moment. If something happens in the news you have to get your story about it up that same day or it’s too late.

• Contests are very valuable to enter. They can be a stepping stone.

• Never stop learning – take classes, read books on craft, read voraciously, join critique and/or writers groups.

Become a TellTale Soul—write your Mother Memoir. Send it to me for possible inclusion in my collection or as a post on The Story Woman blog.

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 party and leave me broken hearted, empty. After each fruitful day with you, I awaken to see that overnight, every new leaf and bud has been silently nipped. Your treacherous friends have left smelly tracks and dangerous ticks in their wake, while your face opens into a wide blue smile and you wink at me as only you can.

Sorry, Spring, I’m not falling for this again. Now I wonder where I left my hoe.

Spring has written her Mother Memoir. The Story Woman asks, “Have you?” Mother’s Day is coming soon, you still have time to give your mother the best gift – a short, true story capturing her spirit. Become a TellTale Soul by writing your bio-vignette.

Whether 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 soul when I finished reading Zoe Carter’s Imperfect Endings. A true page turner, brought together through a dynamic flow of the highs of love and tenderness, and the lows of anger and sadness, revealing what it takes to be, at once, a mother and a daughter.

I could see both sides as the drama unfolded: the mother’s perspective, as she desired to make her exit —actually to direct it, while maintaining a modicum of dignity; and the three daughters’ reluctance to come to terms with their mother’s wishes and say goodbye to Momma. Throughout much of the memoir, a cloak of angry sadness hung from Zoe’s shoulders—she was deemed the caretaker, ever flying from coast to coast, always at her mother’s beck and call, while growing numb by degrees to her mother’s flirtatious and ever changing dates with death. Zoe was the “good” daughter—but also a woman conflicted by daughterly duties over shadowing those of being a wife to a man trying not to lose his patience, and mother to young daughters of her own, needing her attention.

Fluctuating between flashbacks of childhood memories and present day dilemmas, Zoe creates authentic scenes that strip away allusion to expose the raw reality of the family’s intimate workings. The three daughters’ angst for their parent’s past transgressions and weaknesses was palpable, and their reckoning of their mother’s pretenses and denial, although heartbreakingly understood, at least by two of the sisters, stayed unresolved.

But, in the final days, as their mother, Margaret, slipped away, the atmosphere rang clear with tenderness and acceptance as Zoe’s arms, gently enfolded a feather of a woman as the parade passed by, and songs from her lips sent Momma’s soul soaring.

THE STORY WOMAN REMINDS YOU TO WRITE A TRUE AND TELLING TALE ABOUT YOUR MOTHER.

 “Speed-Dating” by the Bay at our 8^th Annual Signature Event

New this year:  Keynote Luncheon (see below)

Meet-the-Agents and Acquisition Editors

Saturday, March 26^th, 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 SOON

Register 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  94019

Zoe FitzGerald Carter is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School and has written for numerous publications including The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Salon and Vogue. Imperfect Endings is her first memoir. The book was excerpted in O magazine and was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writer’s pick. The Boston Globe called it ”an engaging and insightful tale of familial love, understanding, and forgiveness, shot through with a surprising amount of wit.” 

This year’s Agents and Acquisition Editors are posted on our website.

Event sponsor:  Women’s National Book Association – San Francisco

WNBA-SF is a non-profit organization that fosters professional development and exposure of our members through a variety of book-related programs, workshops, and hands-on opportunities to make valuable contacts and connections that are beneficial at any stage of one’s career. WNBA-SF is part of a National network promoting the value of books and reading since 1917 throughout ten chapters stretching from coast to coast. Annual Membership is $45.

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