Jane Wenger is at it again – I wish I could go, even though I’m not a playwright. Everyone learns so much for Jane, a teacher with more than vision… and she’s fun, too! If you can possibly go to Assisi to study with her, don’t miss this opportunity.

Vision and REVISION

 Jayne Wenger, Instructor                                                                                                     

ASSISI, ITALY  August 6 – August 19, 2010

Live and write in a 12th century town in the heart of Umbria with a community of artists from around the world. The workshop will focus on plays that are in process, with emphasis on development and analysis of the script.  Writers will hear a scene or monologue daily and will receive individual dramaturgy from the instructor. In-depth and practical, this is a unique opportunity to concentrate your creative energy.      

Artists developing solo shows are also encouraged to attend.  Emphasis is on plot, organic structure and character, with focus on building a relationship with the audience. This aspect of the workshop is tailored for writers who want to act, actors who want to write, and performers who want to create new work. 

Jayne Wenger is a director and dramaturg whose exclusive focus is on original material. She is the past Artistic Director of the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation. She leads workshops on play development around the country, is nationally recognized for her work on new plays, and has developed the work of acclaimed playwrights nationwide.

 Additional details and information can be found at www.jaynewenger.com and www.artworkshopintl.com.

If you can’t attend Jane’s workshop, at least write your Mother Memoir and become a TellTale Soul! Bio-vignettes work.

When you use descriptive imagery in writing memoir you add powerful appeal to your true story. The images I’m referring to are the mental pictures you have stored away in your memory banks of a person, place, or thing, whether they are remembered vividly or in a shadowy vision.

Creatively describing the images of characters and events in a story is the means by which a writer can put into words unique and lasting impressions that readers will connect with. When you’re describing images, say in a story about your grandfather, stop and really think about how you are communicating your reflections of him at a certain time, in particular places, and during specific events. Moreover, when you take the time to go through an exercise in descriptive imagery, you’re allowing yourself to revel in depth about savored incidents.

When you’re writing a memoir about your grandfather, ask yourself if you have made him, as well as your time with him, come alive through your depiction of the images you’ve perhaps carried with you since childhood. Have you conveyed to readers, through even a few words or a phrase, the emotional hold a certain memory of him had on you? Or is he coming across flat as a photograph, in a way that doesn’t give his likeness or unforgettable moments the energy they deserve?

Descriptive, creative imagery invites readers into a deeper dimension by showing them what you mean through words; words evoking mental images that allow people to connect on an emotional plane with your characters and the story in general. For example, you could say, “I liked to go fishing with grandpa early in the morning.” Or you could say, “I had been shivering on the back porch for what seemed like forever, when suddenly my heart skipped a beat as I heard grandpa open the creaky wooden door at the crack of dawn, two fishing poles geared up in one weathered hand.” Both of these sentences have the same meaning, but the second one pulls readers into a visual of you and your grandfather at that precise moment you want remembered.

Action is created by your choice of words. You may want to play around with different ways to portray specific images, feel the emotional responses your descriptive images can evoke, and then decide what you will say to achieve the results you are looking for.

There is a side to adding imagery to be wary of, however. You don’t want to overdo it by overwhelming readers with descriptions that take away from your story line. Take this cliché to heart, “…Can’t see the forest for the trees.” Your memoir is the forest, the big picture, so don’t be too effusive and don’t get hung up on describing each tree. You can achieve a balance by including good, emotionally informative images in appropriate places, but not so many that your story itself is lost in the descriptions of too many images or mired in images that are extravagant or overstated.

Have fun playing around with writing descriptive images in your bio-vignette, your short, true memoir. Become a TellTale Soul.

Could just be that chaotic memories are poetry in motion leading us to write memoir. I’m posting a blog from Mara Buck, an exceptional writer of poetry and novels, among other artistic works. A sensitive person, with a great head on her shoulders, Mara and comes up with ingenious thoughts on most subjects. Today she has something to say about “from chaos comes the poetry of memoir.” Seems she’s got a scientific streak as well… 

     Which of us has memories as ordered as files in a desk drawer, neat and tidy, accessible or ignored, hidden or exposed only by our own decisive hand?  Not I and (I suspect) not you either.  The greater number of us live instead in a constantly evolving state of discovery and disorder, the past intruding upon the present, forever subject to ambush, chaos really.  Yet chaos can be a good thing, and when perceived and accepted for the potential gift it is, can render the most surprising of outcomes. 

     In chaos theory as applied to physics, small initial differences can yield widely divergent outcomes of unpredictable nature.  Such is life inside a family, each member with a slightly different viewpoint, seldom agreeing on cause or effect.  Chaos is created.  Such is individual memory, tinged unreliably with emotion, influenced by the memories and opinions of others.  The product is once again chaos.  We each see only a part of the whole at any given time, and these factions shift and split within our overloaded psyches and through the years, blemished by emotion and doubt, chaos results where clarity is needed.  Like fragments on the hard drive of a computer, remnants of abuse and distrust and pain clutter our brains in nano-bytes, useless within themselves, impeding progress until the defrag system clears the unwanted stash.

     Writing memoir can become a system of harnessing that chaos, of restoring order.

     It takes courage to surrender to chaos, to step back and grit our teeth and become a voyeur until, until…  Until that moment when the sun breaks through the clouds and highlights the answer that was there all along, hidden within the whirlwind of chaotic memories.  Writing through that chaos is a brave thing, an individualistic thing, such a difficult thing that when we attempt it we must first acknowledge the risk, that all our efforts may not produce the result we had imagined.  Yet it is a learning experience, as is life, and once we accept and examine the bumps in the ride, we can better enjoy the trip, and we are the richer for it.

     To illustrate the point in a rather physical manner, my desk is a partners’ model from 1910, a massive thing with four banks of drawers and a twenty-square-foot top which accommodates two complete computers, a printer, phones, answering machine, and all the bells and whistles befitting the twenty-first century.  However, cowering amid the computer wires and assorted piles of effluvia, there is the treasure of a small antique bisque creamer, formerly beloved by my mother, and every now and then I stroke the softness of the porcelain and it feels not unlike the touch of her skin.  A piece of beauty found amid the chaos.  A physical memoir. 

     I wrote a poem entitled Chaos, ending with the line “for out of chaos comes poetry.”  We must trust that the poetry of memoir will come someday from our own chaos, no matter how toxic, no matter how painful, because that’s what poetry ultimately is.  Poetry is truth.

http://www.redroom.com/member/MaraBuck

http://www.redroom.com/blog/marabuck/chaos

http://www.youtube.com/user/marabuck       Check Mara’s YouTube spot – intriguing, to say the least.

We’re getting close enough to Mother’s Day for me to encourage you to write a “Mother Memoir,” so that you can give your mom a unique gift.  I’d like to share a snippet from a poem by Suzanne Lipsett, which never ceases to echo through my soul from its nesting place in my heart. I’m hoping it will get you thinking about your mother and in the mood to Tap Memory and Write Memoir.

 The following are five stanzas from a 33 stanza poem to her mother that inspired me through the depth of her sensitivity and the lessons of understanding so deftly penned straight from Suzanne Lipsett’s heart. Her words resonate with the often conflicting thoughts and memories we hold when many of us think of our mothers, and, for me, they punctured my inner-most being to the place where I know Mom resides.

 Here are five stanzas from “To Elynore.”  The verse in larger font is my heartstring.

 Now, I tell you, there’s something to say here.

It’s not that I’m happy you died.

It’s not that I’m glad

That you left me and Dad.

It’s not that I loved the whole ride.

But I learned something from this dark lesson

That showed me why people are strong:

That way down below

Is where love seems to go

And to think that it fades there is wrong.

It’s the oldest soft floor of the forest,

The roots of the searchingest tree.

It’s the ivory bones;

It’s the riverbed’s stones.

It’s the gift of your being in me.

And the final result of that loving,

That presence of you that I sought,

Is the work that I love

Nearly all things above,

The books that I’ve rendered from thought.

So I find, after all, I must thank you.

You have been there on that deepest shelf.

You’ve been one I could use,

You’ve been my only muse . . .

And I thought I had done it myself!

Write your “Mother Memoir,” now and become a TellTale Soul. Give her the gift that only you can give.

Memoir as a gift…

When you write true tales, while walking the memoir labyrinth, it is appropriate to think of the stories as gifts. And here is why I believe that to be true.

“Give the Gift of Story” is the title of my guide book, so it goes hand-in-hand with the type of writing I encourage you to do, which is writing a short and true “Mother Memoir.” (If you’re new to my blog, I want to let you know that I use the term “mother” rather loosely when asking people to write a short, true tale – a bio-vignette that captures character and spirit. The person you choose to write about can be any woman who holds a significant place in your life. For that matter, writing about any person, male or female, fits the bill.)

 —- Yes, back to my point: Some of you may turn away from thinking about your memoir as a gift, because the person you pick as your main character and the experience you intend to use as the basis for your story is unpleasant (or worse). Obviously, in this situation, and from your point of view, you certainly don’t think of this memoir as a gift. However, from my point of view, it is truly a gift. If you don’t deem it appropriate as a gift to give her, then accept it as a gift you’ll give to yourself by writing it.

Remember the potent healing aspects of writing we talked about awhile back? For many of you, stories about “mothers” bring up dreadful memories. But when you write through painful experiences, you work through layers and layers of crud, and you eventually come to some understanding about what happened due to the fact that you have opened your mind to those things buried deep inside and placed the painful events out in the open through the process of writing memoir.

You might decide not to let anyone else ever read what you’ve written. And that’s okay. The story can be for your eyes only. When you make this process fully intentional, like walking the memoir labyrinth by simply putting one foot in front of the other, and take personal control over the emotions linked to the events, you have given yourself a very special gift. It could just be the best gift you’ll ever receive.

On the other hand, when you write a heartwarming, even poignant, memoir, it’s a natural to want to give it as a gift to the person you have chosen to portray with clarity in a short memoir. You believe your gesture will be well received, and you can imagine her delight in reading this particular story – a memoir where you’ve taken the time to look at her as an individual. What’s more, your gift of memoir will preserve treasured memories of her spirit for years to come.

Either way, writing memoir is a powerful gift. Please join all TellTale Souls in giving gifts of story.

If you’re want an easy-to-follow guide to Give the Gift of Story for yourself or to help someone else learn to write memoir, click  The Story Woman BOOKS  on this website or go to Book Passage.

I posted a Speed-Dating event sponsored by Women’s National Book Association a couple weeks ago, so thought I should let you know how it went last Saturday. FYI: I’m the president of WNBA-SF and was the chair for this event, so now I’m bragging, but I can’t help it. I’m feeling an elated exhaustion.

I think it’s important, too, to celebrate our successes, just like I ask you to celebrate your success after writing your “Mother Memoir.” Mother’s Day is coming up soon, so think about writing just a short, true bio-vignette. More about that later. Read below to catch the drift of a great event for writers of all shapes and sizes.

Need I say more?

Wow! One of my favorite member-benefit affairs made a huge splash last Saturday with dozens of people Speed-Dating on San Francisco Bay. The large number of members who took part in our Meet-the-Agents event had the time of their lives, as did a slew of other Bay Area literati. Everyone enjoyed an enthusiastic, productive time as the anxious writers presented their work to the agents, and the agents in turn gave back valuable tips and insights to the writers/would-be-authors in their inimitable way.

 Several agents said they were impressed with the quality of work presented to them and asked many of our classy writers to send them their proposals – you just know these writers have to be thrilled! And I am delighted for them. The glowing participant evaluations will be posted on our site soon along with pictures of the group from various angles of intent. 

Mark your calendars for Saturday, March 26th, 2011!

LINKS:     The agents I can identify on the right hand side of the picture above are:

Brooke Warner (Seal Press/Perseus Books)

Amberly Finarelli (Andrea Hurst Agency)

Alan Rinzler (Josse-Bass/Wiley & Sons)

Georgia Hughes (New World Library).

For the complete list of the 14 agents who participated in the MTA event, visit Women’s National Book Association – San Francisco.

Do you ever feel like you are just a character in your own life? Going through the motions of day-to-day living, but forever going back to certain memories from long ago that just won’t let you be? You’re not alone.

Frequent, reoccurring memories present themselves to all of us from time to time. Do they pester you for a reason? Plague you nonstop? Pluck at your heartstrings? Do you whisk them away like a pest because they make your heart beat faster, bring a smile up from deep inside that you won’t take the time to savor, or do you fear remembering times you’d rather forget? Maybe you actually think you’re too busy to honor, respect, or try to understand the importance of your past by revisiting your memories. Do it with a purpose. History does repeat itself, if only in memory.

Take the time now to discover what these persistent memories are there to tell you – they are vying for your attention. They are brimming with intention. Ask yourself, if not now, then when will I do justice to my memories? Begin your journey by looking a memory or two full in the face. Then pick just one compelling memory and write a bio-vignette.

What will fall into place when you write memoir? Only you can answer that question, and the best way to do it is by looking at each recurring memory carefully and setting pen to paper. There is much to discover by paying attention to what you find deep inside. You will find that your new role will free you live a life more fully yours.

It is an exciting experience to take steps along the memoir labyrinth where you will immerse yourself in the imagery that awaits, and with intuition as your guide you will have a better understanding of who you are.

BECOME A TELLTALE SOUL – WRITE A SHORT, TRUE MEMOIR TO SET YOURSELF FREE.

Authors and Writers

 “Speed-Dating” by the Bay at our 7^th Annual Signature Event

Meet-the-Agents, Editors, & Publishers Event

Click here to view all the agents!

 Saturday, March 27^th, 2010

9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p. m.

Sinbad’s Restaurant, Pier 2, San Francisco

Click here to Register: $50 WNBA member, $65 non-member, or $75 at the door

(Buffet Breakfast and Pitch Tips, included)

Bonus for all registrants: “No Host Networking Lunch” at 1:00pm,
with 15% discount off food items (beverages excluded)
compliments of Sinbad’s.

  One Woman’s Path to Publishing began at Meet-the-Agents 2009: Mary Jo McConahay’s Maya Roads: Travels Through Time and Space in the American Rainforest will be published by Chicago Review Press, Spring 2011. She met her agent, Andy Ross, at our sold-out  MTA  event last year, so sign up now to assure your place.   

“Last March I joined a hundred other men and women from the WNBA San Francisco Chapter at Sinbad’s Restaurant for its annual Meet the Agents event.  From the windows, views of the Bay were the blue of dreams, and expansive enough to calm the most nervous.  I won’t say I wasn’t a little jittery as I looked around the room, at the agents waiting. The hours were so learning-intensive and fun, and  I called an agent I met, to whom I felt connected, and within a few days we were literary representative and client… some six months later, I signed the publisher’s contract.”  Click here to read her entire article on WNBA-SF’s blog.  www.maryjomcconahay.com  

 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. 

501(c) (3).  4061 East Castro Valley Blvd., #193  ,  Castro Valley  ,  CA  94552   

To check out 10 other WNBA Nationwide Chapters, click here.

I see walking a labyrinth as a metaphor for the passionate journey into memoir writing. Labyrinths have been around for centuries and have been used by folks in many parts of the world as a path on their spiritual quest or for exploring aspects of their lives in a thoughtful manner. Labyrinths are beautiful, intricate structures that appear to have sacred qualities ascribed to them by some people. Yet, they are uncomplicated and undemanding when the simple act of walking slowly and mindfully through them to the center and back out again is used as a meditation.

When I help people locate memories, we do a sitting meditation or reflection in a less formal, less structured way than walking through a classic labyrinth. In class, I ask students to explore the deepest recesses of their minds to locate buried treasure in relationship to the person they have chosen to write about in a bio-vignette.

Most importantly, I encourage writers to invite the spirit of the main character of their intended story to come along with them to see what surfaces as they journey together. Whether what appears during reflective time is an image, a sign, the fleeting sound of music, a voice, a searing pain, or a belly laugh, the memories that surface do so for a reason. Only the writer has the power to find the explanations and their personal truths for what they have found through the memory labyrinth exercise. The results of this discovery take into consideration intuitive interpretation as well as creative license.

In a way similar to walking the memoir labyrinth, the time spent writing about an emotionally charged memory, which will be used as the basis for the story about a significant person, will also be fraught with hesitations at various turns. There will be choices to be made along the writing path that only the writer, the creator of the story, can resolve. It is through the very act of writing that the emotional hold each memory has on the writer will be revealed. And the momentum created by writing through feelings with understanding and passion is exactly what the writer must have in order to create a powerful bio-vignette.

So, as you can see, I think of writing “Mother Memoir” (or any true tale about someone significant in our lives) as a spiritual quest, a mindful journey that allows us to connect with others at the core by capturing character and keeping spirits alive for future generations. Write a bio-vignette to become a TellTale Soul: begin your special journey on the memoir labyrinth today.

A few weeks ago, at the San Francisco Writers Conference, I had the good fortune to met Peter Beren, a publishing consultant for over 30 years and the author of this informative guest post. He graciously gives us the basics of the book business as he sees it – information, which all writers should be aware. 

Every author published or not, needs to know the basics of the book business. One of the most basic parts is distribution. When you pitch a publisher on a book idea, they have one eye on the consumer and one eye on their distribution system. It is only when both “eyes” say “yes” that they are seriously considering a book. 

 Books are ordered in advance of their manufacture. They are sold on the basis of future promises. Many books actually don’t exist at the time they are ordered. Most books are presented as unique, authoritative and complete even though they haven’t been finished at the time they are ordered by booksellers. 

20% of book sales occur in the E-commerce channel (statistics from Bowker) which captures all online booksellers, including Amazon. 27% of sales come from large chains

(3 accounts: Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million), 8% from Mass Merchandisers

(Costgo, Target, etc.), 11% from Book Clubs (membership Clubs by direct mail) and 5% from independent bookstores.

 When you or your agent pitches a book, the publisher is sizing it up on the basis of similar books and how they performed in these channels. Of course, if the publisher has a similar book on its list and the book was successful, it’s a lot easier to model it and project a reasonable lay-down across these channels.

 The “lay-down” is the sum of all the book units ordered in advance and the number of books in distribution immediately following its publication date. In my experience, if you wait 30 days for stragglers, you will have a complete picture of the number of books available to consumers in all the channels before the “sell-through” or sales out of the stores and etailers actually begin.

 It is shocking to note that most books do not sell more than their initial lay-down and that the size of the lay-down will determine critical mass in the channels and whether or not the book is successful. A book will succeed or fail according to the size of its advance orders or, in other words, the earliest possible moment in its sales life. That is one reason why authors need to promote their books ahead of pub date. When a publisher is asked how a book is doing and it’s already in the stores, the usual response is “it’s too early to tell…” what they mean is, “we know this book is going to be successful, we just don’t know how successful.” Or, the opposite.

 In the book business, perception is reality and distribution, the wider the better, is the single most important aspect in the success of a book.

 PETER BEREN is a Publishing Consultant to authors, self-publishers and independent publishers. Formerly Vice President for Publishing at Palace Press International, Publisher of Sierra Club Books and Publisher of VIA Books, he has more than 30 years experience in the publishing industry. The author of six books, including (with Brad Bunnin) The Writers Legal Companion and California the Beautiful (with Galen Rowell), his latest work, Hidden Napa Valley, featuring the photography of Wes Walker, was recently published by Welcome Books. Visit his web site at: http://www.PeterBeren.com/ and read his online column on Examiner.com at: examiner.com/a-25786-SF-Publishing-Examiner

San Francisco Writers Conference

 Become an author today by writing your Mother Memoir. Your short and true bio-vignette may be the start you need to write a memoir of epic proportions or you may deem it perfect just as it is – your choice.