How to use this Page

Craft books can be a huge help, but I don’t always read them straight through. I often find some nugget that inspires me enough to make me go off to write instead. I figure the more helpful the book, the less I have to read, and I save the rest for later.

This semester, I’m teaching a class on writing memoirs. As I usually do when I’m preparing to teach, I checked out a stack of books from the library. A couple of them are familiar, reliable resources—I’ve read them before and found them useful: Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir and Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art by Judith Barrington. Others were new to me, and I enjoyed exploring the subject from their varied points of view.

Even if you are not writing a memoir, such books can help in several ways:

• by providing a glimpse into another writer’s approach
• by reminding you that writers keep writing in spite of obstacles
• by bringing up true stories that can inspire leaps into fiction, memoir, or something else
• by sharing exercises that might help you move forward

One book grabbed my attention not only for its playful tone but also for its helpful format: Thinking About Memoir by Abigail Thomas. Instead of suggesting exercises and then giving examples of how they might be done, Thomas tells stories first and then provides writing prompts on topics that flow from the stories.



She writes about seeing a buzzard far away on a beach. After watching it awhile, she decides to walk up for a closer look and discovers a stick with a plastic bag tangled around it. Her instruction is to write about mistaking something for something else.

She says her sister suggests that “a good way to get going on memoir is to write your will. You have to decide who gets all your treasures, and this involves looking at them, and remembering where you found them.” Her assignment: write about your treasures.

She describes a trip with her sister after they had each been given a box of six truffles. “The tiny print said two pieces contained 310 calories,” she writes. “We were sitting on the bus headed downtown, quietly doing our calculations: Judy was dividing by two and I was multiplying by three.” This story cracked me up; the assignment that follows it is to write about a time when you recognized a difference between you and another person.

In the spirit of Thinking About Memoir, I’m including a memory from my childhood and a choice of writing prompts that stem from it.

Writing Workout: Begin with a Memory

One Sunday morning when most of my family had gone to church, I decided to make everyone breakfast. My father was asleep upstairs. I remember scrambled eggs and bacon, so I must have been old enough to use the stove on my own.

I was thinking about how surprised my family would be when I heard a loud crash outside. I ran out and saw a car halfway up our front steps.

My father came out and discovered that the driver was a woman whose husband had recently died. She was on her way to the cemetery with a vase of flowers on the seat next to her. When the flowers started slipping off the seat, she reached to grab them and lost control of her car.

As soon as he found out she was not hurt, my father told her not to worry. He would fix the steps himself. I don’t remember the woman, the car, whether anyone called the police, or what happened when the rest of the family came home, but I do remember his kindness.

Assignment:

Write about a time when you were home alone.

or

Write about someone being compassionate to a stranger.

Display Comments Add a Comment

How many writers have strange word associations?  (Maybe I'm kidding myself that it's a writer thing and I'm just weird.)  Names remind me of food.  Rebecca = tomato soup with rice (explain that one).  Margaret = butterscotch.  Okay, this is sounding weirder the more I type.  Gary = ground beef (courtesy of Gary Burghoff on M*A*S*H, who was the only Gary I'd ever heard of at age 3).  And so the word craft = Kraft Mac & Cheese.  Nothing fancy.  A comfort food.  Dependable, easy, satisfying.

Perhaps it's because I read John Gardener as a beginning writer and he scared me into thinking I was certainly in the wrong field, but I realized early on that I do not write literary fiction and, perhaps sadly, don't aspire to.  While the "art of fiction" is certainly a very worthy pursuit, I am more inclined to view myself as a journeyman than an artiste. 

While other artistic endeavours (music, visual arts) involve skills honed through years of specialized study... we all write.  I am not a "morning pages" sort (though I admire those who are).  I hope I am not deluding myself when I say that I believe that every time we put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), we are honing our craft, exercising our writing muscles, in effect doing our scales.

The first craft books I read in my first serious writing class (6th grade) were the old standby, Strunk & White's Elements of Style; and Writing Well, by Donald Hall. 

I also adore George Orwell's essay, Politics and the English Language.  (Today's political discourse would certainly resemble a more honest dialogue  were its principles observed by more of us -- but I digress.)


Through the years, I have added the following to my "required reading" list:

Line By Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing, by Claire Kehrwald Cook.  This one was recommended by Jane Resh Thomas (writing teacher extraordinaire) at Vermont College and should, in my opinion, be read in very small doses -- tough to slog through and absorb, but well worth reading.

And, by my late, great mentor (though not a craft book per se): It's a Bunny-Eat-Bunny World, by Olga Litowinsky.

I also heartily second the Anne LaMott and Jon Franklin suggestions. 

As in the art of writing, the most extraordinary teachers among us have an inborn gift.  But even these blessed few must spend years working and studying to perfect their craft. 

When I began to teach English 101, my boss recommended I read The St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing, which she said taught her everything she knows.  I am still a neophyte teacher, but I can certainly attest to its helpfulness! 


For primary teachers, I am a big fan of Educating Esme and the website http://www.planetseme.com/, tremendously useful for instilling a love of literature in young readers.  (I love reading it as a writer, too.)  I'd bet that most of us who are children's book writers had at least one teacher like Esme when we were young to whom we owe many thanks for our enduring love of words and story.






  

Display Comments Add a Comment

I love wordplay. I savor the delicious way words feel in my mouth. The taste of an especially yummy combination—one that tingles with rhythm, rhyme, or alliteration. The way exciting language tickles my ears. I search for tangy, succulent, flavorful words.Sometimes the sounds of words almost feel more important than their meanings.Eeek! Halt! Hold everything!When I get so enamored with sounds, I

Display Comments Add a Comment