Blogger Ball Redux writers: Welcome to my blog and thanks for visiting

I am a non-fiction writer...have tried fiction but find it too tedious for me and it just takes too long....all that character development and dialogue writing. I find writing topical articles and essays so much easier. Almost a year ago,  I gave myself a challenge by deciding to write a memoir about the 16 years I have been an owner/innkeeper of a bed and breakfast in Louisville, Kentucky. As it turned out, writing a memoir is much more of a challenge than I realized and just as tedious and time consuming as writing fiction.

I am in the process now of rewriting the whole manuscript and trying to infuse the pages with my own unique voice.  I've actually discovered the humor and sarcasm lying behind that perfect grammar.  In addition, I'm adding dialogue, some character development, and a lot more description....all fiction writing techniques.


I love to blog and have four of them; each one dedicated to a different topic. A Memorable time of My Life is a writer's blog with information, examples of and focus on memoir, journalistic writing, essays, poetry, stories and blogging. It includes links and tips on getting published, agents & editors, exemplary writers, and related topics. Guest Posts from other writers,  book reviews, and lists of helpful publications for writers of both fiction and non-fiction can be found here.
*Guest posts on topics of interest to writers and poets are welcome.  Contact me, if you're interested. Please feel free to post comments and feedback. 









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Writing Tips Gleaned from Some of The Best writers

1. When you sit down to write, the most important person in your life is the reader.
2. Do not write to impress.
3. The first sentence you write will be the most important sentence in your life. and so will the second, and the third.
4.  Simple words, clear ideas and short sentences are vital in good writing.
5. No one will ever complain because you have made something too easy to understand.
6. Remember, nobody has to read your writing.
7. Never make the mistake of assuming that the reader is stupid, or overestimate what he knows.
8. Life is complicated, but your writing should not be.
9. The reader will be grateful to have at least one concept or idea explained clearly, because nobody ever reads stories that say "What follows is inexplicably complicated ..."
10. A story should only say one big thing. You may weave bits and parts together, but do not depart from the one linear narrative you have chosen.
11. Don't even start writing till you have decided what the one big thing is going to be, and then say it to yourself in just one sentence.
12. There is always an ideal first sentence – an intro, a way in – for any article. It really helps to think of this one before you start writing, because you will discover that the subsequent sentences write themselves.
13. Write information that slides down easily and quickly, without footnotes, obscure references and footnotes to footnotes.
14. Good journalism should give you the sensation of humor, excitement, poignancy or piquancy. something gleaming, flashy and – yes, trivial.
15. Words have meanings. Respect those meanings and use them properly. Don't flaunt authority by flouting your ignorance.
16. Clichés should be avoided, except when they are the right cliché.
17. Metaphors are great. Just don't choose loopy metaphors, and never, never mix them.
18. Beware of street language. it has its own rhythms, body language, and own signalling devices. The language of the page should have no accent, no helpful signalling tone of irony or comedy or self-mockery. It must be straight, clear and vivid and contain appropriate grammar.
19. Do not use long and preposterous words or  jargon.
20. English is better than Latin. Don't exterminate, kill. Don't salivate, drool. Don't conflagrate, burn.
21. Remember that people will always respond to something close to them that they care about.
22. Read lots of different things.
23. Beware of all definitives. There will almost always be someone who turns out to be bigger, faster, older, earlier, richer or more nauseating than the candidate to whom you have just awarded a superlative.
24. Remember, there are things that good taste and the law will simply not let you say in print.
25. Writers have a responsibility, not just in law. So aim for the truth. If that's elusive, and it often is, at least aim for fairness, the awareness that there is always another side to the story. Beware of all claims to objectivity.

This article was amended on 21 January 2011. The original referred to Dashiel Hammet. This has been corrected.


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Welcome Shewrites writers to the Blogger Ball Redux

 Meg always has great ideas and this is one of her best. I've been having such a great time visiting  all the sites of the writers attending the Ball. It's really nice to read all the personal info and connect it to the blogger.

I am a non-fiction writer...have tried fiction but find it too tedious for me and it just takes too long....all that character development and dialogue writing. I find writing topical articles and essays so much easier.

Almost a year ago,  I gave myself a challenge by deciding to write a memoir about the 16 years I have been an owner/innkeeper of a bed and breakfast in Louisville, Kentucky. As it turned out, writing a memoir is much more of a challenge than I realized and just as tedious and time consuming as writing fiction.

I am in the process now of re-writing the whole manuscript and trying to infuse the pages with my own unique voice.  I've actually discovered the humor and sarcasm lying behind that perfect grammar.  In addition, I'm adding dialogue, some character development, and a lot more description....all fiction writing techniques.

Thanks you all for visiting my site. I look forward to seeing more of you soon.


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Getting back to business

 ...the business of writing, that is. For the past two or three months, my memoir has been sitting on an obscure corner of my desk upstairs in my office...out of sight...out of reach...out of mind. I haven't gone near it. What I have been doing is trying to figure out what in the world is wrong with it. Why do I only like Chapter 8 and Chapter 12?

I have three fourths of the book complete. And now I see that I have to do a major re-write on it. Why? Well, I finally figured it out. I can't hear my voice...at least I can't hear it all the time. It comes through in different places, like in Chapter 8 and Chapter 12, but it does not infuse the entire book. And that really bothers me.

So, what to do about it? Well, I finally retrieved my manuscript from my desk on the third floor...that's a start. Then I divided it into four sections. Each section has around four chapters. Now, what I am doing is re-writing every day for a set amount of time. I am going chapter by chapter, sticking with it until I have it the way I want it...looking for my authentic voice and planting it on the pages one sentence at a time.

Just what is writer's voice anyhow and how do you find your own? According to Wikipedia,“Writer’s voice is a literary term used to describe the individual writing style of an author. Voice is a combination of a writer’s use of syntax, diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue, etc., within a given body of text (or across several works). Voice can also be referred to as the specific fingerprint of an author, as every author has a different writing style.In creative writing, students are often encouraged to experiment with different literary styles and techniques in order to help them better develop their “voice.” Voice varies with the individual author, but, particularly in American culture, having a strong voice is considered positive and beneficial to both the writer and his or her audience.”


Finding your writer’s voice may be compared to expressing your personality in real life. It's that authentic way of thinking, speaking and telling that each one of us has. “Confident writers have the courage to speak plainly; to let their thoughts shine rather than their vocabulary.” says Ralph Keyes, author of The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear I strongly believe that one way one can find their true voice is through blogging on a regular basis. When I first started blogging a few years ago, I focused mainly on the content of what I was writing and was not too concerned about the way in which it was presented, as long as the grammar and punctuation was correct. I was not really writing to connect with my readers.

In the Elements of Style, Strunk tells us that "style is an expression of self, and [writers] should turn resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style – all mannerisms, tricks, and adornments." I believe that if one continues to blog, their voice will eventually be freed. “As you become proficient in the use of language, your style will emerge,” writes Strunk “because you yourself will emerge…” so the more comfortable you are with the rules for good writing, the more your writer’s voice will shine.

I have found this to be so true. And, it wasn't until I felt my true voice starting to come out that I even entertained the idea of writing a memoir. I wanted that memoir to be an expression of "me". But somewhere along the line, in trying to complete my work, I lapsed into my old ways of focusing on the content, not on my reader. And that's what I'm trying to get back.

Now, I am working that out, chapter by chapter. I am reading my writing aloud to see if it really sounds like me. This is very helpful, by the way. I had already stopped comparing my writing to other writers. Comparing how you write or your writer’s voice to other writers is destructive and suffocating. So, my motto is: admire other writers’ styles but nurture your own. And focus on ways to improve your confidence as a writer.

*A final tip: try picturing one specific reader — one that you're not trying to impress – and just communicate with her.




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Writing to publish

Writing to Publish -- powered by eHow.com



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New profile on Quips and Tips

by Diane LeBow

What’s the bed and breakfast business like? Here, a bed and breakfast owner – aka an innkeeper – shares her job description and offers career tips for aspiring bed and breakfast business owners…

Nancy Hinchliff owns and operates Aleksander House, a bed and breakfast in Louisville, Kentucky.  She says that most guests are surprised that running a bed and breakfast is so much work. “Most have a very romantic idea of what a bed and breakfast is. They forget it’s a small business.”
Here Hinchliff explains exactly what is involved that makes it so much work and offers career advice for aspiring B and B business owners…
For complete story, click here

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Discovering who I am through writing

How I got this way

I have been writing all of my adult life which, since I’m over 70, is a very long time. As a little girl, besides pretending to be a teacher, I kept journals of my drawings, poetry, songs, and anything else I could think of to put down on paper. I was fascinated by words and their meanings and would read the dictionary and, as I became older, would deliberately try to improve my vocabulary by learning and using a new word every week. This went on all through high school.

I graduated and went to college to study art but the pull of the written word was too much for me to resist, so I changed my major to English Composition. I was very happy for a while until the music ringing in my ears urged me to demonstrate to my “jazz musician” father that I understood where he was coming from. Fortunately, I inherited some of his talent and could sing and dance a little. I ended up with degrees in both English and Music. The art became a delightful hobby.

Immersed in writing and theater

As a teacher of both music and English in the Chicago Public schools, I was totally immersed in communication skills through teaching English classes, as well as putting on musical theater working with students constructing sets and scenery, making costumes, and teaching dance for nearly 30 years. Being so involved with students all the time, did not give me much time to explore my own abilities and desires as a writer. When I retired from teaching and became an Innkeeper, I finally came full circle a few years ago and gave in to the hold that writing has always had on me.

My love affair with blogging

As soon as I began blogging I loved it. I started out with one blog on Innkeeping. It got good response, but most of the readers were not Innkeepers. Innkeepers are notorious, at least they were a few years ago, for resisting Social Media networking. They like face to face interaction. So I started another blog on the Innkeeping Industry, to educate them about the joys and rewards of social networking. I joined Twitter, then Facebook, then LinkedIn. I’m still keeping up all four blogs and touching down at a dozen or so social media sites. I think it’s important for writers to network on the web. It’s one way of building a strong platform and writers groups can be very supportive.

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Finding your ideal genre

As a writer, you have probably already discovered that writing has its different specializations. If you want to be truly effective and successful you cannot be a jack of all trades and a master of none. After a while, you will have to specialize in a particular genre.

For years I wrote non-fiction, essays, journal articles, newsletters, cookbooks and so on. Then a year or so ago I was invited to join a private writer's group of around 35-40 writers, many of them published, some of them editors. We would post what we were working on for feedback from each other and from three professional editors. Everyone was experimenting with all sorts of things. There were small specialized groups working on poetry, journal articles, sci-fi, short stories, novels, and so on. If there wasn't a group for the genre you were interested in, you could start one. It was great. 

I started out writing poetry, which is a genre I'm very familiar with, because I knew there was a master poet/editor in the group and I wanted to work with him. I became comfortable with writing poetry again and started posting and commenting on other writer's work. After a while, I decided to try fiction, simply because I like a challenge and I had never seriously entertained the idea that I could write fiction. 

The thought of writing a novel turned me off completely. I knew I couldn't stick with one continuous story for that length of time. But I thought maybe I could handle short stories, or short-short stories, or maybe flash fiction. You see how I was trying to get it down so that my brain could manage the thought of such a project? This is something I know in retrospect but wasn't aware of at the time.

First I wrote a true story about something that happened to me when I lived in Chicago. I got a lot of good feedback and most everyone said I should develop it into a longer piece. Some suggested fictionalizing it into a short story. And so that's what I did. At least, that's what I started to do. The feeling from those in the group who were critiquing me was that I needed to insert more dialogue; it was too much like a personal narrative. 

Then I was told that the characters needed to be more developed...then maybe I should change it to the third person, then back to the first person for more intimacy, then....ad nauseum. By that time I had had it. I tried a couple of other stories and it was no fun. It was like pulling teeth. The group was encouraging me but I was resisting. 

Why was I resisting? and why was it no fun? Because that was not my ideal genre. I started analyzing it. I began thinking about the forms of writing that came natural to me, that were the easiest for me to write, that I always did a great job on, without a great deal of stress. It suddenly dawned on me that non-fiction was where I should concentrate my writing efforts; that was where my talent was. I'm not a cross over writer. 

When I asked my self what I enjoyed writing the most. My answer was clearly: journal articles on almost any topic ( I love to do research), essays also on a variety of topics, creative non-fiction like true stories and vignettes about real events, and most of all, personal narrative. So when I got to where I was ready to tackle a book, the logical genre for me was memoir. I love writing stories about what happened at my bed and breakfast the 16 years that I have been an Innkeeper. And I hope my readers will like them too.


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