Reading At Pruneyard Bookstore

Barnes & Noble is community-minded enough to allow our club, South Bay Writers, to have a reading there every month. Five us read and listened when the others read. I read four short poems from my new collection, Fine Lines of Mine (see previous post) plus about eight minutes worth out of a short story I wrote three years ago. (I need to sit down and really polish that one to a fine sheen; cutting out 50% of the words might be a good place to start.)

I thought my story, Teen Trials #17, was pretty sensitive and realistic "first-date" dialog--that was my story's situation, so that's a good thing. But it did get a little too explicit with sex, at least it felt that way with this small audience (four people). The audience felt like it started to squirm and that made me feel squeemish about reading on more.

With the recent honest, sometimes harsh-feeling feedback I've received from editors working with me on my novel, I'm likely getting a better feeling for my ideal audience and what kind of explicitness is going too far. (I want to go further. However, the reality today is different. A lot of great short story publishers will put up with the implicit quick sexual innuendo, but not long dwellings on love-making, in detail, or explicit naming of body parts, etc.) If my story is not mainly a sex instruction book, it works against the meat of my story to get too detailed and dwell too long there. I felt that tonight, and there probably is no other way to get that kind of extremely useful information. I call it "listening through the ears of the others."

I need to rewrite Teen Trials #17--tonight, even!--to keep the good stuff and trim off the less than good. I'm not saying never to have sex in your short stories, but make sure it is appropriate to your ideal reader and the probable publisher and award committees that you wish to impress. In the 60s, it was different. We have a more conservative audience these days, so, a word to the wise...

At tonight's reading, the main trouble (ignoring that the microphone had a low frequency hum that would crescendo out of control if you breathed on it) was there were not enough listeners sitting in the chairs out there. Thus, there was less chemistry, less buzz, less feedback and less heart and warm bodies out there. At our readings, listeners are often the readers--that was the case tonight--so we also didn't have enough authors or prospective authors reading. Too bad.

Did you ever throw a party and no one came?  It was a little bit like that.

If you'd like to bolster our crowd or you write and need to get used to reading in front of people (in a interested, supportive atmosphere) you should come. It's usually 3rd Friday of each month, Pruneyard Barnes & Noble open microphone, 7:30PM, sponsor: California Writers Club, South Bay Branch.

See you there... I hope. Bring something newly written to test out on us.

My New Poetry Booklet

I'm a novelist who also writes non-fiction as well as some poetry. Well, some of my poems have won awards, for example third prize at East of Eden (2006) Writers Conference. Friends have requested that I publish some of them since they like my work so well they wanted to have a collection at their home.

It seem like a good idea, so I spent five days away from novel writing, putting together a little booklet of 18 of my favorite poems, including all my award winners: "I Wished," "TV Is Somethin'," etc. I wouldn't have gone through the trouble if I didn't think they were good, and I'm proud of this collection. The title of the collection is Fine Lines of Mine. It'll be something I can have available to sell wherever I read my poetry. ;^)

(If you think I'm happy you're right! -from a Dave Dudley song written by Carl Montgomery and Earl Green.)

In getting them together, I've found a word here and a line there to improve, and there are some never before seen in Writers Talk or anywhere else. When my novel writing begins to get to me, I can turn to poetry to pick up my spirits. Every day, I'm making progress, little by little, in my writing. I hope you have a good writing day, today, too.

Memoir Class Was Memorable

Linda Joy Myers, PhD., taught a very good six hour memoir class, sponsored by South Bay Writers, given on November 6 at  Lookout Restaurant banquet room in Sunnyvale.

First, I have to admit, the memoir I was writing was not a memoir at all—it was too long and detailed—it was a journal.  It seemed to attempt to chronicle about every minute of my life—wrong!

A memoir should be more focus than that, be focused around a definite theme that can be gleaned from my life, and generally cover a shorter time period than one's entire life.

To get a handle on what my theme might be, she gave us a blank timeline handout and told us to think up 5 to 10 major turning points that existed in our lives—major telling decisions that affected the future, perhaps disasters, unusual family situations. But, in order to cut down on superfluous detail, she said to try to limit them to six or seven (or less) key turning points. I should then boil these down to perhaps three or four—they must have to do with the selected theme, and that theme probably would be reflected in the title.

Other than that, treat the memoir as a novel, a story: draw the reader in with an especially interesting, exciting midpoint occurrence, and, like any good story, the story should have drama, narrative summary, scenes with action and dialog eliciting emotions in the reader, sensory detail (to make it real). Your story should have a beginning, middle, and ending.

Linda Joy Myer prefers upbeat endings, illustrating some victory or some learning that occurred that would appeal to your prospective readers.

Oh, yes, we are talking about a memoir you want to sell commercially, to have published, and go through bookstores (or to self-published and market it yourself).

I have more detailed notes, of course, and I hope to get back and read them and apply them if I ever really get focusing on my memoir. I am still writing my novel on Shoshoni Indians and my characters distinctions aren't good enough so I'm working on them.

Making out a written, physical timeline is a very powerful step in keeping your memoir focused and telling a relevant story. Think of turning points as transformations, opportunities for growth, whether successfully exploited or not.

Then she went into the fact that, even though your memory may be imperfect, it's all right—in fact, expected—to invent scenes from your recollections and put quoted dialog, even though 20 years later you surely do not remember every word and every gesture. The reader needs this feeling of tangibility, and, if the essentials of the truth, as you see them (may be made more dramatic), are there, who could complain?  Caveat: I'm not a lawyer and neither is Linda. At the present time, I see more info here.

She went into detail and answered questions on whether or not to change names to protect your loved ones from embarrassment and that sort of thing. The answer seems to be situational, depending on the sensitivity that you know these individuals have, and your ability to smooth stated remembrances over with them. No two people will remember the same event the same, so the writer needs to recognize this to, and learn when he is treading into sensitive territory. If someone is alive, you should go over the sensitive part with that person and see if that is acceptable with them. Caveat: I'm not a lawyer and neither is Linda. I see more info here.

Pack your memoir with thoughts (at the time of the story and/or at the time of narration) to elicit emotion--show trouble and how it was overcome.

Linda Joy Meyers, Ph.D., MFT, President and Founder of National Association of Memoir Writers, is a skilled workshop presenter.