Sue Roupp.Teach.Write.Speak. Memoir Writing in 6 Easy Steps. Teacher. Workshops. TV host. editor.
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MEMOIR WRITING

10/19/2012

 
Last night we finished the fifth of our five sessions of Memoir 1 at the Writers' Barn in Shelburne, VT.  Seven writers unpacking their memories, finding scenes, characters, delight, sorrow, joy, laughing out loud moments in their lives that they want to share with others.

Our classes are experiential, we write/I teach and we are amazed how scenes emerge from the exercises we do.  Scenes hidden in our unconscious, filed away under "do not disturb" or "don't go there." As time goes on we learn the craft of writing, what works and more wonderful writing emerges.

It is in those tender, sometimes difficult moments, when our true voice is heard.  Sure, we want to tell others about our achievements, but it is in those tiny moments we write about that our readers resonate with our writing.  They are, what I call, universal moments. 

Universal moments when  everyone around the globe can identify with a writer's feeling expressed in a scene: the car door closing as a 12 year old child is left at a boarding school, a day in a garden then everything changes, someone uprooted from their homeland, the shock of winning something you thought was unreachable (no matter how small), war changing everything, a house holding its family close over 40 years, children of survivors who endured unimaginable terror and so much more.

As humans united through our stories, we need to hear these stories.  We need to be there in scene with the writer on that boat, in that building, in that family.  It is the writer's original voice we yearn to hear. Those stories not only unite us as part of this global experience, it gives us hope we can go on, while validating our own experience as part of our cultural story.


Banishing Writer's Block

3/1/2011

 
Ok, how many of you out there are feeling a sense of writer's block.  You know how it goes: you stare at the paper, look at your computer screen, shrug, take a deep breath, you look at your desk, think about maybe paying a bill or getting a cup of coffee (or tea).

Your fingers seem asleep, your mind is unfocused.  What is going on?  Not much it seems.  So what to do about this?  Close your eyes.  Ok. Then write any word that comes to mind but write it down on your computer, on paper, on your hand, on a 3x5 card, on the wall (well...maybe not the wall).  Write the word without thinking about it.  Now write the second word.  It does NOT have to follow the other word consecutively.  Just write it down and then a third random word etc.  No thinking allowed here.

Keep going until you stop.  Then take the first ten words and use them in a paragraph.  Then the second ten words in the next paragraph.  Write fast.  Do NOT ponder your choices.

Pretty soon: magic happens - you are writing.  Your brain will help you make sense of all of this and you will find ways back to the logic of where you were stuck in your previous writing.  But allow yourself this freewrite...it is letting all those words puddled in your brain to spill out.  Bravo for you.  You did it!

    Sue Roupp

    Teacher.Writer.Actor. Professional Speaker and more...

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