Writing from the heart...

I have been chasing my authentic writing voice all summer. This week I had an ah-ha experience. I found my voice - authentic, emotional, and fluid. Working on Dubious Grief is a priority so I re-read my journal entries from 2008-2010. And surprise - there it was, my voice. Now I work on creating a structure for the book with the journal entries as the heart. Three parts of my journey emerged: Death Watch, Left Behind, and Creating a Life. These reflect the unfolding of my grief journey and the structure for the book.

See new post on Dubious Grief page.

Keep writing...

I'm reading short stories. I want to learn the pacing for the story arc. I'm thinking about some of the pieces I've written this summer as possible stand alone short stories. As with all forms of writing, short story writing is a craft, and I need to learn how to write in this form. An unexpected outcome of this is I'm beginning to find more and more humor emerge in my writing - I'm having fun creating these shorter pieces.

See new posts on Dubious Grief and Writing Riffs pages.

Writing energy...

This week I've worked on two of my writing projects. Lots of research for one and organizing material on the other. Looking through materials for one project I found something written by a friend, many years ago when we were students together. The words inspired me so I looked up my friend from long ago. She created a safe place where I wrote nonacademic pieces. It was the beginning of my desire to write as I do today. Her words continue to inspire my writing. "I have to continue no matter what I say, to keep the words coming is the purpose. They will not be right anyway. What is right is to write..." Thank you MJ for your words.

See new posts on writing riffs and dubious grief pages.

Nonfiction writing

This week I've turned to developing a proposal for my nonfiction book - Dubious Grief. I picked up a book - Death's Door - written by the literary critic Sandra Gilbert. I'm most interest in what she wrote in Part 1 of the book - since it contains personal writing about the death of her husband. Several ideas she presents have affirmed my own thoughts: 1. when we lose our spouse, we often feel we just want to be dead also - this is not suicidal, we just simply want to be with our loved one; 2. in order to come to terms with the death, we need to acknowledge the irreversibility of our loss before we can move on.