What Exactly is Memoir, Anyway?

I was worried that I would quickly run out of interesting things to write about in this blog. I'm sure I'd have more to say if I really sat down and thought about it, so that's what I'll try to do. Lately, I've had trouble doing much of anything, especially anything productive or writing-related. It's time for that to change. I had a wonderful evening in Hollywood with some writer friends. We went to see a literary reading at the Hotel Cafe. "Tongue and Groove" is the name of the monthly event where published writers read their work and a musical guest plays. Both times I've attended have been fantastic. After the reading, we went to The Waffle on Sunset Blvd. and had a delicious red velvet waffle sundae. Nights like this remind me of what I'm striving for as a writer - both to be part of the bigger writing community as well as the smaller one of like-minded writer friends. I hope someday to give readings the way these authors with published work do. I'm not a great public speaker, mind you. I get really nervous and sort of forget to breathe so the entire piece comes out in a series of long, drawn out, shallow gasps of breath. By the end of my reading, I'm winded. I probably just need more practice. The real problem is that I haven't been writing enough. The thing that's hopefully going to get me going through April and all the way to the start of my MFA program in June is participating in Script Frenzy. I'm taking the novel I've been planning for almost a year but have made little progress on and turning it into a screenplay. The goal of Script Frenzy is to write 100 pages in 30 days. It's an offshoot of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. I think it's doable...more so than 50,000 words of a novel for NaNoWriMo, anyway, which is a task that I failed at back in November. But I've only ever written short screenplays, so it may not be so easy. I'm excited about this project, though. I have a solid idea and already know the characters pretty well. Maybe it was really meant to be a screenplay all along. It is a story that lends itself to visual imagery. Anyway, we'll see how that goes. It feels good to feel like a writer again. It's so easy to get stuck in a habit of not-writing and it can be hard to break out of it.

What Exactly is Memoir, Anyway?

On Writing Memoir: Why You Shouldn’t Use a Pseudonym

Writers and Confidence

The L.A. Times Festival of Books and the Future of Literature

Hollywood, Literature, and Waffles