On the importance of asking why

This past weekend, I was at the California coast with a group of women I lived with in the dorms during college. We hadn’t seen each other since before the pandemic and there was a lot of catching up to do.

At one point, one of the […]

By |2023-10-18T09:16:53-06:00October 10th, 2023|Categories: Emotional Wisdom, Know Yourself, Memoir Writing, Uncovering Your Story|7 Comments

What is Your Life Telling You?

Last summer, I started writing a book about living with intention so that I didn’t die with regrets. My working title: Not Dead Yet.

The writing was going well. I was exchanging pages regularly with another coach. I was starting to believe that maybe, just maybe, I might see this […]

On longing, envy (and yes, writing)

There was a time in my early forties when I once spent the better part of a day shopping for a soap dish and toothbrush holder that would perfectly match the brushed nickel faucets in my newly remodeled spa bathroom. Back then, I was extremely proud of my just-spicy-enough jambalaya […]

By |2021-10-21T13:49:52-06:00October 21st, 2021|Categories: Emotional Wisdom, Know Yourself, Memoir Writing|Tags: , , , |1 Comment

Gimme the page over a party anytime

Last weekend, I attended my first post-Covid party—a warm, summer night gathering held in a friend’s leafy yard.

I arrived excited. There were people–lots of them! And all seemed to be smiling. The collective vibe: Covid is over!

After grabbing a glass of rose, I launched into conversations with a swirl of […]

By |2021-06-23T15:10:05-06:00June 23rd, 2021|Categories: Know Yourself, On Writing|0 Comments

Are You Ready To Begin?

I contemplated writing a memoir for four years before I started writing one in earnest. During those years, I took notes, wrote some scenes, created a list of memories, read other memoirs, played with structure. But I didn’t write consistently. Instead, I wrote when I felt like it, when I […]

By |2020-12-01T11:40:54-07:00December 1st, 2020|Categories: Emotional Wisdom, Know Yourself, Trusting Your Soul|0 Comments

The Crumpled Note Story

When I was eleven years old, still flat-chested and shaggy-haired, I wrote my father a note explaining in painstaking detail the hurt I felt over some favoritism he’d shown my younger sister. The specific incident is lost to memory, but I remember writing and rewriting that note several times until […]

By |2020-06-08T14:23:08-06:00June 8th, 2020|Categories: Know Yourself, Uncovering Your Story|Tags: , , |2 Comments

Your 30-Minute Myth

I have no scientific data to back this up, but I would say—based on experience and observation—that it takes an average of four years to write a memoir, and by that I mean the kind of well-crafted story others would want to read.

In the process, memoirists not only […]

Confessions of a Procrastinator

Let’s say it’s Thursday morning and you have some type of creative project due Monday. You’ve postponed the project for weeks because the right ideas weren’t forthcoming. But now, the deadline is looming, you feel as if you’ve been living on diet pills and black coffee, and you’re trying to […]

By |2019-03-12T09:02:21-06:00January 30th, 2019|Categories: Know Yourself|Tags: , |0 Comments

Developing the I Narrator

When you write your story, you are deliberating choosing to become the story’s main character, the hero, the person whose thoughts and feelings need to be tracked beat by beat. This means you need to consciously develop yourself into a character the reader can relate to you.

This isn’t as easy […]

By |2019-03-12T09:04:16-06:00January 6th, 2019|Categories: Know Yourself|Tags: |0 Comments

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