Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello writers, My
name is preclosed, say I'm a published writer. And the goal of this course
is to help you get started on writing your first connection of childhood memoir stories. And this is based
on everything that I've learned from day zero, having no writing experience, to having my first connection of childhood memoir
stories published. It's divided up into
four different sections. We're going to start
off with memoir. First of all, I've read
quite a number of them, but I've picked the best ones. And we're going to
look at those ones specifically and learn what we can apply to our own
writing from those memoirs. And then after memoirs
we're going to look at some beautiful poems. So there's a lot
we can learn about poetry and base have to say so much with very little being very concise
with their language. And then we're going
to take a look as the best editing
technique that I find most efficient when I was
working through my stories. And the very last part of
the course then is going to focus on how to bring
all the stories together. Because of course, that's one of the most important
things for us, is Reiser is making sure that what we've written
feels cohesive. It feels like all the different
parts belong together. For the class project, I'm going to ask you to rise two to three
sentences about your favorite quote and why it
is your favorite quotes. If all the writing examples
that we're going to look as. The reason for this is that quite often
the writing that we love to read is the type of writing that we
become strongest acid. So it's a really good
way of getting to know our own voices as writers. I've also included
a few tips that I've found most
helpful to help me keep motivated and
keep going with the rising straight through
from start to finish. So hopefully they'll
help you too. So I will see you in the next video where
we're gonna be talking about those beautiful memoirs and what we can learn from them. That's all I'll see you there.
2. How do the Top Memoirists Do it?: Welcome into our class on men where we're
going to start things off with just a
brief overview of this specific technique that
we're going to look at. And the writing
examples will help us understand more fully
this technique. And we'll see this
same technique being used in our poetry
class as well. When we look at the
examples there, that this technique is to bring
nature into the personal. So to use words that we typically
use to describe nature, to describe our own experiences
growing up as children, or what you can also do. And what we will see in the writing examples is to apply this technique
in the other way, which is to personify nature. So if you think about the landscape that you
grew up in as a child, how would you personify the US? How would you use essentially words that you would typically use to describe
the human experience, to describe the landscape that was arranged you
when you were growing up. So this will get
a lot clearer as we look at the writing examples. The examples that we'll
look at us as part of this class and also as
part of our poetry class, are going to help us understand clearly exactly how we can take this technique and apply it to our own writing to increase
the quality of us. There are three
different examples that we're going to look at
this part of this class. The very first example
is coming from James Joyce, the Irish Spicer. And we're going to look at
his autobiographical novel, a portrait of the
artist as a young man. Of course, it's not
technically a memoir, but it's a coming of age story. So his approach is something that we can very easily applied, terrible rising as well. And then the second book
that we're going to look at is Hilary Mantel's
Giving up the ghost. Her memoir is just incredible. It's hands down. The best malware
that I have read. So I highly recommend
if you're thinking about investing in one
memoir to get you started, I would highly recommend
buying her memoir. You've just learned so much. I learned so much from her
memoir. It's just incredible. So she was one of
only four people in history to ever win
the Booker twice. And she wanted for her
Oliver Cromwell trilogy, she looks at historical
fiction charity, but her memoir is just, it's still highly recommend. Either the third book that
we're going to look at is Virginia Woolf's
moments beating. So this is Virginia
Woolf's memoir. And of course, we're
all very well aware of how strong of a writer
Virginia Woolf was. She was at an
amazing writer too. And we'll see that also in the writing example
that we look at. So let's get started
with the example from James Joyce's
autobiographical novel of the artist as a young man. So let's have a listen
to his clothes. He heard voices. They were talking, was
the noise of the waves. Or the waves were talking among themselves as they
rose and fell. Useful. So what we can see there is he's really bringing
the two worlds together, the world of nature, the world of the
human experience. We can see that technique
that we spoke about earlier. He's using the human experience
to personify nature. So he's talking about the waves, talking among themselves as if they're people standing
around having a conversation. So it's a beautiful way of connecting the reader
in with the story. And that's something that
we can really easily apply in our own
writing so it can get us thinking about how we might apply this
prayer own stories. Next up is the rising example from Hilary Mantel's memoir, giving up the ghost. Let's take a listen.
The trees overheads, make a noise of
urgent conversation. Quick to catch. The leaves part. This guy moves. The sun periods down at me. It's just gorgeous. Every time I have read
that quote so many times, every time I hear is just,
it's just beautiful. It's just good for the heart to hear good rising like that. So we can see there thus, Hilary Mantel is also using the same technique
as James Joyce. And what she's doing is she's
personifying those trees. She's personifying the sound of the wind going
through the leaves to what she's doing is she's personifying the
trees around her. So when she was a child hearing the wind going through
the leaves to her, it felt as if the tree is, we're having a really urgent, a very important conversation
among themselves. And it's a really beautiful way, as we saw before, to add depth to the rising. She also does this at the
end of that example as well. The sun appears down at
me, which is beautiful. Because that's exactly
how it feels, right? We can totally relate. When you're walking
through the woods. It's quite dark. And that ray of sudden
just comes down. It's just a beautiful
way of expressing that. And again, bringing the reader
and yourself in closer, building that connection
between yourself, story and in the end, between the reader
and the story. The last rising example
we're going to look at is from Virginia Woolf's
memoir, moments of being. This is taken from quite
early on in her memoir. So it's in that section
called a sketch of the past. And this particular example
she's describing how she feels about her mother and
how she perceives her mother, and what she does in particular here is she
reverses the technique. So, so far we've seen two
examples where both writers, both James Joyce and Hilary Mantel, are
personifying nature. But what Virginia Woolf does is she reverses the technique. So she's bringing nature into the personal genes using words that we typically
use to describe nature, to describe the
human experience. So let's have a
listen to the course. I suspect the word
Central gets closest to the general feeling
I had of living so completely in our atmosphere
that would never got far enough away from her
to see her as a person. Very powerful. So that's a feeling
that we can all relate to when we're talking about relationships with
our immediate family. When we're really, really up so close and living
in such proximity, both physically as well as emotionally with our
immediate family. Virginia Woolf expresses
this beautifully by using that word atmosphere to describe that feeling that
she had a boat from other. So that's wrapped up with
our memoirist section, some useful rice in there. I hope you enjoyed this
and I go to look for is to talk you through
the poetry section. We have some beautiful
poems ahead of us, so we look forward
to seeing you then
3. What can we learn from poets like Seamus Heaney?: This section we're
going to take a look at some beautiful homes. So we're going to start off with Seamus Heaney is
BlackBerry picking. Then we're going to
look as WB Yeats, his poems, stone and child, are there stolen until else. Then the last poem
are going to look as if Emily Dickinson's, the child's faith is new, which is a beautiful
one of the examples that we will look at from those first two poems from
Seamus Heaney, from WB Yeats. We're going to see how they use the same technique that we
saw in the memory section. But in the last poll. Just to change things
up a little bit, I decided to include us
just to give an example of how it feels when you have a
beautiful piece of writing, but it's not actually
using that same technique. Let's start off with
the first quote. So Blackberry picking is
a beautiful poem, does, if you're from Ireland or if you went to school and Ireland to be very familiar with this
one, it's a beautiful one. You ate that first one and
it's flesh with Suisse like thickened Wayne summaries
blood was beautiful. So we can see there
that seamus Heaney uses that same technique. You know, he personifies
this season. So he personifies this human
experience he's having as a child by describing the scene, describing this
experience that he's having a personifying nature. He does this by using summers, blood as if the summer, as if the season where a person. And so that really gives us a very vibrant visual picture of how it looks when you
pick your blackberries. So that's the main thing
we can learn from Heaney. There is the way that he applies that technique and also
his focus on the senses. So he's got loads of beautiful
S. Sounds, very sensible. Fans going through that
poem is a highly recommend. Looking it up and reading as in its entirety to really let us soak in and learn as much
as he can from his approach. So the next example
we're going to look at is from the stolen tiles. So it's quite a well-known pole. And it's got a really, really strong sense of
their worldliness to us. But what we want to
focus on is whether he uses that technique or an OS. And he does. So let's take
a look at the quotient. First of all, come away, oh human child to
the waters and the wild with a fairy hand in hand. For the world, it's
more full of weeping. Then you can understand
the weekend fee from that. It's just beautiful. The furnace. And he of course
uses that technique as well as we
personifies nature. He personifies the world and describes the world as
being full of sadness, full of tears,
that it's weeping. And in that way, He really strengthens
the connection between the reader and the scene
that he's describing. It really adds a lot of depth to this particular
part of the poem. We can, again very
easily apply this to our own writing to heighten and really
elevate are rising. The third, one final
example that we're going to look at is from Emily
Dickinson's poem, the child's faith is new
and it's just beautiful. Her poem really emphasizes to us as riser is the importance
of being playful, being like an innocent,
like a child. And taking that approach
to our writing, we don't actually see
her use that technique. But I still decided
to include it as part of our class
on poetry because it is important
to be playful and innocent in our approach
to our stories, particularly when it
comes to writing memoir. So let's take a look at
the child's faith is new, like its principal, wide, like the sunrise and fresh eyes. Just gorgeous. So why does she doesn't use that technique that we've looked at in all the other examples. It still is a beautiful
piece of writing. And the technique she
uses is to simply compare the experience of the child with a
scene from nature. And it's something
that we can very easily apply in her own writing. So I hope you enjoyed all
those different quotes. Wait for you to really
get in and look up each poem and read it
through and take your time. And then it's thinking and let it just sit with you and you just never know what kind of ideas it might
spark off for you. I will see you in our next video where we're
going to be taking a look at editing technique that I really found the most efficient
in my own writing. And hopefully it'll help
you with yours too. So I will see you there.
4. How Can We Edit Our Stories Efficiently?: We're going to take a look as thus editing technique
that I mentioned. I found very efficient when I was working
on my own stories. It job of the first draft is to simply to get it
down on the page. Because it's a huge
job in itself to move these words on this
memory of the world, of your imagination and onto
the page in front of you. That's a loan is huge. So don't worry at all about the way it looks or the quality. That's not what we're
looking at here. When we're working
on our first draft. It's just simply to just
get those words down on the page because you can
always course later on. So that was my approach for my first draft of the stories, was to rise at length, give myself free rein. Just get the memories
down on the page. And then that was the
first draft done. So how did I go with the
editing process after step one, once the first
draft is completed. So what you want
to do is strip out anything that doesn't
feel true to the story. I don't mean literally true. I mean, it doesn't
feel emotionally true. So it might be some
additional detail there that's really doesn't
add much to the story, it doesn't elevators and
to bring the reader in. So if there's any additional
detail there, like fast, That's wash. You want to take out of the story the next step, once you've taken
out detailed that is not relevant or it doesn't
feel true to the story. The next step is to add in the detail that does feel true. But how do you do that? So reading the story aloud and as you listen back to the story, it can spark of additional ideas or
additional memories or additional detail that is specifically relevant
and true to the story. All those additional details or imagery that you're
bringing into the story. Then at this stage of editing, it's going to make it feel more and more whole and more
balanced and really more held and stronger as the
story more complete freely. So I hope that technique
will also help you to, and I will look
forward to seeing you in the next section of the course where we're
going to be looking at how do we bring all of
these stories together. Once we have them finish?
5. How Do We Bring All Our Stories Together?: In this section, we're
going to take a look at how to bring all of our
stories together. So let's say we've worked on
our collection of stories. Maybe we've decided to
rice six or seven stories. Short stories as well. Doesn't need to be
extremely long. We could aim for maybe five
or 600 words or longer, whatever feels
right for yourself. Decide on that and go with us. Once he was the
stories completers and they feel finished. You've taken them from the
very first draft and cook them and worked with them and added in all those beautiful details. And now you're at a point
where they feel finished and you're ready
to begin preparing them and bring
them all together. And so that you'd be ready to submit them then to
competitions and journals. So this is what
we're going to look at in this section in
particular course. So I had to bring
them all together. So let's say e.g. you have six or seven stories completed. We want to do now
is go back through every story and
look for a theme. There will be a
theme or a passion that will emerge from your
collection of stories. But it's important not
to force this to happen. It's really important to just
simply write the stories unless the team organically
emerged at the end, when you're completely finished with each one of those stories. As you go back
through the stories, keep an eye out for things
like maybe a relationship that keeps coming up again and again in
each of the stories. Or maybe there is an
event that keeps being mentioned or cakes
not being mentioned. Or maybe there is one of the family members in your
life that either is mentioned, are not mentioned as well. Or it maybe there's a
particular relationship with somebody in the
local community, or a friendship
or something that keeps emerging again and again in each one
of the stories. That will always be
something there. It's just a matter
of finding us. So once you've
identified the theme, whether it's a
relationship or maybe your particular significant
events in your childhood. This is when we want to go back through the stories
and make sure that each one is shaped
around this theme. We want to go back through
and just do a very, very nice addressing
to make sure that this pattern is obvious. That there's a really
strong connection in each one of these
stories to that team. And so the point
of this is to make sure that each of the
stories belong to the team. But that's going to do is
give the reader and give ourselves an overall feeling of completeness
and cohesiveness. You know that the collection
of stories Feel hold that they've been built around
this theme when in fact, it only emerges at
the end, of course, and it's very important
that it only emerges at the end must be a
natural process. And that we don't force that it just naturally
emerges at the end. And it will just have
faith that it will, if you ever do struggle though, to find a theme in your stories, I would advise going
back and revisiting your favorite quotes from the
memoirs that you've read. And there will often be
a correlation between the approach that the author
took and your own approach. So you might get some
insights from their stories about how to create
cohesiveness with yours
6. 10 Top Tips For Staying Motivated: We're going to cover
a few tips now. These are the ones that I
find most helpful to keep my spirits up while I
wrote those stories, the first thing you're
going to do when you're starting to
write your stories, is you're going to be
doing a lot of reading. What I did and
what I find really helpful is I kept
a quote journals. So I just kept a notebook. And then every time I came
across a close just a couple of sentences or even a one line that
I really loved. I would add that in
to the notebook. So I would advise you
to do the same thing. That's no book is going to be a really powerful resource
for you on those days where you just need a
little bit more motivation or you might be looking
for some inspiration. What story to write about next? So in reading about
other people's memories, they may spark some of your own. The next thing I'm
going to advise you to do is to keep a rising journal. I know another eternal, but it's a really
good way of keeping track of what is working
for you and what is enough so you can
start crossing out any distractions that you find kind of interfere
with your writing until you become
stronger and stronger as protecting and ring-fencing
this time that you put in to your writing
each day or each weekend. So at the end of the week, maybe on a Sunday afternoon, you might sit down with your writing journal
and just have a read through us and reflect
on what you might change. This is a really good way of giving yourself
some perspective on the process and also
giving yourself some credit for all the work
that you've done that week. Get out into nature
every day if you can, for I would say
at least an hour. If possible, you will immediately notice
the improvement in your ability to
concentrate and to focus on just to relax into
the writing a lot more. And on the days where you don't
really feel like writing, ask yourself, have you
been outside yesterday? And would that be an
idea to just get out, get out for a walk,
shake it off. And then when you come back
and then sit down and rice, because down on the amount of time that on your smartphone, cutting down on our screen time, we're helping ourselves
increase our ability to concentrate and focus
and just relax more. So we're supporting ourselves in the same way that we're
getting out into nature every day by cutting
down on the amount of time we spend in
front of the screen. We're also improving and
strengthening again and again our ability to concentrate and focus
on her writing, even if it's just turning
the phone off when you sit down to rice for your
half-hour or hour, every day or every week, or taking a break
from us and leaving it behind you when you
get out for your walk, have an accountability buddy. So you might know somebody who
also loves writing through your local writers
group or maybe from a Rising Festival that
you've recently attended, meet up with them
for a coffee and a Chasse to talk
through your work. And it really helps you
to see yourself more as a writer as well when you're
talking to somebody else. I, by doing this
thing that you love, hearing yourself talk about
what you've been working on. It can help give you
clarity on exactly what to change or what to focus more
on for the following week. Be careful not to share your
work before it's ready. Quite often in the writing
workshops that we go to, we're asked to rice and then to share what
we've just written. It's much more
important to encourage your words and protect them when they've just literally
just tumbled out of your memory or your imagination and onto the page
in front of you. So they're very role, they need to be
basically worked on an edited before you share them. There is a beautiful quote
from Hilary Mantel about this. There is a place, a gap between the
hatching words, lynching and raw and those that are ready
to take their place in the world where it's that are ready to stand up and fight. So it really far as, uh, as well as reminding
us how important it is to protect those
words that are just, you know, the row
they're vulnerable. They need to be worked
with before their shared. Those couple of tips
so far are really important for when you're
first starting out, reminding yourself,
minding your work, making sure you're
getting outside, making sure you're
cutting down on screen time and all
that sort of thing. The next couple of
tips are really about keeping us going, keeping us motivate acids, and seeing this writing project
through to the very end. So these are the tips
that I find most helpful. Keep me going, be disciplined. So really what we're
doing by being disciplined with
honoring the story, by showing up first, regardless of how we feel by being disciplined
were actually freeing ourselves from
whatever way we feel that there's something really
empowering about fast, good for you and it's good for your story because
the story knows you're going to show
up for us no matter what, focus on quantity, the only way to make
sure that you have a whole story from
beginning, middle, to end on the page is to just focus on gaining goes
where it's done on paper. And we touched on this a little bit before joining the course. But this is how
important this part is. So what you need
to do is decide on how many words you're
going to rice every day. Or decide how much
time you're going to dedicate to your
writing every day and keep going until you hit
that targets by focusing on the word count or the length of time that we're going
to be writing for. We take a huge amount of
pressure off ourselves. So all we need to do is
just hit that target and focus on that rather than on
the quality of the writing, get used to the unknown. So when we sit down to rice, we actually never really
know what's going to happen. So we'll have, of
course, a rough idea. We'll know that's maybe there's a particular memory that
we're going to write about. We will know that there's a particular word counts that
we need to get to before we leave our desk or we need to keep going for
a certain amount of time. But apart from that, we really don't know. And the thing is we're
never going to know, no matter how long you've
been writing for, you, really never know
what's going to happen with the story
until you begin to rise as the more
comfortable you are with just not knowing I'm sitting
down to rise anyway. The easier the writing
process will become. The final tip I'm going
to leave you with is trust your own cancel. So this is a really
important one. There's lots of
different opinions will be given on your writing
when you begin to share us. But in the end, you're
the author of the story. You're the only
one who knows what actually feels
true to the story. Apart feels true to the story, has a direct correlation with
the quality of the writing. And you're the only one
who knows how that feels. Other people might
have a rough idea. They might have their own
perspectives on your icing. They might have some
very helpful insights. But in the end, you must trust
your own canceled. You are the author
of this story and so you are the one who has the clearest sense and the
strongest sense of the truth, the universal truth
that is at the core of your store today are my
tips for getting you motivated at the very beginning
and to keep you motivated and continuing to rise right through this project
until the very end. So I find that really helpful
from my own experience. And hopefully they won't
be helpful for you too.
7. Conclusion: That wraps us up almost for
the glorious look forward to seeing wash at writing its
output is your favorites. Thank you so much
for being here, for putting the time
in and investing this time in yourself
as a writer and your own development
and exploring this particular approach to
writing childhood memoir. Hope it's been helpful
and I will see you soon.
Ruth O'Shea, Irish writer
