Writing a memoir can be a daunting task. Research is key, but how do you begin to organize all the information? How do you remind yourself of pertinent points? A list helps, but where to put it?

One way to do this is to use flip chart paper, the kind with a sticky strip on the back so you can throw it on a wall and leave it there. I have several marching across a hallway wall. As I think of different events or learn something new, I add it to one of these papers where I can see it.

Post by Christine Hayvice (TWS 2012).

Photo courtesy of the author.

I have been revising a novel and feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and the looming deadline. As if I had a shapeless woolly mammoth on my back. The end felt hopelessly out of reach. Once I gave in and took time to make a schedule for completion, marking each chapter off in my diary over the next series of months, I felt like I’d unloaded that mammoth for the first time. It’s not sticking to the schedule so much as making it. Now I can see the task is doable. I feel clearer. Even, at times, inspired!

Post by Sue Goldswain (TWS 2012, fiction class). Sue has been labouring beneath the weight of her first novel for some time.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Time to write. Read it two ways. Self admonition (use sparingly). Scheduled time. Schedule time. Perhaps you think you write too little ((not enough time given over, not enough beauty (terrible or otherwise) produced)). Understand you must be many, do much in a day. Understand you must brush your teeth, feed your body, raise the family, make money–write. Writing has its place amongst other necessary acts. One must constantly re-schedule the exigencies. Don’t waste your time somewhere else when you are here. Schedule all/most/some of the here’s. Play with splitting off time. Time to write. When?

Post by David Miller (TWS 2012). David has had the luxury of seemingly unending vistas of uninterrupted writing time and the terror of a landscape filled with the charred remnants of gone time.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

1. Your mother was right, always get a good night’s sleep.

2. Eat a complete breakfast, not just a granola bar, not even the virtuous kind.

3. Get some exercise, any exercise, just move.

4. Buy an ergonomic desk chair and use it as it was intended.

5. Get up to stretch once in a while.

6. Drink plenty of water throughout the day.

7. Don’t overdo it with booze or coffee. You’re no Hemingway and Juan Valdez was a marketing campaign.

8. Listen to your writing voice.

9. Pay attention to structure.

10. Revise, revise, revise.

Post by Rosetta Cannata (TWS 2012), a lifelong storyteller and compulsive list-maker.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Self-critiquing, procrastination, and social media can hold back your first draft, but without that initial frame to work with, building your true narrative may prove challenging.

Five first draft tips:

1. Write it as quickly as you can–let the ideas and images flow.

2. Don’t stop to line edit–you may end up trashing the chapter you’re working on.

3. Put away your inner-critique–avoid re-reading your work until you’ve completed a chapter.

4. Accept that you may throw out much of what you’ve written.

5. Don’t be afraid to take a different direction–your novel will evolve as you learn about your story and characters.

Post by TWS 2010 writer Claire De Boer (read the full text on her website here).

Image courtesy of the author.

A few tips on how to win writing contests:

* The judge is key. When I entered this year’s Room contest, I had a hunch Susan Juby (mostly a YA writer) would bond with the young narrator of my story. And she did!

* Get rid of the flab. Take a 6000-word story and hack it down to 4000.

* Start a spreadsheet of contests, your submissions, and results. Keep a cache of stories ready of varying lengths: 300 words up to 6000.

* Start with smaller contests.

* Order The Canadian Writers’ Contest Calendar.

* Submit! Submit! Submit!

Post by Jan Redford (TWS 2007), whose short story “God or Boys” recently won Room magazine’s creative nonfiction contest. Find more of her work at www.janredford.com.

Image courtesy of MS Office (clip art).

Relationships with significant others, our family, and our friends can only be maintained through reciprocity, energy, and time. The same can be said about our relationship with writing.

Enroll in workshops and classes, read books on craft, attend literary events, and surround yourself with positive people supportive of your writing practice and of your work. Take time out of your day to write. Make it a priority.

Be careful what you ask of your writing–of asking the wrong things, or of asking too many things too soon. When your writing asks something of you, listen.

Your ability to write is a gift. Honour it.

Post by Emily Rose of TWS 2011. Check out her writing at www.writtenbyrose.com and www.crazytales.org.

Photo courtesy of Hakan Dahlstrom, Fotopedia (public domain).

Whether you have a writing job with deadlines to meet, you’re a freelance writer, or you’re trying to build a writing career, setting goals is almost imperative.

Depending on your project, map out how many words you intend to write during your writing time. This is particularly important if you have time restraints or deadlines, but even if you don’t, setting writing goals will mentally help you be productive. It’s like a built-in boss that you control. How great is that?

Read more.

By Jane Mellor, author of Jane Mellor is Words Worthy.

Photo by Jane Mellor.

It can be discouraging for me as an emerging writer to know I have a long way to writing and publishing my memoir. So I have printed a smaller project—a collection of essays and poems—that I can share with friends, family and colleagues for now.

I have had so much fun putting it together. It feels good to hold it in my hands, and I look forward to pursuing my next step with it.

The important thing for me was to give birth to my first book and get it out there for feedback. It would be useless trapped in my computer! Meanwhile, the memoir continues on a parallel track.

By Mandana Rastan, emerging writer.

See Mandana’s work at  www.mandanasworld.com. Email her at mrastan@shaw.ca.

Photo by Tim Green.