Writing Today

As one of the hottest forms of viral marketing today, article writing and submission must be part of your marketing effort whether your business is online, brick-and-mortar, or both. To get the most out of your article marketing campaign, you must avoid these three fatal mistakes. Not writing articles for publication Not writing enough articles for publication Giving up too soon The first fatal mistake in article marketing is choosing not to write articles. Yes, I said, “choosing not to write articles,” because it is a choice. You can choose to continue to read about all the benefits of article marketing and not do anything to further your own campaign, or you can choose today, right now, to write your first article for publication and drive targeted traffic to your site. Whatever it takes to move you to action, you must do it today. If you choose not to write articles for publication, this powerful marketing strategy will be lost to you along with the hundreds or thousands of new visitors who could increase your sales daily. It’s as simple as this: You must choose to write articles for publication and submit them to the myriad free article directories on the web. There is no other way to market your business this powerfully and effectively for free. The second fatal mistake is not writing enough articles. While it is not necessary to write an article every day or even every other day, the more articles you write the more potential you have for exposure. One man I read said that he writes 100 articles a month; another man writes 30 a month. If writing just one article sounds overwhelming to you, start with one article with a plan to write another one next week, another the following week, and so on. Once you start writing, you will be surprised at the knowledge you have and find that you enjoy writing. If you write one article each and every week, you will have 52 articles spread throughout the world in a year. Keep in mind that writing just one article probably won’t increase your exposure enough that you will notice, but a number of articles written over time will bring a stream of traffic to your door. If you absolutely cannot write an article, take advantage of article writing companies that are available. These can be found by doing a quick search in one of the major search engines. These articles won’t be free, but they could still provide advertising through article marketing cheaper than advertising through other means. The third fatal mistake in article marketing is giving up too soon. As I wrote previously, writing just one article probably won’t increase your exposure enough for you to see much difference in traffic to your site immediately. However, repeated articles spread throughout the web by others who pick up your article have the potential of putting hundreds or thousands of dollars in your pocket. Your first article might not get much attention right away, but imagine that, as your writing skills and knowledge improve over time, subsequent articles receive attention and are picked up by more and more bloggers and ezine publishers. As your name becomes recognized, people who have enjoyed and learned from your articles will return to the internet and search for more articles that you have written. Even if your first article isn’t widely distributed at first, it could receive exposure months later when you are seen as an expert in your field. Think of some of today’s best-selling authors. Do you suppose that every one of them made it to the New York Times Bestsellers list with their first book? By all means, “no!” Most of these authors worked and toiled for years, writing book after book before making it on the list. If John Grisham spent three years writing his first book, which was rejected repeatedly by publishers before writing a bestseller, should you expect that your first article will create such a stir in the industry that your name will be in the headlines tomorrow? Probably not. But remember that, even though his first book was rejected repeatedly before being made into a measly 5000 copies, Grisham immediately started working on his second novel, one made into a movie and ranked #1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list during its 47 week tenure. After that he had two more hits, one of which debuted at the top spot on the New York Times list. And it gets better, and makes my point. After three books made John Grisham famous, do you know what happened? His first book, the one that was repeatedly rejected and had a small printing of only 5000 copies, was reprinted and this time it was a bestseller. What changed? Certainly not the plot or the characters. What changed was the reputation of the author and the desire of his audience to read books that he penned. This is exactly what could happen to you, too. But in order to get to that point, to the point where your work is sought after by people who want to hear what you have to say, you must avoid these three fatal mistakes in article marketing: choosing not to write articles for publication, not writing enough articles for publication, and giving up too soon. Start writing articles today and consistently submit your original work for publication. You’ll be glad you did. Claudia Pate is the owner of The Anniversary Shop, an online store for all your gift-giving needs. Learn more about article writing and starting your own internet business at Common Sense Ebiz Blog. Sign up for my free internet business newsletter at .CommonSenseEbiz.com and start writing your own internet success story with Plug-in Profits, a 3-Step Plan that includes a free website and a 30 Day Guide to Success.

After studies are over and you have survived through your prom night, you focus on one thing: where to use that tremendous amount of information you possess now. Certainly, you look for a job to realize your ambitious plans and reach your potential you were told so much about at university. There are several points to consider before applying for a job and submitting your Curriculum Vitae to your potential employer. First of all you are to choose a profession in your field, a field that you majored in. that way you can be sure that you have all necessary qualifications and skills. Once you’ve decided on this, you may start looking up advertisements. They may be placed in magazines, newspapers, on-line or just on the walls of public places. Don’t pick dozens of variants; choose two-three vacancies that meet your requirements if to consider salary, conditions provided, location and skills required. You can start on working on your CV immediately. You have to mention everything that is going to present you as a very useful employee that will be very helpful. Send your resume and the cover letter after checking it twice and wait for results. If you are certain of the impression it may give, you may also use references form you previous job that can show you as a nice co-worker and experienced professional. Once everything that is above-mentioned is completed, you’ll get an invitation on your job interview, a final step towards the beginning of your career. This is the part when you have to be very attentive and careful, considering every possible variant. Your excellent dissertation writing and thesis writing skills may be not enough to gain trust of your potential employer. You have to demonstrate everything that can prove that you are the most suitable candidate for this vacancy. Appearances are deceitful, but they matter when making the first impression. Take a closer look on what are you going to wear and see if it is in formal style. Try to rehears your job interview with one of your friends or acquaintances so they can give you advice too. Try to ask yourself all possible questions your employer might want to ask and see if you are capable to respond properly. If you have samples of your works or a thesis, don’t forget to bring them along. They might be useful proof of how good you are. If you have demonstrated everything you are capable of doing and still were refused, try not to lose your face and get depressed. This is not the only place experienced specialists are required. Try to understand what was wrong last time and delete the mistake as soon as possible, so you can be prepared to your next try to get a vacancy. The most important thing is not to loose self-confidence. If you are to get a job you will and then remember your strain with a smile on your face. Dissertationsexperts.com

~ Grace ~ It’s a known hush-hush fact that if you’re to be considered a success story in the Armenian community, you need to graduate from medical school, law school or business school. If you go a little left field, you could still make your parents proud by becoming a real estate king. I didn’t fall within any of those parameters and that’s why my first girlfriend left me. For clarity’s sake, we’ll refer to her as oh I don’t know, Grace after the princess of Monaco. After meeting her online, we set up a romantic rendezvous at the botanical gardens at UCLA. The relationship developed over the course of a month and over many secretive meetings in libraries, parks, parking lots, bridges, tunnels and book stores. The secrecy was due to the fact that her parents could not, under any circumstance, find out that their daughter was dating a filmmaker. Oh my! She would remind me that they were old fashioned and they needed to be broken into the idea that a filmmaker wasn’t quite the equivalent of a rock star. The idea of being a rock star was quite foreign to me, but I assumed they referred to sex, drugs and always being away from home. And if that was the case, a rock star and a soon-to-be medical student wouldn’t be the smartest match. She quickly joined the hundreds of voices in my head who kept discouraging me by saying things like “It’s who you know and you don’t know anyone,” “It takes money to make money.” She believed with every ounce of her being that I would bring shame to her family, close friends and that I could never compete with her ex-boyfriend who was now a paramedic. On Tuesday, March 2002, at four fifteen in the afternoon, on a I-kid-you-not stormy day, she dumped me. Reason being, the profession I had chosen was not worthy of her standards. Is this why there are not a lot of Armenian Filmmakers? Because it’s not a respected career? Because it’s impossible for an Armenian to make it in the industry and because there is no money in it? Was this only her opinion or was it the general Armenian consensus that Hollywood is out to ruin a man and his family? That it’s filled with more sharks than opportunities? That the only way to sustain yourself is at the expense of your spouse, preferably a rich one? That you’ll turn into a drug-addict, a sex-fiend, a bum of a husband and ultimately a failure as a human being? It is natural for Armenians to be hesitant not to say terrified by the idea of jumping into the film industry. After all, only a handful of us have chartered through these waters. I’ll admit, this thought excited me beyond belief. What an exciting time this was to explore these new territories. What an achievement it would be to become the first Armenian to win an Academy Award for best Director. Then, I could go knock on Grace’s door or better yet, her parents’ door with a couple of Oscars under my arm and I would ask their daughter out on a date. Yes, that’s it! My mission was now set, with an army of one, and the will of a lion, I was going to conquer Hollywood. ~ Beginnings of a Filmmaker ~ I was born in Iran in the late seventies and although I don’t recall much about the country or the break of the Islamic revolution, there is one thing I do remember: a man by the name of Rezah. Every Tuesday night, this man

Arguing - what’s it good for? Arguments are rarely “won.” When you think you won an argument, what did you win? The “loser” at least learned something, right? But what did you get? Debating practice, ego satisfaction, and diminished brain power. Arguing Diminishes Brain Power? At times things need to be debated, but most of the time, it just isn’t productive. You may want to argue the point, but what do you get from a useless debate, and more importantly, what do you lose? I say you lose effective brain power. There is at least one thing we can probably agree on. That is that a person listening to arguments can learn something from both sides. Now what about the participants? When your opponent makes a really good point, do you say, “Hey, you’re right!” and learn something, or do you more often just look for a better argument? You see, arguing too much gets you in the habit of looking for arguments more than for truth. You get deeper into a rut the more you defend a position, because any hint of opposing evidence is pushed away as a threat to your “victory” or correctness. Ii being in a rut and ignoring the truth doesn’t sound like it’s good for brain power, it’s because it isn’t. Brain Power From Listening Say the moon is closer, and if I say the sun is, one of us has to be right. On the other hand, if you say nurture is more important, and I say nature is, we’re both sort of right. That’s because the first argument has clearly defined terms. This isn’t common in most arguments (and what’s the point of arguing with someone who thinks the sun is closer?). The second argument has to do with values, experiences, and poorly defined terms. We’ve seen different things in life, and we could spend a lifetime arguing the definition of “important.” Alternately, I could shut up and listen. In this case my mind becomes more powerful with the addition of your ideas and knowledge. Listening is the better way. How do you break the habit of arguing? Start by purposely asking for people’s opinions, and listen without saying anything. Ask them to clarify, but don’t offer one contrary idea. If you do this enough, you’ll be surprised at how much you learn. You may also be surprised by how difficult this simple technique can be, but it works. Tell me I’m wrong, and I may just listen to what you say without arguing. Steve Gillman has been studying brainpower and related topics for years. For more on How To Increase Brain Power, and to get the Brain Power Newsletter and other free gifts, visit: .IncreaseBrainPower.com

by Karon Thackston © 2005 .copywritingcourse.com Under normal circumstances, you’d shout it from the rooftops. After all, when you have something urgent to say, you want others to know about it, right? But when it comes to “limited time only” offers, lately I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. Copywriters seem to actually be hiding the phrase! Let me give you some examples. I received a fabulous email from a ladies clothing site at which I like to shop. It was for 50% off my entire purchase of anything on their site (clearance items or regular price). Wahoo! What woman wouldn’t love that? Trouble is, I almost missed the deal due to procrastination. Like most busy women, I was going to go to the site and shop… later. However, I happened to notice, way down at the bottom of the email in tiny, little type, that the sale ended in two days. Why would they think the phrase “Limited time only - sale ends Friday, July 15, 2005 at midnight” was insignificant? When I saw that phrase, I immediately zipped over to the site and began bargain hunting. (Found some fantastic deals, too!) Here’s another example. As I was sitting at a fast food restaurant eating lunch, I was fiddling with the paper “tent” ads on the table. One was for a new salad (nope, not in a healthy mood) and one was for strawberry cheesecake. That sounded good, but I was almost finished with my sandwich and fries so I really didn’t have room. I wasn’t going home so I couldn’t take it to go. I thought I’d just pick up a slice the next time I ate at this place until I saw - at the very bottom of the ad in teeny, tiny type - the “limited time only” phrase. I know this restaurant. They bring new, test items in and out all the time. If they said, “Limited time only,” I knew they meant it. Chances are (since I didn’t get to eat at this restaurant often) I wouldn’t get to try their cheesecake. If I had known it was a limited time offer, I would have ordered a slice before I got full. Don’t Play Games With Limited Time Offers Make a point to let customers know they have to act fast, or they’ll miss out. The fear of being left out or left behind is a basic human motivator that can be triggered pretty easily. The trick is to actually let your customers know an offer is limited in some way. Here’s how to create a powerful limited time offer. Things go on sale all the time, so if you’re selling clothing or food or office supplies, you might have limited time offers that end simply because the sale date has past. However, if there is a reason your offer is limited (limited supply of items, testing a new item, etc.), tell the customer. This can actually increase the sense of urgency. Make your offer credible. How do you do that? By sticking to your word. If you say an offer will end on a certain date, end it or give a darn good reason for extending the offer. If customers see that you continually tout “limited time offer,” but keep the discount running past the deadline, you’ll lose credibility and sales. Give a reasonable deadline. Customers need time to act. Car manufacturers run incentive offers for a month or longer in part because of the high cost of vehicles and the need for arranging financing. The online clothing site I mentioned earlier set its deadline at two days (customers could easily click over to their site and shop immediately). Depending on the item, the purchasing medium and whether there is a need for financing or such, you can adjust your deadline to whatever works best for you. When your customers understand you’re making an offer that will expire shortly, they are motivated to act now, rather than later. If you give them a good enough reason not to procrastinate, you can see a major surge in sales. Urgency is never something you want to hide in your copy. Copy not getting results? Learn to write SEO copy that impresses the engines and your visitors at .copywritingcourse.com. Be sure to also check out Karon’s latest e-report on search engine copywriting: “How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)” at .copywritingcourse.com/keyword.

Due to the way society portrays white crime versus black crime, blacks are more likely to be arrested, got to jail, get longer/harsher prison terms, etc. the stereotypes that people, not only in society have, but also at the highest level of our justice system has, perpetuates this deadly cycle for men of color. It is very disturbing to realize that black life is expendable. Even more disturbing is the fact that this bias is in our death penalty system. There is an overrepresentation of black men on death row, not because they commit worse crimes, but because our justice system is racist. Statistically the punishment for crack is ten times more the punishment the cocaine. Statistically cocaine is used more often by whites, while blacks are high users of crack. Black men also get about 3 times more jail time for murder than a white men. The time in jail one receives can actually be determined by the race of their victim. A black man who kills a white women is more likely to get the death penalty then a white man who kills a black woman. For this simple reason the death penalty should be outlawed, not only because many innocent people die, but because blacks are more likely to get the death penalty (not to mention that the death penalty is not a deterrent). Basically our justice system is SHOT and there is evidence out there to show the bias in our so called justice system, but still nothing is being done about it and people are so utterly misinformed about the whole thing. (this article is also not to take away responsibility from the black community to keep kids off the street and prevent them from being swallowed by criminality, just reflective of something mainstream America doesn’t often talk about)

Are you looking for the right message to share with your loved one? Then Lovemessage.org is the right web site for you. This web site is dedicated on sharing any form of written love expression from love stories, love poems to sad messages. Sometimes, it is really hard to find the perfect love poem or love quote to write on a card or in a SMS message. But for sure, whatever you need, you will definitely find it here. Upon entering the web site, you can already see the various sections that are all dedicated to sharing love messages that can help you. The first section is the love messages section where you can find simple love messages to your special someone. You can also find love quotes here that are really good to put in cards especially when you plan to give someone flowers or a gift. The next section is romantic messages. This section is specially made to cater to some of the most romantic messages you can ever send to your special someone. You might not see it, but you just might melt the heart of your loved one with that romantic message. The next section is the flirty message section. You can try sending the messages here if you are flirting with someone or your lover. It is also good for a laugh or to make a loved one smile. There is also a section for love SMS messages. Since SMS has been a popular form of communication now, you can use this to text your special someone a sweet message to brighten up their day. However, if you really want to make your special someone smile bigger, you can try the funny messages section. There is also a section for messages about unrequited love and this is the sad messages section. If you love someone and that love is not returned, then you might find solace in these messages. The next section is love songs where you can see lyrics of famous love songs that are dear to people. Lyrics of songs really strike us and you can use this to express what you really feel about your special someone. If you want something deeper than simple messages, you can try looking at the love stories, love poems, and love letters section. Why not try writing the love letter that Napoleon Bonaparte has written as well. Your special someone will find this really sweet and adorable of you. With all these messages and love works, how can you not find something perfect for you and your special someone? Remember that your special some deserves to hear how much you love them as much as you can. And you also want this for your self too. Being in love is fun, love is fantastic. Keep telling the people around you how much you love them and don’t take them for granted. Love does not come as often as we would want it, so when it shows up on your door step, open the door and welcome it. It will be fantastic. Jasmine is the author of love message site. And you can find lots of love messages, dating advice and romantic message here romantic messages

You just finished writing a new article that your target customers will love. Your introduction is strong, and keeps the readers wanting to read more, you provide a lot of useful tips in the article, and you end with an encouragement for the readers to use your tips in their life or business. All in all, a great article. Is your work done? Not at all. You still haven’t written a very important part for your article - the resource box. A resource box is what comes right after the article, the 2-4 sentences that include your bio and a link back to your business web site. The article’s resource box is your only chance to convert the article reader into a lead for your business. This is why it is extremely important to make your resource box as effective as possible. Here is what you should include in your resource box: - Information about you, the author. The first sentence in your resource box should introduce you to the reader. After all, your readers can’t do business with someone they don’t know. You don’t need to share your whole biography, but sharing a few tidbits about what you do will help your article readers get to know you just a bit better. - A free resource that the reader can subscribe for or request from you. Your article resource box is a great place to offer your readers a free e-course, newsletter or special report, to get them further exposed to your expertise. You want to be able to keep in touch with your article readers long after they have read your article. Make sure you make them a great offer in order to be able to keep in touch. - Call to action. Tell your reader how to get your free resource, bonus or free gift. Use phrases such as subscribe to the newsletter, register for e-course, get a free gift, to get the readers to look at more of your resources. Over to you - let’s take action! Take a look at your own article resource box, and see how you can make it more appealing to your article readers. Remember, the more compelling the resource box is, the more leads you will gain for your business. Listen to Biana Babinsky, the online business expert, consultant and author, as she discusses how to turn your knowledge into articles and your articles into profits. Writing articles has helped her become known online, get more newsletter subscribers and sell more products online. She is sharing all the secrets she has discovered in her Article Marketing Audio Guide available at .marketingsalad.com/article_marketing.html

The Reluctant Writer by Pamela White Since the age of 9, I’ve been a writer. I wrote secret stories, secret newsletters, and secret novels about solving mysteries with Nancy Drew during my first year of writing. I loved telling a story, dreaming up new ideas, places and people, and rereading what I had written. I just never wanted anyone else to read it. A few decades later, I was chatting on a message board for writers about how I struggled to send my writing out. I still submitted regularly but it was an excruciatingly difficult step for me to take…and I did take it, week after week. I hated that sharing my words made me feel so vulnerable. One woman wrote me back, not with advice, but with such joy in her tone. She told me she wished I could be in her writing group. Then I’d know that writing wasn’t hard but only exhilarating and wonderful, easy and something anyone could do. I dropped off the list. While I’ve not found a way to make it perfectly easy to share my writing with the world, I have learned a new skill set that has pushed me forward, even as I wanted to retreat back into my shell. Thanks to some coaching, some tears, and lots of meditation (not medication!) I now write regularly, love to send it out for publication and cheer myself on as I cash the checks. So for all the other reluctant writers hiding out there, I want to share the steps that have worked for me plus advice from writer friends. 1. Ask the all-important question: “What’s the worst that could happen?” Basically, it’s a rejection letter or perhaps total silence. Yes, it might hurt, but the person who chooses not to publish your short story doesn’t know you so don’t take it personally. It may feel personal, but it isn’t. And, believe it or not, this editor will forget your name out of all the submissions received over the following year and will not hold your previous unwanted submission against you when reading your future submissions. 2. Plan ahead. I learned this from a coach. I hired her to guide me through cleaning out my home, but ended up learning how to boost my writing. Sit down on a Sunday evening and think about what you want to write about. Make an educated guess about how long it will take to write the introduction, short story, entire article or book outline. If you think it will take three hours, then pick a day that week when you will have three free hours to work on it. If you pick Tuesday at 8 a.m., then organize your work space the night before. Make sure you have your address/phone book, pens and pads of paper, resource books, email addresses and anything else you need to be successful. Most important, keep your appointment to write that you’ve set with yourself. 3. Set a deadline. If you have trouble getting a free hour or two in the midst of your busy life and missing your self-imposed appointment to sit and write your article on Tuesday morning would make you feel worse than if you’d never made a plan, try another approach. Set a deadline for Friday at 8 p.m. each week to write 1000 words in your novel. This allows you to snatch at free minutes or work during a surprise nap (one that your child is taking, not you) throughout the week. 4. If you have too many ideas and too little time to write them all out, engage a friend or spouse to help you decide which one is the first project. Have your friend ask you, “Which one feels like it would be the most fun?.” “Which one would give you the biggest pay off (in terms of money, happiness, publicity)?” “Which one have you done the most prep on?” If you keep picking the same topic, then clearly that’s the one you should begin with. If you’re still having trouble writing with abandon, then make an appointment for an uninhibited free-writing session. Pull out your notebook, and, at the top of a page, write “What is keeping me from coming out of hiding?” Then let yourself write for ten minutes, or three pages, or until you find yourself explaining why you feel a need to continue to hide your writing. Then recognize that while your writing makes you feel vulnerable and that it is hard for you to write your truth, it would be more painful not to. About the Author: Get a copy of “Freelance Writing: Begin the Adventure” when you subscribe to The Writing Parent at .thewritingparent.net . Editor Pamela White develops and writes classes for writers looking to boost their writing income, and publishes Food Writing at .food-writing.com .

The recent flap about James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces has hit the media with a big bang, bringing the age-old debate about what is acceptable when writing memoir–a “real” story. Every time a memoir is released that gains media attention this debate is raised. Mary Karr, The Liar’s Club, Jennifer Lauck, Blackbird, and Vivian Gornick, Fierce Attachments, all defended their memoirs in various medias, and all said that some recreations of actual reality had to occur in order to write the story and make it interesting. As a memoir teacher, I find that people are very worried about the ethical issues involved in memoir writing. For example, the writers ask such questions as, “what if I don’t remember the exact conversation when my mother died,” or “I don’t know what clothes I was wearing the day my father went away forever.” I am always moved by these innocent, caring questions, because the writer is trying very hard to be truthful and accurate, and not leave any room to be accused of dishonesty. In my memoir Don’t Call Me Mother I researched the time the train arrived in Perry, Oklahoma to make sure the scene I was painting and the conflict with my grandmother about how long she’d kept my father waiting at the train station–three hours! was accurate. My memory told me it was a long time, but finding the time of scheduled arrival made me feel great–memory was not all I was drawing upon to create a story that would be taken seriously as “real.” In fact, when I began writing the stories that eventually turned into my memoir, I was calling it “fiction,” but the writing group challenged me about how unrealistic it was that a mother would act the way my mother acted, and that my grandmother was portrayed as “too over the top,” thus unbelievable. My answer was, “but it was all true.” Their response: “It doesn’t matter what is true in fiction, but it does for memoir.” I realized that the power of the story I was going to tell was that it was true, and I did my best to recreate scenes that delivered the truth. Naturally, childhood memory is subjective, any memory is subjective, but over the years, as I talked with people who knew parts of the story and visited locations where the story took place, I discovered that indeed I had remembered very well, and I had not made things up in my mind. However, I am sure that if my grandmother and mother were alive to challenge what I wrote, they would have another point of view. In order to reach out to the reading public and go beyond private journaling, a memoir writer must create a story that has a shape, drama, and story arc. This may mean constructing a scene that conflates time, or adds costumes to our characters that they may or may not have worn, but our job is to be as accurate and as honest as we can be. If we change the plot of our lives because another plot would be more interesting to the publisher, we are in the realm of fiction. If we say we had relationships we didn’t have because it would make a better story, we need to call it fiction. A memoir writer needs to write a first draft that sifts through the happenings, feelings, and challenges and get them down on the page–a draft that is healing and purging–and important work. Publishing is another stage. The writer must ask many questions of the work–how much to include, what is the shape of the book, and how to write it so others can identify and understand. What to say about James Frey? None of us can know for sure what went on for him as he constructed his book, and what he remembered. On January 15, Mary Karr wrote a piece in the New York Times about memoir writing and she had this to say, “Call me outdated, but I want to stay hamstrung by objective truth, when the very notion has been eroding for at least a century. When Mary McCarthy wrote ‘Memoirs of a Catholic Girlhood’ in 1957, she felt obliged to clarify how she recreated dialogue. In her preface, she wrote: ‘This record lays a claim to being historical - that is, much of it can be checked. If there is more fiction in it than I know, I should like to be set right.’” Mary went on to talk about how much she learned, and how healing it was when she didn’t make passages in her book more “interesting” or shape them into a slightly different story. “If I’d hung on to my assumptions, believing my drama came from obstacles I’d never had to overcome - a portrait of myself as scrappy survivor of unearned cruelties - I wouldn’t have learned what really happened. Which is what I mean when I say God is in the truth.” What a great idea–as we write memoir we are reaching for something beyond our conscious selves. In the river of creativity and the search for truth, there are forces beyond us moving us along to a place we didn’t even know about, a place of healing and resolution. We can hope that James Frey also has found, or is finding, a resolution for his suffering, and that all memoir writers do the same, by wrestling with what truth is, and writing it out with a full voice. Linda Joy Myers, Ph. D., prize winning author of Becoming Whole: Writing Your Healing Story, is a Marriage and Family therapist and teaches memoir-as-healing workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally. Linda’s work has been praised by reviewers, healers, and radio and television interviewers. You can post your comments on her blog at Memories and MemoirsThe recent flap about James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces has hit the media with a big bang, bringing the age-old debate about what is acceptable when writing memoir–a “real” story. Every time a memoir is released that gains media attention this debate is raised. Mary Karr, The Liar’s Club, Jennifer Lauck, Blackbird, and Vivian Gornick, Fierce Attachments, all defended their memoirs in various medias, and all said that some recreations of actual reality had to occur in order to write the story and make it interesting. As a memoir teacher, I find that people are very worried about the ethical issues involved in memoir writing. For example, the writers ask such questions as, “what if I don’t remember the exact conversation when my mother died,” or “I don’t know what clothes I was wearing the day my father went away forever.” I am always moved by these innocent, caring questions, because the writer is trying very hard to be truthful and accurate, and not leave any room to be accused of dishonesty. In my memoir Don’t Call Me Mother I researched the time the train arrived in Perry, Oklahoma to make sure the scene I was painting and the conflict with my grandmother about how long she’d kept my father waiting at the train station–three hours! was accurate. My memory told me it was a long time, but finding the time of scheduled arrival made me feel great–memory was not all I was drawing upon to create a story that would be taken seriously as “real.” In fact, when I began writing the stories that eventually turned into my memoir, I was calling it “fiction,” but the writing group challenged me about how unrealistic it was that a mother would act the way my mother acted, and that my grandmother was portrayed as “too over the top,” thus unbelievable. My answer was, “but it was all true.” Their response: “It doesn’t matter what is true in fiction, but it does for memoir.” I realized that the power of the story I was going to tell was that it was true, and I did my best to recreate scenes that delivered the truth. Naturally, childhood memory is subjective, any memory is subjective, but over the years, as I talked with people who knew parts of the story and visited locations where the story took place, I discovered that indeed I had remembered very well, and I had not made things up in my mind. However, I am sure that if my grandmother and mother were alive to challenge what I wrote, they would have another point of view. In order to reach out to the reading public and go beyond private journaling, a memoir writer must create a story that has a shape, drama, and story arc. This may mean constructing a scene that conflates time, or adds costumes to our characters that they may or may not have worn, but our job is to be as accurate and as honest as we can be. If we change the plot of our lives because another plot would be more interesting to the publisher, we are in the realm of fiction. If we say we had relationships we didn’t have because it would make a better story, we need to call it fiction. A memoir writer needs to write a first draft that sifts through the happenings, feelings, and challenges and get them down on the page–a draft that is healing and purging–and important work. Publishing is another stage. The writer must ask many questions of the work–how much to include, what is the shape of the book, and how to write it so others can identify and understand. What to say about James Frey? None of us can know for sure what went on for him as he constructed his book, and what he remembered. On January 15, Mary Karr wrote a piece in the New York Times about memoir writing and she had this to say, “Call me outdated, but I want to stay hamstrung by objective truth, when the very notion has been eroding for at least a century. When Mary McCarthy wrote ‘Memoirs of a Catholic Girlhood’ in 1957, she felt obliged to clarify how she recreated dialogue. In her preface, she wrote: ‘This record lays a claim to being historical - that is, much of it can be checked. If there is more fiction in it than I know, I should like to be set right.’” Mary went on to talk about how much she learned, and how healing it was when she didn’t make passages in her book more “interesting” or shape them into a slightly different story. “If I’d hung on to my assumptions, believing my drama came from obstacles I’d never had to overcome - a portrait of myself as scrappy survivor of unearned cruelties - I wouldn’t have learned what really happened. Which is what I mean when I say God is in the truth.” What a great idea