It’s not surprising that when you have spent your life worrying that your words will be pounced on and held up for scrutiny by nitpicking judges, writing what you want can take more courage than you have. Particularly if it is the nitpicking judges that you want to write about. You will need a mentor […]
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Abracadabra for Writer’s Block
// Elizabeth Marcus // All, Decoding Our Parents, Essays, Memoir Writing
In fairy tales, Abracadabra has the power to break spells. And what is writer’s block, if not a maniacal spell that roots you to the spot? I was once stuck in such a spot for weeks, until released in an instant—not by that eleven-letter charm, but by a sixteen-word one. It felt exactly like […]
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So, is writing therapy?
// Elizabeth Marcus // All, Essays, Memoir Writing
“Know thyself” is a tall order. Is it even possible to uncover—without outside help—what is blocked from conscious awareness? To my great surprise, writing a memoir did just that. I began the memoir almost a decade ago, and during the many years I worked on it, I experienced three epiphanies that completely reversed core beliefs […]
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the how of epiphanies
// Elizabeth Marcus // All, Essays, Memoir Writing
Someone who read my essay in Thinking Writing on the ways in which memoir writing can lead to psychological insights, wrote that she found the first revelation to be “very powerful because it’s …so incontrovertible,” but the second and third “less convincing, because they are more internal, much more complex, and still open to interpretation… […]