Guidelines – Our class space will be confidential, respectful and supportive.
What to Expect from the Memoir Class:
Class starts with a brief check in for everyone so we can get into the space and see how everyone is doing.
At our first class we will say a bit about ourselves and what we’re working on and want to get out of the class.
A short lecture/opening by Suze to open the workspace, which includes definition of Memoir and ways to write first person narratives – tools, tips, structure, roads in… etc. I like to use inspirational quotes and writing to get our juices flowing.
We will have a 10- 15 minute in-class writing exercise based on a prompt that I provide. This writing can be shared or not and will not be critiqued…
Then we will concentrate on the work you bring in to share. Shared work can be no longer than 4 double spaced pages in a 12 pt type (you can read longer pieces in sections in each class in a “to be continued” kind of way or read more if we have less people in class that day…) This work can be based on the prompt I give at the end of class or something you wrote that you want to read and get feedback on…memoir only.
Feedback
Offer comments about what you especially liked, wanted more of, were confused about, what worked for you, what didn’t work for you… Be honest and KIND. Be careful not to rewrite what some else wrote or let your opinions about politics, religion, philosophy get in the way of your supportiveness or your critique of another writer’s work.
Remember part of growing and stretching as a writer is listening and reading other writer’s with a curious and critical ear. Questions make great feedback….
I will set up the next week’s prompt and you can write to it or bring in something else. The impetus to follow and spark your creative flames! You can generate a lot of writing in this class.
After class, I will send you all an email with what we did in class so you can refer to it and you can send us all a written version of the piece you read in class that day for those learners who do better reading than listening.