Six-word memoirs

I did a little searching this morning and discovered that the book "Not Quite What I Was Planning: And Other Six-Word Memoirs" will be released Feb. 5 by HarperPerennial. My own six-word memoir is included. What is it? You'll have to buy the book!

http://www.amazon.com/Not-Quite-What-Was-Planning/dp/0061374059

Birthday horoscope

Here's my Holiday Mathis horoscope for today: "You're adding winning people to your team this year. The picture of who you want to be is shaping up in your mind, and the more specific you are, the better your choices get. December shows you traveling in style. There's a drop of magic that happens in January that opens new worlds to you. Aquarius and Gemini adore you."

Of course, what I read into this relates to writing. Winning people to my team -- could be the Loft Mentorship. Picture of who I want to be -- more like, maybe the picture of what I want my BOOK to be.

Ross McElwee

Documentary filmmaker Ross McElwee was one of the keynote speakers at the Nonfiction Now conference. What's a filmmaker doing at a writing conference? His style of narrative and documentation parallels what nonfiction writers do -- his tool just happens to be a camera instead of paper.

I must admit I'm quite embarrassed to say I wasn't familiar with McElwee before the conference. Now I am a huge fan. We watched one of his documentaries, "Bright Leaves," on Thursday night. Check it out if you can find it. His entire style really mimics what you might find in a good narrative.

I always knew I enjoyed documentaries, but it wasn't until Thursday night that I realized why. It goes along with my love of nonfiction. You can give me any memoir and I will eat it up. You can put any documentary in front of me and I will be completely absorbed. Because of "Bright Leaves," tobacco and North Carolina are now my favorite subjects!

Check out McElwee at http://www.rossmcelwee.com/

Nonfiction Now wrap-up

I just got back from spending three days in Iowa City at the Nonfiction Now conference. It was the second annual conference, but the first time I attended. I had a great time. It wasn't really a "how-to" writing conference. Many of the attendees are in the world of academia. Therefore, some of the presentations were a little esoteric and self-indulgent. But there was usually at least one presentation on each panel that held a nugget or two.

I think maybe the most important part of the conference was the networking. To my knowledge, this conference is the biggest gathering of nonfiction practitioners in the country. The heavy-hitters of the nonfiction world were there -- editors of journals, directors of creative writing programs, premier writers.

I came away with two major things:

1) I have renewed faith in my writing. So much of what I heard was validating. As I listened to other nonfiction writers, I often found myself nodding my head or thinking, "Me too." I came away with some new ideas for my memoir. It was great to see what everyone else was doing, what their books look like, how they approached their topics, etc.

2) A renewed love for nonfiction. I have always loved nonfiction, but this conference gave me a chance to examine it from all angles. I appreciate the genre more, and the idea of straying from it doesn't interest me at all. I have been thinking the in the past few weeks about how I tend to spread myself too thin in all things -- I want to do it all! But writing nonfiction is one thing I can commit myself to and try to become the best I can be at it.

The best day of the year...

Is not my birthday (which is coming up on Nov. 12, by the way). It is today, the day that Daylight Saving Time ends. There's something I love about the evenings that turn dark around 5 p.m. I want to surround myself with coffee, lamplight, and good books. The darkness gives me an excuse to nest. These are the days of soup and blankets, of sweaters and mittens. Soon (hopefully), the days will usher in my favorite season, winter.

Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder is real -- look it up. We hear of the winter SAD, in which people become depressed and have to sit under bright lights until spring arrives. However, there is summer SAD, in which people are depressed in the summer and happy in the winter. Today, I can almost feel something "click" within my mind. I struggle through the heat and humidity with a veil over my mind, and in the past few weeks, that veil has lifted and I've experienced true happiness and joy once again.

Billy Collins

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins last Friday/Saturday. On Friday I volunteered at MoonLIT Bridge, a gala for The Loft. Collins was the featured speaker. On Saturday, this year's mentees (along with last year's mentees) had a private audience with Collins. He gave some great advice regarding writing and poetry.

And he liked my outfit on Friday night!

The Loft Mentor Series

I had a great weekend at The Loft! Elmaz Abinader, a writer and professor at Mills College, was the visiting writer for the Mentor Series. I came away with so many new ideas. Biggest of all, I came away with a possible structure (?) for my book. I feel I've really been floundering in the wind up until this point. Elmaz smartly pointed out that I need a consistent perspective. Lately I've been thinking of structuring the memoir as a series of short scenes, letting them build upon themselves to tell the story without me as narrator having to say, "Hey you! Here's the story!" This afternoon I made a list of all the scenes I could think of, all the stories that could be told in a scene, and I came up with around 30. I'm finally excited to get a start on that. I have a big fear that I'll finish with this revision only to be told, or to have a gut feeling, that I need to go back to the way it was. Oh well, I guess I can't let fear stop me.

I read on Friday night -- Chrissy Kolaya and I were the first to take the plunge. All the mentees have a reading throughout the year, and we signed up for the first go-round. I was honored to share the stage with Elmaz and Chrissy. Elmaz has a serious gift for nonfiction narrative, and Chrissy writes the type of poems I enjoy (and I can't say I enjoy a whole lot!): descriptive, observational, real-world work.

Here are a couple of pictures from the event. The first one is my mom, myself and Elmaz, and the second one is Chrissy, myself and Elmaz.