GO ON, TRY my interactive calendar of emotional high holy days, regular-version high holy days and more. It’s probably my number one memoir writing tip, since writing on deadline, or to a deadline, is one of the single best ways to learn how to write memoir.
How to Use the Memoir Project Calendar
Hover your cursor over a cinnamon-colored date to see what pops up. Use it to start personal essays, radio pieces and op-eds to submit on deadline. How? Look three months out for radio ideas; six to twelve for magazine pieces. Pluck something from the calendar and start now to submit the very best work you can produce.
Here is how to stop using writing prompts and writing exercises, those time-wasting devices leave you merely practicing writing. You want to write with intent, and you want to succeed. So start today and do so.
Write with intent: Pick it, write it, submit it. Read and react. You’re a writer. That’s what writers do. So write on.
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1April, 1 2024All Fools DayNow here’s a day for us all to write an essay. Oh, right: Maybe you’ve never been foolish about anything. For me, parenting is the single life subject in which I’ve never learned anything by being right. How about you? I’ve got a Parenting Category on my blog, to which I’ll be adding my various published columns on that hottest of topics. | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11April, 11 2024National Pet DayI love my dog more than I love most of my friends, and he certainly makes more sense to me than they do. Got a pet story? Here’s your day. See my dog memoir — or dogoir — category for some inspiration. | 12 | 13April, 13 2024Thomas Jefferson bornOn this day in 1743 was the birth of Thomas Jefferson. President, statesman, and author, Jefferson was also a great scholar of the natural world. In his time, his gardens were a botanic showpiece, a source of food, and an experimental laboratory of ornamental and useful plants from around the world. Jefferson grew 170 fruit varieties, including apples, peaches, and grapes, in Monticello’s two orchards and cultivated over 330 vegetable varieties in his 1000-foot-long garden terrace. Do you garden? Use this as Creative Inspiration. | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21April, 21 2024Birth of John MuirOn this day in 1838 was the birth of John Muir, known as America’s most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist. Dozens of places are named after John Muir, including the Muir Woods National Monument, the John Muir Trail, Muir College (UCSD), and many schools. He is inspiring. Have you seen my blog category Creative Inspiration? It’s where I post such items to provoke you to react to such anniversaries. |
| 22 | 23April, 23 2024Full Pink MoonToday is the full moon. April’s full moon is known as the Full Pink Moon. We take our names for the full moon from the Native American tradition, this one referring to the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. How to write something that is uniquely yours? Maybe this will provoke you. | 24 | 25 | 26April, 26 2024The Birth of Frederick Law OlmsteadOn this day in 1822 was the birth of Frederick Law Olmstead, the nineteenth century’s foremost American landscape architect. Most of us know him for his work on New York’s Central Park, completed in 1864 and involving moving 5 million cubic yards of dirt, blasting rock with 260 tons of gunpowder, and planting 270,000 trees and shrubs. Do you garden? I do, though not on Olmstead’s scale. You? | 27 | 28 |
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