Claire Dederer, author of Poser, speaks in Boulder

This week on the Love Project, we're talking about "What's Your Story?" so I thought it would be appropriate to post this video I took of Claire Dederer who spoke about her memoir, Poser, the other day at the Boulder Denver Library. Claire's book mixes yoga, motherhood, and life. I haven't had time to sit down and read it yet, but from the back cover, "It's hilarious, unflinching, and bursting with love." Just my kind of book!

I saw Claire the same day that I had the pleasure of meeting Steve Friedman! Two best-selling authors in one day!

It was very inspiring to listen to Claire and Steve. They both were able to tell "their stories" in ways that were both funny and poignant. I was really quite humbled since The Laptop Dancer Diaries seems so amateurish in comparison.

But one thing I learned in the process of writing my book. Writing your story is as much, if not more, about discovering who you are for yourself than it is about telling it to someone else.

I once read that if you have some decision to make about what you're going to do, imagine that you're the protagonist in a book. What would you do? In other words, live your life so that at the end of it, you feel happy that you have lived out your story. If it means that you'll have embarrassments or mistakes along the way, so be it. But you'll have lived. You won't have stayed back on the sidelines just looking in.

Whether you write about it or not, don't be afraid to live your story. Have adventures. Take risks. Love...

Website Wednesday: What's Your Story?

This week on the Love Project, we're talking about "Your Story."

Love Project MVP

First, of course, we have Love Project's MVP, Shirley Rivera, author of girlnutkin in the BA, in which Shirley shares so selflessly, often spreading messages of optimism and love. I am constantly inspired by her.

In her most recent post, she shared a very beautiful song by Jeremy Passion, Stephanie, about a girl with lupus.



The song reminded Shirley of her friend jengyee, who died from lupus at the young age of 25.

Bloggers

LinkedIn: The Blog Zone - A Community of Bloggers

If you're a blogger, you might want to check out The Blog Zone Group on LinkedIn. A couple of months ago, Mike Clough of America's Best Business Practices started a discussion thread titled: Introduce Yourself - Tell Us Your Story. So far, there are 172 responses from bloggers describing their blogs. (You can also leave a comment here and I'll add your blog to my Love Links page.)

Memoir Writing
Memory Writers Network
Top 50 Blogs on Memoirs
Write My Memoirs

Author Steve Friedman: "Everyone has a story"

This week on The Love Project we're talking about "your story" and who better to advise about this than New York Times best-selling author, Steve Friedman!

Friedman spoke at the Boulder Writer's Meetup Group last week about memoir-writing, in a session titled: "Me, Me, Me: The Terrors and Delights of Writing First Person."

He entertained us first with a story of the time he'd bought a new suit for an interview with GQ. He'd been quite proud of his stylish new suit, only to realize when he stepped out in the sunlight that it was lime green! And then, to make things worse, a mime imitated him, mocking his strut and his own obvious obsession with his suit. The mime was apparently so excited about this opportunity to ridicule him that he broke the cardinal rule for a mime: He spoke! "Nice suit." (I guess this mime didn't know how to act out sarcasm... Stupid mime.)

Friedman will tell you the whole story and much more in his new book, Lost on Treasure Island: A Memoir of Longing, Loss and Lousy Choices in New York City. A second memoir he has coming out is the story of his relationship with his father and the communication they share during a memorable game of golf, Driving Lessons.

Friedman reminded us that we all have a story. It's the little things - the ordinary every-day-life kind of anecdotes - that are the real stories. He told us the best stories were the type in which we revealed our insecurities and feelings, no matter how embarrassing. It's in exposing those vulnerabilities that we become human and readers will relate. (I was patting myself on the back, because revealing my embarrassing insecurities is my speciality in The Laptop Dancer Diaries.")

There were plenty of other stories Friedman shared with us, including a few about relationships! Yes, he's single and, apparently, around my age. Check out this essay he wrote about a breakup. Unfortunately, I understand only too well. (Those of us who have had to endure mid-life dating and actually write about it share a special bond.) He did have a gorgeous, blond girlfriend with him so he wasn't able to openly share his true feelings about how attracted to me he undoubtedly was...but I'm sure it will all come out in our future memoirs...

Assignment 12: What's Your Story?

This week on The Love Project, we're going to talk about feeling comfortable talking about yourself. What's Your Story?

Assignment 12: Tell me something about yourself either in a comment or a blog post. If you can't think of anything to say, then tell me one thing you're grateful for and why. If you have a blog, tell us what your blog is about. Leave a link and I'll add it to Website Wednesday.

Background: There are a few reasons I want to cover this topic this week:

1. Last weekend I heard two well-known authors, Steve Friedman and Clair Dederer. speak about their memoirs. I got some video of both of them, so I will posting that this week. I almost started a whole new blog about memoir-writing, but instead, figured I'd could work it into this week's theme.. Obviously, memoir is the ultimate "all about me" writing.

2. Intimacy and love starts with feel comfortable with yourself and sharing of yourself. Open up about who you are and share your thoughts and feelings with someone else. Reveal both what you like and don't like about yourself. When you open yourself to someone, they usually will reciprocate and that's how intimacy develops.

3. I have a lot of stuff that I've been wanting to share, but I keep thinking I have to make my blog focused on the "love project" theme-of-the-week. By making the theme be "talk about yourself" I can feel free to tell you all about what's going on with me! (I love talking about myself!)

But I also love hearing about YOU! So all you lurkers out there, I'm waiting to hear from you!