Writemex

Fear and loathing and a good bit of love in my writing life.

Name:
Location: New Mexico, United States

I've been a writer since the age of three, beginning with the oral tradition of storytelling. My first audient was my younger brother. He was reluctant. I remember lying on him in the back of the family Buick, on a trip from Iowa to Texas in 1949, to insure his full attention to my tale.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Memoir Writing Books

I just came across Kay Porterfield's site on Living and the Creative Process. She says: The creative process is a powerful, transformative tool for healing our minds and bodies, our relationships and our world. Each one of us carries this ancient medicine inside.Kay Marie Porterfield, M.A.

One valuable thing she includes on her site is a list of books on memoir and journal writing found at this link http://www.kporterfield.com/journal/Journal_Memoir_Books.html.

After three years, I am once again facilitating a memoir writing workshop in Puerto Vallarta, November 24 - December 1. If you are interested in memoir, recording family history, or journal writing, then join us in the sand and sun of Mexico for a week exploring our relationships and our world, hopefully healing and expanding our minds and bodies. For more info: www.BelleCora.com/Workshops.html.

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Friday, May 18, 2007

Becoming a Writer Seriously

I just stumbled (yes my usual mode of negotiating the Internet) on to a wonderful "blog" on writing for writers. Unlike my own, which acts as a tool of exploration of my own experiences as a writer and hopefully passes on some interesting information, ideas, inspiration to other writers, this blog is loaded with practical information.

Titled Becoming a Writer Seriously; Tools and Trade Secrets for Aspiring Writers, the blog was conceived and developed by friend and fellow member of the Puerto Vallarta Writers Group, Tom Colvin. Though Tom refers to Becoming a Writer Seriously on the About Us page as a blog, it is to me a full-fledged serious website. This last statement may further expose my confusion in the cyber world...oh well.

Becoming a Writer Seriously promises to provide software, tools, secrets and how-to information for writers, screenwriters, novelists. Tom says, "In gestation for over a year, this blog was launched the first week of January 2007. To avoid overload on vistors & subscribers, major posts will be uploaded only once or twice a week, along with whatever tidbits about tools and trade secrets for writers come to light. Emphasis will be on detailed descriptions of HOW writers can utilize available TOOLS to best advantage. Over time, the blog will also provide an overview of the various pieces comprising the BUSINESS side of writing. Our aim is to become an indispensible resource & reference on the web for writers."

Check it out and let me know if you find it helpful.

Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse

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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

An American Wife by Playwrights Blomain & Downend


A recent mentor and friend in my long slog through a writing life is the inspirational Karen Blomain, whom I've mentioned here before. (Photo Credit © 2004, Michael Downend, ASMP)
I attended a workshop with Karen and her photographer/playwright husband, Michael Downend in West Cork, Ireland last summer at the artist's and writer's retreat, Anam Cara. I have also sat in on several short writing presentations of Karen's and Michael's at our writing group in Puerto Vallarta.
The two most important lessons I've learned from Karen, however, is to honor myself with some indulgence each day, if it is only a few minutes sitting on the beach. And, to aggressively protect my writing schedule. Now obviously, I couldn't have possibly gotten to this advanced point in life without previously having been exposed to these two concepts. I've even put them into practise for fairly long periods of time. But, they are lessons I seem to forget as my life rolls and changes and that I need to be reminded of repeatedly. Karen's inspiration comes from the fact that she is a living daily reminder of these important guidelines. She doesn't talk about how she should allow time for herself, about how she should not allow the distractions of life to interfere with her work as a writer. She just does it. And there is the inspiration!

I am so pleased that a joint project of Michael and Karen's, a play they wrote together the first year I met them in Puerto Vallarta, is opening this month in Pennsylvania at the Scranton Northeast Theatre Pennsylvania. Titled, An American Wife, the play runs March 21 through April 7. If you are in the area or can get there, it will be a wonderful evenings entertainment.
Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse

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Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Writing Workshop Discount in Puerto Vallarta


BelleCora Workshops has been running a February sale on their website; 10% off if you register for any of their 2007 workshops, classes or tours during the month of February. That means there are two days left in order to take advantage of this sale!

I happen to know that there are still some spaces available for the two writing workshops offered in Puerto Vallarta in April. Women Writing on Co-dependence is scheduled for April 14-21 and Memoir Writing is scheduled for April 21-28, 2007. BelleCora Workshops mission is to support established and emerging writers and their workshop fees reflect that. Go to www.BelleCora.com/Workshops.html for more information on these two April writing workshops in Puerto Vallarta. Write on the beach, warm your toes in the sand, smell the night-blooming Jasmine, gorge on fresh mango. One April I counted 10 varieties of mango in my small neighborhood market. The air was thick with their sweetness. Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse

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Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Writing on the Beach


In the southern Rockies we are looking at our 7th week-end snow storm in a row. The last few have been puny compared to the strength of the first few we experienced over the holidays.
I've spent three to five months of the last 12 winters in Mexico. Originally, I went there to work on a writing project and kept returning in the winter with a writing agenda. During the last few years, when friends or relatives arrive for a visit in Puerto Vallarta and are ask how winter has been going, they generally report that it has been so mild to be almost non-existent. So the wrath of this winter is a bit unexpected.
Suprisingly, I am finding it easy to keep to a writing schedule, especially on those days when the flakes are falling outside. Still a person can't help remembering writing on the beach and Bougainvilleas. For some info on writing workshops in Puerto Vallarta go to www.bellecora.com/Workshops.html.
Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse

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Thursday, January 11, 2007

Puerto Vallarta Writing Workshop February

Here's complete information on the Writing Workshop scheduled for February and sponsored by my favorite writers' group, yes, The Puerto Vallarta Writers Group. There's still room and I just saw some incredible fares on Frontier Airlines to PV this week. They are calling the event:

For the Writer Inside Each One of Us!
The Puerto Vallarta Writers Group will host its second annual Writers Weekend Workshop, February 2-4. Whether aspiring writer or polished pro, and no matter where your writing interests may lie—poetry, fiction or non-fiction, stage or screenplays—there is something in this program for you.
For the Weekend Workshop, the process of writing has been broken down into four steps; Generating Ideas; Finding Your Format, Following Through, and Getting Into Print.
Heading the impressive list of keynote speakers is Karen Blomain, international writing conference presenter, author, and poet. Karen, a native of Pennsylvania, has received two PEN USA Syndicated Fiction Prizes and numerous fellowships and residencies. She has published four volumes of poetry and has edited an anthology of regional poetry. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University, and has conducted writing workshops in France, Ireland, Austria, Russia, and throughout the United States. She and her husband, writer and photographer Michael Downend, have written a play whose equity production opens in Pennsylvania in March, 2007. Karen is gifted with an aura that simply inspires. She will present the themes, “Generating Ideas,” and “Following Through.”
The other featured speakers are the co-founders of two of the oldest writers groups in Mexico, those in Ajijic, on Lake Chapala outside Guadalajara, and San Miguel de Allende, in the central highlands of Mexico. Alejandro Grattan-Dominguez—known to his many friends as Alex—is the editor of “El Ojo Del Lago,” one of Mexico’s most successful English language periodicals. Living and working in Hollywood for 25 years before moving to Ajijic, Alex has written stage and screenplays, has seven novels to his credit, and has also written, produced, and directed several feature length films. Having mastered so many of writing’s most challenging styles, Alex is the ideal choice to address the topic “Finding the Format.”
Last, but by no means least, noted international author Susan Page from San Miguel de Allende has written four books on relationships, and a publishing guide for writers. Susan’s books have been translated into 20 foreign languages and have sold over a million copies in the U.S. and worldwide. She has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, CNN, NPR, and others. Excerpts of her work have appeared in People Magazine, USA Today, Cosmopolitan, Redbook and scores of other publications. Susan is a natural to comment on the major preoccupation of all writers—“Getting Into Print.”
The weekend includes a Friday evening Wine and Cheese reception, a Saturday Buffet Dinner at La Hacienda restaurant, and a Sunday afternoon Author Book Signing at The Lazy Lizard on Los Muertos beach. All this, including the dinner, is offered for a Registration Fee of only $700 pesos (about $65 U.S.). Registrants can purchase guest tickets for the dinner Saturday evening dinner while quantities last for an additional $220 pesos per dinner.
The Workshop will be held at the International Friendship Club, conveniently located a block north of the Rio Cuale on Insurgentes Avenue, above the HSBC bank, in the heart of downtown Puerto Vallarta.
A complete Workshop Schedule is attached to this email, as well as a Registration Form which can be filled out and brought with payment to any January meeting of the Puerto Vallarta Writers Group, held Saturday mornings at 10:30 at the International Friendship Club. Information is also available online at http://www.pvwritersgroup.com/.
Out of town inquiries should be directed to Dan Grippo: http://bellecora.com/ym/Compose?To=dangrippo@yahoo.com; Puerto Vallarta telephone: (322) 222-7819; U.S. (Vonage) telephone: (312) 637-9629.
Space is limited, so please act now if interested

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