Find the Plot in Your Life, Find the Life in Your Plot

Originally Published January 11th, 2020

Plot as life, life as plot: this will be a major focus of our weeklong seaside writing retreat in Troncones! How do we find the arc of a story—our own story—in order to find more life and depth in our writing … and in ourselves?

As we enter 2020, I am thinking a lot about this quote from Carmen Maria Machado, about narrating our life stories:

The memoir is, at its core, an act of resurrection. Memoirists re-create the past, deconstruct dialogue. They summon meaning from events that have long been dormant. They braid the clays of memory and essay and fact and perception together, smash them into a ball, roll them flat. They manipulate time; resuscitate the dead. They put themselves, and others, into necessary context.

These words feel deeply true and relevant no matter whether we are writing fiction or nonfiction, because, ultimately, our life stories—and our willingness to examine and make narrative sense of them, and, therefore, ourselves—shape all of the writing we do, whether we know it or not. In fact, our ability to bring plot and narrative to our lives has a major impact on how we live, and who we become.

That’s why making sense of, and—even more importantly—finding the plot in our life stories will be a major focus in Troncones, and the daily meditation and yoga will bring even more support to that work.

Please join us if you can! Payment plans are available. We would love to write with you.

Warmly,

Jeannine