#memoirmadness.
march writing challenge.
#memoirmadness. march writing challenge.
“Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Maybe I’ve felt this way about a human, maybe I haven’t (you’d have to read my memoir to find out), but I can tell you right now that I’ve definitely felt this way about my current manuscript.
If you’re a writer, you likely know what I’m talking about: That bit of desperation, that need to hold onto your story—to get it back in any way, shape, or ghostly “form”—after falling out of a writing routine. Getting it back, though, requires “be[ing] with [it].” Like, really being with it. Day after day, for multiple days. Being with it and thinking of it and actually writing it what darn-near feels like “always.”
Getting it back requires, dare I say it, a touch of literary “madness.”
And so here I am, proposing yet another challenge: For the month of March, we shall ne’er be left in the “abyss” of a blank page! We shall fill one of them, at least, each and all of its thirty-one days!
Because I don’t know about you, but thirty-one blank pages have nothing on the way this story haunts me.
And because, sometimes, it’s good to be a little obsessive.
(About your writing.)
Join the March 2026 #MemoirMadness challenge.
Hosted on Instagram by @rachellcrittenden.
Hi, I’m Rachel!
here to help you tell (and show) your story.
Writing/Editing
I’m a writer, editor, and portrait photographer based in New York’s Hudson Valley, and I’m obsessed with [real life] stories.
I hold an MFA in creative writing from New York University and have taught writing formally at both the high school and college levels. My own writing centers, primarily, around voice and rhythm, and often explores issues of body image and internalized shame—particularly through humor. I’m currently at work on a memoir, and my personal essays have appeared in Bustle.
portraiture
With a candid, documentarian style, I’ve been photographing authors, musicians, creative professionals, and families for over 12 years, marrying my love for telling stories with a deep passion for showing them. I’ve captured the motions and emotions of over 100 weddings, the earliest days of new life, and countless other celebratory moments—always emphasizing joy, always maximizing play.