I had a huge list of planned work to do over the holidays and I spent more time reading, collating my references, and revising my working outline than I did writing. I felt empty. I had no desire to pick up a pen at all. It's pretty much a symptom of my mind at work subconsciously.
What am I working through subconsciously?
The big issue in memoir is how to frame your story. One thing I found very helpful was a close hard look at a character in many of the books I've read. From writing fiction, I know just how careful a writer must be while introducing the people in a story. WIthout the people, a story reads flat unless of course the story searches for the people in the story.
I have lots of conflict isolated in the story I will tell and it naturally escalates over the time frame I'm discussing.
So the question becomes, how do I isolate a person in the tale, prior to when they appear in a scene of conflict. And how do I explain the different ways we addressed the problems or avoided them or changed our pattern of thoughts? By we, I mean my family and I as shared by them in discussions with me and vice-versa.
A major diversion from that lessons learned sort of shuffling via time and the outcomes of events is the need to be present locally and to somehow represent the eras I'm discussing. Plus it needs to have an underlying urgency leading it forward that relates to where I am in life and that part somehow feels the least true to form.
It's almost like I'm dancing a beginners box dance with a shadowy being and while we're taking these stilted steps forward and back, a waltz is dancing around us, only, the music keeps changing and sometimes there's a foxtrot and sometimes a jitterbug (that is not why I'm not writing, it is not jitters so much as clarity in my head about where I am going), and worse, the music keeps changing from the blues, to rock and roll and so I wonder how is this mirror of reality I'm seeing in my eyes, have anything to do with anything?
What am I working through subconsciously?
The big issue in memoir is how to frame your story. One thing I found very helpful was a close hard look at a character in many of the books I've read. From writing fiction, I know just how careful a writer must be while introducing the people in a story. WIthout the people, a story reads flat unless of course the story searches for the people in the story.
I have lots of conflict isolated in the story I will tell and it naturally escalates over the time frame I'm discussing.
So the question becomes, how do I isolate a person in the tale, prior to when they appear in a scene of conflict. And how do I explain the different ways we addressed the problems or avoided them or changed our pattern of thoughts? By we, I mean my family and I as shared by them in discussions with me and vice-versa.
A major diversion from that lessons learned sort of shuffling via time and the outcomes of events is the need to be present locally and to somehow represent the eras I'm discussing. Plus it needs to have an underlying urgency leading it forward that relates to where I am in life and that part somehow feels the least true to form.
It's almost like I'm dancing a beginners box dance with a shadowy being and while we're taking these stilted steps forward and back, a waltz is dancing around us, only, the music keeps changing and sometimes there's a foxtrot and sometimes a jitterbug (that is not why I'm not writing, it is not jitters so much as clarity in my head about where I am going), and worse, the music keeps changing from the blues, to rock and roll and so I wonder how is this mirror of reality I'm seeing in my eyes, have anything to do with anything?
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