connections
My decision to leave my hometown of Chicago came without lengthy contemplation. After three unemployments in six years during my budding advertising career post college and eighteen months working in corporate banking, the city turned its back by not bestowing its wealth. My weary footsteps had marked every city corner, intersection, advertising and employment agency during my interviews and job searches. I acknowledged I had a bad attitude; I blamed the city for my inability to be happy with a job and myself. But I loved Chicago, too. I [...]
the elusion of Mary Karr
What is it about Mary Karr’s writing? Her prolific self (award-winning poet, best-selling memoirist) and compelling character studies appear to infiltrate the memoir reaches of the genre. She’s on a professional writing level, elevated and honed, where I could and never would reach in my writing. Mary’s world would never rendezvous with mine. My memoir is the antithesis of her writing – she, themes of suffering, alcoholism, family dysfunction, abuse, and me, connections and home. Her put-it-all-out-there memoir seems to be a downer, and my pages are an upper. But [...]
white lines on blueprint
On a Saturday morning a few years ago, I responded to a hankering. I needed to free a hall closet in my house of clutter. I understood what faced me – the messiest offender found in three files buckets – as soon as I opened the door. I spied a particular grey one packed askew with folders and paper and then I delved into the vessel with abandon, plucking a few files, ready to purge the litter. Inserted within the stack were large sheets of thick white paper aged to [...]
let it go
I wrote a memoir – 10 years ago – and then I rewrote it and then rewrote again, yet another rewrite and then wrote more. I acted on 5 professional critiques over those years as impetus for my rewrites. And I use the term “rewrite” loosely. I could easily make these changes – deleting information that has no reason to be there, broken chronology, contradictions, too many adjectives and adverbs – because I understood what they were. I transferred my handwritten corrections to the screen and printed out a new [...]
Personal answers to a universal writing question
“Why do we write memoir?” This question is posed on many writing blogs, writer websites and to writing discussion groups. I am curious to know my fellow writers’ (of personal stories) responses. I read on. They write “. . . . to wring every possible lesson . . . to learn about my own past . . . I wrote my memoir for perspective.” I continue and realize I haven’t read two same answers. I read with great interest a post by Maria Popova on www.brainpickings.com, to learn the reasons [...]
It’s in the details
When it comes to my memoir writing, I am confident I can write one piece of the writing pie well. I implore the power of details. Natalie Goldberg’s, Writing Down the Bones says, “We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips . . .” She further explains that details are then free to continue. My world expands and I discover that which I ordinarily wouldn’t have. Writing details, specifically using the senses, forces [...]
I believe
I believe in a lot of things. I believe the sun will rise from the horizon and awaken all that was dormant in darkness. I believe the sparkle in the night skies are stars in the universe. I believe in Christmas. I believe in Santa Claus. I also believe in my memoir and my strength in writing it. I believe in its completion. I believe it will be published, one way or perhaps another. When I was a girl, I learned to believe. During one summer vacation my brother and [...]