Feb 25Liked by Audrey Kalman from Read/Write, Birth Your Truest Story
This is ansolutely great, Audrey, and not only true about fiction. Ask Jennifer how I keep agitating for help getting the form figured out. Ha!! Stay with it, stay ironice and cheerful, and remind yourself,in some obscure way the whole process is teaching you exactly what you need to learn now! Or so it has been for me...I'm beginning to see, memoir has a lot of the same issues...except guess who the main character(s) is?? Catching up with myself on the page is a major task...be well!
I have little inkling of how difficult it can be to examine character in memoir since my novel's main character is based on--guess who! I face many of the same challenges I imagine a memoir writer must, one of them being that I am writing about a moving target. We as humans continually change and grow, so unless we bound our work and stay firmly anchored in a particular time, it can be difficult not to move and adapt with the moving and growing character... leading to never-ending projects!
Oh, Audrey, I love your "normal writers" list. I'm write there with you — horrible pun included. When it comes to self-doubt, I hear, "Tim, who are you to write about ...." I allow myself to consider that for a bit, but have learned to answer that question with another: "Tim, who are you NOT to write about ...?" or "Tim, why NOT you?" Once I challenge the self-doubting voice, the other one, the authentic one, speaks. Over time, the authentic voice is gaining confidence and the self-doubting one is growing tired of itself.
I teach a creativity class, indeed a series of workshops, called Fearless Writing, and silencing that inner critic is one of the first jobs. Who needs someone or something invisible tossing rotten eggs at your hard work? I will borrow your "inner chicken" moniker!
And I appreciate the encouraging words about transforming memoir into fiction... I just may have to do that with a long- standing memior project that I keep pulling back from. My school building adventures in Mexico have many twists and turns, including dangerous characters, carrying guns. Most characters are still alive...hmmm... A fictionalized screenplay maybe the answer.
It does sound like fictionalizing that experience might unlock it! I don't write memoir, but many of my experiences, attitudes, and emotions are evident in my fictional characters.
I'm joining you in the NORMAL writer's convention! ;-) Thank you for sharing so eloquently what NORMAL writers experience and feel. It does take some serious mental jujitsu to reverse that Chicken voice nagging at us.
This is ansolutely great, Audrey, and not only true about fiction. Ask Jennifer how I keep agitating for help getting the form figured out. Ha!! Stay with it, stay ironice and cheerful, and remind yourself,in some obscure way the whole process is teaching you exactly what you need to learn now! Or so it has been for me...I'm beginning to see, memoir has a lot of the same issues...except guess who the main character(s) is?? Catching up with myself on the page is a major task...be well!
I have little inkling of how difficult it can be to examine character in memoir since my novel's main character is based on--guess who! I face many of the same challenges I imagine a memoir writer must, one of them being that I am writing about a moving target. We as humans continually change and grow, so unless we bound our work and stay firmly anchored in a particular time, it can be difficult not to move and adapt with the moving and growing character... leading to never-ending projects!
Oh, Audrey, I love your "normal writers" list. I'm write there with you — horrible pun included. When it comes to self-doubt, I hear, "Tim, who are you to write about ...." I allow myself to consider that for a bit, but have learned to answer that question with another: "Tim, who are you NOT to write about ...?" or "Tim, why NOT you?" Once I challenge the self-doubting voice, the other one, the authentic one, speaks. Over time, the authentic voice is gaining confidence and the self-doubting one is growing tired of itself.
It's amazing how powerful it can be simply to challenge that self-doubt!
Perhaps there’s no such thing as “normal!”
Agreed! Which is what I was ironically pointing out :-). (And even if there were, comparing ourselves to it is a useless undertaking.)
I teach a creativity class, indeed a series of workshops, called Fearless Writing, and silencing that inner critic is one of the first jobs. Who needs someone or something invisible tossing rotten eggs at your hard work? I will borrow your "inner chicken" moniker!
And I appreciate the encouraging words about transforming memoir into fiction... I just may have to do that with a long- standing memior project that I keep pulling back from. My school building adventures in Mexico have many twists and turns, including dangerous characters, carrying guns. Most characters are still alive...hmmm... A fictionalized screenplay maybe the answer.
It does sound like fictionalizing that experience might unlock it! I don't write memoir, but many of my experiences, attitudes, and emotions are evident in my fictional characters.
I'm joining you in the NORMAL writer's convention! ;-) Thank you for sharing so eloquently what NORMAL writers experience and feel. It does take some serious mental jujitsu to reverse that Chicken voice nagging at us.
Nobody likes a nag, particularly not one that's on our case about writing!