This quote from Janet Reid's Biblio Buffet interview From The Editors Desk, the tough work of writing a reported version of their lives, makes me want to give it another try, to write a memoir.
About six months ago I wrote to Janet Reid thanking her for her blog because I realized that I am not a writer. I am just another one of those laughing stock the editors snicker over. Someone who feels compelled to tell their story. At least I don't have blue hair, though I may wear a bracelet made by my daughter. I thank her again for her generous blog.
I didn't know what genre I was writing but now I know thanks to a book I splurged for as soon as I read about and thanks again to Janet Reid's blog. (Her blog and her Query Shark blog are always the first one's I read on the stratosphere.) The book is Shimmering Images by Lisa Dale Norton. Ms. Reid describes the genre as Non-commercial Memoir but she also refers to it as Commercial Non-fiction. Surely the first is a sub to the second.
Long ago I wanted to major in creative writing, instead became an oil painter. But writing gives me great pleasure, even if I am a rookie. So I'm starting this blog again and will be returning to the saturday afternoon writing workshops at Shakespeare and Co. Last year I signed up for a writing workshop at WICE and did not like it. The Shakespeare and Co. workshops are way more interesting for me, perhaps because they are so brutal.
After trashing the third first draft, over 150 pages written passionately, here I am again. This time I have a method and a structure that draws my plan like the affiches marking the Parisian metro exits.
Vitoria Lynn Schimdt's Book in a Month and her Story Structure Architect are part of the material that I've been studying to understand structuring a longer work. There is no way I'll write it in a month with an upcoming show and house move in the planning.
Here we go again.
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