There are a lot of decisions to make when writing a memoir. Or, short story collection, as I prefer to describe what I’m doing. I cringe hearing myself tell people “I’m writing a memoir”. I mean, who isn’t? It’s so fucking cliché. Especially when you’re privileged and White in the age of #BLM. Because who gives a shit what privileged White people have to say anymore, anyway? Because why should they? But, nevertheless, I persist.
I have a Big List of Memories (or “25 islands” as some writing coaches describe a writing list) that serves as a framework, plus various attempts at three-act outlines. But even then, it is hard not to feel overwhelmed and stuck even before I start. Where do I begin? How do I begin? Which voice should I write in? Should I write a novella or short stories or perhaps a collection of braided essays? Do I use poetic or standard prose? And what about the timeline? Do I make it linear or non-linear? I also worry about not having anything profound to say. I’ve always thought that writers had lists of Profound Things To Say queued up when they sat down to write, and then wrote them. However, I’ve come to realize in my past two months of writing everyday that profound thoughts are actually the product of regular writing – in the same way caramelization is a product of the Maillard reaction – as opposed to an item in the ingredients list, added just once. Because writing is thinking and thinking is writing. To become a better, more profound thinker, one must write. To become a better, more profound writer, one must think. Which is to write. Which is to think. Am I making any sense? No? That’s okay. I’m trying to make sense of it, too.
This past week, I was on the verge of analysis paralysis. This past week, I also found a photograph on a bookshelf and, because I knew I had to write something, picked it up, stared at it, put it down. Picked it up, stared at it again, then started writing. About the photograph and what I remember about how it came to be. Maybe it will make it into my final collection, maybe it won’t. But what it did do was help me just start writing.
[T]o take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.
― Susan Sontag, On Photography
Things That Nourished My Writing: Feb 7-14.
BOOKS
Moby-Dick (With the greatest how-do-I-begin ever: “Call me Ishmael.”).
Good Prose: The Art of Non-Fiction
MUSIC
Teddy Weatherford via Stars of Syncopation
FOOD
Martha Stewart’s Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream (just like Haagen-Dazs!)
Thank you Callie. I'm certainly with you on the writing / thinking thing.