Friday, September 9, 2016
Week One Blog Post
As I am thinking about writing my own memoir, I am worried. Worried that my voice will be lost in the endless swarm of seven billion or so other voices? Maybe. Is my life too average, with nothing particularly interesting to note? Certainly. But what I fear most is not being able to just write it, to describe an event in my life that will make someone who reads it feel the same about it as I do. I am worried that my writing isn't eloquent enough, my descriptions not descriptive enough. If everyone is unique, how am I to know how someone else feels about my life and my choices? Too many snags on the fabric, too many unforeseeable consequences. It seems like I can't ever truly feel as someone else feels; whether from lack of empathy or just pure ignorance I may never know nor even want to. It feels like some other person can just write about their life and hardships like it's no problem. For me, I always end up feeling selfish and down on myself. How can I write about my struggles and not be a total attention seeker while simultaneously having to write as I would speak in conversation? On the one hand, I know that learning about the experiences of others gives you important insight on future troubles you or someone close to you might have to go through. But on the other, it feels like trying to win Jeopardy totally unprepared--nearly impossible to do it correctly, but utterly embarrassing if you get it wrong. Reading like a writer is one thing, but writing like a reader? If all of my writing sounds overly repetitive, how am I supposed to know if it actually is like that or if I am just getting paranoid after reading it and rereading it seemingly hundreds of times?
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Whoa, the beauty of the writing in this post makes me feel like your memoir pieces are going to be so enjoyable for readers.
ReplyDeleteI feel you on the idea of being selfish as a writer. I think it depends on whether or not you're trying to publish and knowing why you publish. I saw this memoirist read his work this summer (Brando Skyhorse--he wrote a memoir about how his mother raised him as American Indian even though he was Mexican American...!) and something he said really stuck with me: you have to write, but you don't have to publish. And if you do publish, just know why you're doing it. Publishing your writing doesn't have to be the goal. Sometimes, we just write to write. I don't want to sound too woo-woo, but art-making (including writing) is therapeutic... and just fun.
I feel like Alex is hitting on a feeling a lot of us have. What do other people think?
Like Ms. Garvoille said, this is beautifully written. I also understand the struggle of second guessing yourself and especially the part at the end about trying to write like a reader. Reading books and assessing the authors voice and word choice and sentence structure is one thing, but actually doing what they do? That's another story. It makes me think of when people say, "If you can;t do it yourself, then don't criticize others who are better than you." and things along those lines. The problem with that is analyzing and talking about work that is better than yours is how you grow. Whether writing, singing, dancing or playing a sport, you should look at what the more accomplished people do good, but also what they can improve on, their weaknesses. I think the biggest thing with developing talents is putting yourself out there to mess up, and maybe get a little embarrassed, but learn for your mistakes.
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ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why that posted twice...
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