Preview of "Adopted and Restored"

Almost all of my memories of Charles are in the dark: standing backstage during our Theater Tech class, leaving Marksmanship class after sunset, meeting me at the train station, walking back to the dorm from the campus movie, walking around town discussing what we would do if I were pregnant.

That night, after Paul broke up with me, Charles met me on the train platform coming back to school after Spring Break. How did he know? I never asked, but was there something insidious telling him that now was the opportune moment? That I was at my most vulnerable? It was so dark, as I stepped down from the train, that I could hardly see him. He was just a shape in the blackness surrounded by other shapes drifting around the open train platform, waiting or descending from the humming monster that went from Chicago to the country hinterlands and back again. I had stepped down from the train depressed by the walk to come down the shadowed street, dragging my heavy suitcase, having nothing to look forward to and nothing to look back for. I would never go back home to Chicago again – my father had gotten transferred to Florida. Chicago, my dear city, my home, my lake, the air I breathed, the secret ways through the buildings and under the streets, were cut off for me. Everything was behind me and ahead of me my walk to the college was only darkness, literally and figuratively. And who should be waiting on the train platform in the dark, but Charles. How did he know? How could he know to be there? He was just there, because the train vibrated so loudly I could barely hear him.

“Charles! Are you meeting someone?”

“Yes. You.”

Humpty Dumpty

The good girlfriend

Gets taken to the doctor

By a girlfriend who knows better.

“You are pregnant.

How do you feel about that?”

“I don't know.”

Friend who knows better takes her to the mall.

“Look at the pictures in this book.

Real babies.

Aren't they great?”

A hole I have fallen into

With nothing to keep me company.

No more the good girl.

And what do I do with that?

Who will put me back together again?

What's Your Process?

What's your process?

Generally speaking, I'm an outliner. If I'm writing non-fiction, I collect my information, categorize it and, voila! an outline. When I'm writing fiction, I write an outline of the major action points and fill in the details. That works most of the time, though I was surprised once by discovering that my male love interest was someone other than I had planned.

But, on my most recent book, an adoption memoir, I used a writing book entitled Imaginative Writing. I used the exercises as a starting point for sparking thoughts and memories. The author said her personal process was to write scenes as they came to mind, and then tack them together in a way that made sense. So, I used that as well and I got some beautiful rhetoric out of it, being less businesslike, as you might say, as I wrote. If you've found me on Facebook, you may have noticed I missed a few vital points in my first draft, but that's what rewrites are for!

What's your process?

Writing a memoir

It is sometimes suggested that you shouldn't write a memoir if nothing has happened to you. A memoir doesn't have to be about your whole life. Leonard Nimoy wrote at least three and Madeleine L'Engle wrote five or six. However, the memoir I am working on right now is about how a single experience affected the rest of my life. 

Memoirs are currently one of the most popular genres of book out. As reality T.V. teaches us, you don't really have to have an interesting life to write a memoir worth reading. Even Eat, Pray, Love is just her thoughts about some experiences that were not run-of-the-mill, but not particular standouts, such as Robert Leon Davis (Running Scared), the man who lived as a fugitive longer than any other, or Princess Diana. Most are not actually written by the person who experienced it, though. You can be a great man or woman, and still not write a great memoir, as Ulysees S. Grant proves. There are the Teddy Roosevelts and Winston Churchills who wrote eminently readable autobiographies. But, most people, even those who write for a living, will often hire someone to write about their experiences. 

I was doing the exercises in a book that either my son had as a college textbook, or my husband got for me from the used bookstore. It is entitled Imaginative Writing. The author has a chapter on memoirs because, to be readable and engaging, a memoir tells a story, with all the visceral description of a murder mystery. It was a relief to read that. It It gave me permission to be as personal in my memoir as I would be in getting inside a character's head.

Have you ever tackled a memoir?

Writers write

Writers write.

My son knows this. Because he doesn't. He came home from one of his first classes at the engineering school. "It's so great to be around people who think the same way I do. I come from a family of writers!" (in disgust.)

You don't have to be paid for it.  A writer will write.

A writer will write lengthy birthday cards.

A writer writes love notes.

A writer writes stories.

A writer writes instructions.

A writer writes lists.

A writer writes notes of inspiration.

My husband is not a writer. He has written me so few love notes over the years that I have taken to pinning them on my bulletin board so I can see them on a regular basis.

I, only the other hand, don't like buying birthday cards that have someone else's words in them. I prefer to write my own.

I have a journal for my husband and each of my kids where every year, at least on their birthdays and Valentine's Day, they get a note from me.

I write lessons to teach at Vacation Bible School, homeschool conferences, or Moms' support groups. Or just because I think it's a good idea and want to put it down in order.

I write stories. I talk about stories. I tell stories. I just have to.

I journal on a regular basis. I used to have them numbered. I think I have gotten about thirty filled since high school.

I study the Bible and other writers, chasing down words or thoughts, put them together in a coherent form, categorizing them by theme and pattern, which I then try to explain to the unsuspecting public. Which is really for my own benefit.  

I am a writer. I will write forever.

What do you write?