Mission Accomplished

After three days Chapter 5 is in the can. I think I know what is wrong with my muddled thinking concerning all of my problems writing Misdemeanors & Felonies. It's the genre, stupid! I am treading in new and uncharted waters and sometimes I feel like I am drowning in the riptide of emotions. You ever been so emotional that you could not explain to anyone how you were feeling? I get that same sinking feeling each and every chapter I compose. Will it ease as I continue to plod along on this story of mine? I very much doubt it. I think it will only get worse. Where before I could make up names, like Martin Rayne Kirby, and give him some background, put him in spots where danger is involved and get him out of said danger, this time it is different, it is real

The thing is with writing memoirs the plot has already been written for you by your very own self over however many years you have been alive and kicking. That should make it easier, eh? Not. At least not in my case. I find myself floundering around, splashing in the shallow end of the pool of memories and dreading . . . fearing . . . To venture into the deep water of my own making, wondering if, when I get into that deep water will it drown me. I know that it is going to affect me deeply, that's a given. Sometimes I have had niggling doubts that my life has been all that interesting that can fill a book.

But then, that is not the reason Misdemeanors & Felonies is being written.

It is being written in order to give something to my children; not to make up for what I havn't given them all these years, my love and affection and strength. No, of course that isn't it, but maybe the book will at least give them a chance to look into my mind. At least they might know what I was pursuing all those years I tramped across America looking for who the hell knew what. I hope so. I hope they will be able to and say, "Okay, now I know. It doesn't make up for what the SOB did, but now I recognize a little about why he was the way he was."

That is all I can ask for.

I suppose I am in need of expert help on this project of mine. Writing a factual story of your life is miles away from making up fiction. I find myself thinking that there is much too much narrative, but I think narrative is the accepted protocol when writing memoirs. The ones I have read, I seem to remember were about ninety percent narrative. I picked up a book called Hole In The Sky, by William Kittredge, which is a thin book of his memoirs and almost all of it is written in the narrative. So, I understand that I am doing nothing wrong, but being an old fiction writer I cringe when I look over each chapter and don't see a lot of white spaces on the page. White spaces, of course would mean that there is a lot of dialogue, which helps a reader stay interested in what he is reading. I suppose readers, however, understand the difference in the two genres and is not concerned. They are reading a memoir in order to find out about a particular person's take on his own life and I can only hope I can make my narrative interesting enough to keep that reader reading . . . That, of course, remains to be seen . . . See you tomorrow . . .

MY NOVELS:

Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621

Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842

My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742