Seriously doubting my ability...

sf.writer.mdk

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Thoughts on writing my memoir.


What makes my memoir difficult to write is perhaps there is no other memoir quite like mine to emulate from. Not that I need to formulate my story to another. Because, believe me when I say this, not many can say to have lived a surreal life like mine. I realize we are all unique, but my story is a new level of unique. And though others have lived bordering on the surreal, not many have written in the frame of memoir.


Blending the surreal, improbabilistic nature of synchronicity and certain psychic phenomena, anomalous experience, touched with a modicum of insanity and hopefully balanced with more than a dose of skepticism bares an almost impossible task.


How can I start this? I have the experiences already written, but to craft it into a coherent piece, one in which I hope many readers will delve with all their minds and hearts almost seems impossible to me at this point.


When actively symptomatic with my various afflictions it can be difficult to put one foot in front of the other on any given day much less create what I hope one day will be known as a work of art. How do I blend present, past, and possibly a future past?


Do I have the skill to write such a work? Why does this memoir seem to be beckoning me to write yet I feel such a strong resistance? Must I wait until I’m healed to write? In such a case I may never reach my potential and goal. I think I have the ability, yet it seems elusive.


For instance, I just wrote this both organically and with spontaneity, without hesitation. It’s not a bad piece I think. I’m seriously doubting my ability to write anything. My thinking is so fragmented at times I’m surprised I can manage a properly structured three word sentence much less a memoir that readers will want to pursue.

Can anyone recommend memoirs for me to read?
 
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mccardey

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Thoughts on writing my memoir.

<<snip>>
Do I have the skill to write such a work? Why does this memoir seem to be beckoning me to write yet I feel such a strong resistance? Must I wait until I’m healed to write? In such a case I may never reach my potential and goal. I think I have the ability, yet it seems elusive.
I think you do have the ability, and I think your memoir will be very intriguing. But perhaps - like many writers, and perhaps more strongly than most - you'll find you have days that are better suited for creative and impulsive work and days that are better suited to the nitty-gritty of editing down and clarifying. Make that your strength, would be my suggestion. There's no need to wait till you're 'healed' enough to approach the task methodically - grab the notebooks and write now, and worry about the more structural aspects of memoir when your mind is in a more structural thinking mode. You clearly have a lot to say, and the power to say it so I think just relax and trust that different days and moods will suit different aspects of the task.

Very good luck with it!
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

You don't have to wait to be healed.

Just start writing. Write scenes from your life as they occur to you (as you remember them)...or write a surreal rendition of what happened as it occurs to you. Find the thread in them once you've done a fair amount of work.

I started writing a memoir -- triangulation of how I gained a singing voice and lost it to acid reflux, my friendship with a guy who slit his throat while I was trying to heal mine, and how I got myself out of suicidal depression through kundalini yoga and Sikh practices -- while I was trying to heal my throat and the grief about my friend was raw. Took awhile to figure out how to organize because I was telling 3 stories.

So... just start working. You'll figure it out.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

sf.writer.mdk

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Sat Nam! Thank you for your feedback, Siri Kirpal. It's good to know that healing can take effect as a means of the writing itself. Your story is very interesting. It looks like you've got some complex layering going on.