Past comes back to haunt...

Ozarks Writer

Hello and thanks for this opportunity. I'm a "Newbie" from the home town of Brad Pitt, Sterling Macer Jr. and Kim Crosby, yippie! My true life story "Bio" that was started with the idea of helping others that are going through what
I have.

I'm new to writing. I'm writing a "true life" story, mine and I feel I MUST change my projects direction now, to be even more direct in the helping of others. My own family is now falling victim to what I'm trying to write about. It's messing with my mind. I don't know how to make this change in mid-stream.

The problems of my past have have come back to haunt my family again with one of my brothers and his son. They are 39 and 14. Son is being taken away from his father who has mild brain damage from a wreck in the 80's. Drugs and booze used by both, no job, food, funiture... They are falling through the cracks!

This has hit way to close to home, my emotions, my past and I'm finding hard be objective. I never thought that what I went through 15-20 years ago would destroy my family again. What direction should I go? How can a project go from trying to help others to trying to save family members lives? Me of all people and I didn't see it coming.

What's a newbie to do when emotions take over and all of ones education and experiance goes out the window?

Thanks so much!

Ozarks Writer
 

aka eraser

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Tough situation OW. About all I can think of to suggest is that you back off the book project for a while. It might be best to harness your energies and experience to help deal with your family's problem right now. When that's (hopefully) resolved and on the back burner, maybe you can return to the book project with not only a level of detachment, but with a little deeper well of knowledge and experience to draw from.

Might not hurt to post this on the Life Story Writing board too. I'll copy it over to there but leave it here as well (if I don't muck it up - still getting used to the controls in this place).

I wish you, your family, and your book well. Keep us in the loop.
 

Savannah907

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I agree. Get your family situation taken care of first... the book will be there when things calm down, but your family can't wait. If you have the time to write a page here or there, or write down particular scenes, fine, do it and stick it in a folder, but when all is said and done, I'd rather you lose a book deal than lose your family.

Savannah
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Natalia

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My opinion

OW...

Taking time off to get your situation under control seems like the sensible thing to do. However, this may also be a time when all these thoughts can get your creative juices flowing. To take pressure off you but to help you in the future as you go back to your book, I suggest you keep a journal. There, you can pour your emotions and write your thoughts without them having to adapt to the book format or to have to be written formally. Once the situation is under control, you can go over your entries and extract what you can use for the book.

Hope this helps and that things take a turn for the better :)

-N