People often ask how on earth I manage to remember crazy little details from 30 and 40 years ago. For some reason, remembering details from the past is easy. Just don't ask me what I ate for lunch yesterday.
Mom used to say I had a photographic memory. My major professor in grad school said the same thing. If so, the camera is selective. I had a very hard time memorizing anything for school and struggled to learn my lines for any theatrical productions.
Some of remembering is paying attention. I talked a lot about the more interesting events of my childhood or heard them talked about enough to have them permanently etched in my memory. The stories on this blog that started me down the path toward writing a book have been told and retold hundreds of times over the years.
Writing about the things I remember unlocks other memories. Sometimes the memory is just a snapshot--a mental image from a particular event or location in my mind's eye. Sometimes it's like a short video clip on YouTube. Now and then I unlock a previously hidden door and discover a treasure chest of forgotten memories.
The book is rapidly approaching 200 double-spaced pages. I've gotten better about picking up where I left off instead of starting at the beginning. Sometimes I make so many changes I have to back up and re-read to pick up the flow again. Every time I do, I make more changes.
I started back at page one earlier this week and have since worked through the first 154 pages. I've made it through the last 50 or so pages once before. They're all bits and pieces that jump all over the place but are now mostly in chronological order. I'm hoping to make it through to the end again sometime this weekend.
Once I make it to the end, I'll print it off and read through it again. Hopefully by then I'll be ready to stick a fork in it and call it done. The edges are still fuzzy but now I know where I'm going. Can't wait to finish so I can start on the next one!
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1 comment:
Woo Hoo!! Can't wait to read it!! I do the same thing with my book. I'll go back and read and think "I could have articulated that sentence/paragraph/idea a little better, and end up re-writing it. Or I'll find a typo, or question my sentence structure. My daughter calls me a narcicist because I read my own writings so much. She hooted when I did the SharedBook thing and printed out my blogs, and thinks it is hilarious that I'll read an old post and correct an error, or change something. Hardly anybody reads my blogs to start with, and they for sure ain't gonna go back and read them again!
Thing is... if WE don't enjoy our own writing, why should we expect someone else to?
Keep us posted on the progress and let me know at what point I can obtain a copy. Can't wait to read it!
Hope you and yours are doing well, and your yard is surviving this horrible heat wave. I miss your not posting as often.
CathyB
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