Monday 24 September 2012
memoir writers craft-some reflections on having completed a first chapter
Well.I've finally assembled a bunch of pieces into the first chapter of a memoir.All told,it seemed a lot less work than I thought it would be,at least if I exclude all the written pieces from the past that have gone into it.I'd been assembling those for a number of years,and have managed to lose them all several times over.I recall most of the substance of those writings,but ,of course I can never reproduce the writing exactly as I first put it down.
I'm still feeling a sense of awkwardness when it comes to writing with a computer,but I guess that's the way it is done these days.Still though,I'm a note taker and there is a lot of work product in written form.I'll try to save and preserve that too,but really I haven't seemed to be organized enough to do that in the past.That is part of the reason that I've allowed this blog to show some of the background that,for me has gone into producing the memoir,and not just the memoir itself.Really,getting there is way more than half the fun,and I wanted to share that with my readers.
So,on completing my first chapter,there are a number of thoughts that come to mind.The first is that the writing needs to get better.I use a spell check which likely takes countless hours of revision and turns them into minutes.But I'm not great at revisions and by that I mean I'm not especially dedicated to revising on a regular basis.I though that that is one thing the computer might force me to be better at,and it still might.So,try to picture what you see here as my daily notes,like you might find in the room where I write if you were to visit.It's much more that than it is a finished product.For the most part it doesn't occur to me that my story is especially compelling.Life,after all has been rather ordinary.But I have to remind myself that,in a world that changes as rapidly as ours does,the time and culture is not necessarily something that everyone is informed about.In fact,the world of the early 1960's sometimes seems very foreign to me.There is also the fact that,like most of us,I have lived in some parts of the world that are not really familiar to everyone reading this memoir.I can stretch my imagination to believe that I may write something that is interesting or informative to them,even if those events seem mundane to me.Why should that not be true?After all,a big part of the reason I read anything at all is that I want to see places that are exotic to me through the eyes of people who live there.
Most of the stories I've related in chapter one I've been carrying around in my head for some time.Those things,once they happened have never really left me,though,as memories they have tended to evolve over the decades.One of the most insightful parts of writing chapter one was the opportunity to consider memory and how it works.Recalling things now is much different from the experience itself.I can never be certain that I've got everything exactly right.You see,I'm still firmly convinced that the quality of memory is related to the level of language development a person has,or ultimately attains.I've also come to see how a young child's mind works very differently from that of an adult.The very best memoir writers that I know have the ability to take a child's point of view in writing.It's not the only way to relate things,straight narrative will work quite effectively,but I've always admired that ability to take on the mind of a child.It's something that I need practice at.
I've never seemed to get over the idea that what I'm really doing here is writing practice.With time,and more inclination to revision,I hope the craft will get better.The completion of a first chapter really doesn't change that point of view in my mind.Keep in mind that what is written here is not a finished product.
Some of the research has been fun.Being that it's a memoir,that is to say,the world through my eyes,I tend to not do a lot of research,though at times I feel I must.I'm sometimes inclined to put things in a wrong time frame,forgetting if they happened in say,1963 or1964,in spring or fall or some such thing.So those are the things I need to double check a lot. I tried to get copies of some of the old magazines such as Newsweek or The New Yorker,as much out of curiosity as from any extraordinary effort to do research.I like to think about those times so that I have a greater understanding of them,but I don't really want that understanding to color my experience of the times.I fear it may change the story.
Ever since I was a child I've had a bit of a thing for maps.They fascinate me to no end.So,in relating this story about Redmondville,I am delighted with one particular piece of technology.Google Maps.It is utterly fantastic to me that today,when I'm looking at a map,I can literally take a stroll down the streets of Montreal or Jakarta or Moscow and see all the sights as though I were really there.The same applies to Redmondville.Really,though,Google Maps is a bit more valuable,perhaps, to writers of fiction than to memoir writers.Still I was spellbound by my virtual walk down that stretch of road where we lived in the early 1960's.The whole point of spending several hours in front of the computer screen was,of course,to find the old house we lived in.To this point,I don't know that I've done that.I think I've narrowed it down to a most likely possibility,but in the nearly 50 years that have passed since then,I cannot really be certain that it is exactly the house.It may well be,but I was greatly surprised at how different that area looks from the way I remember it.The house I've picked out sits in the right position,relative to the road,and it's outbuildings are in roughly the right place,relative to the house,though the driveway is not the way I recall it to be.There is no trailer to the south either,nor have I been able to locate that mud road.It is possible,perhaps even likely that both are gone.The next farm to the north looks unfamiliar too.There seems to be no little hollow between it and our old house,the way I remember.Nor can I spot the old school a bit farther down the road on the opposite side.I'm planning to take that walk a few more times though.
For the time being I've decided to keep the technique of trying to fix the various times we lived in in their historical context.Again,it gives me a chance to do some research that I might not otherwise do,and is so interesting to my mind.I love the idea of presenting new words,and thinking about how they emerged from those earlier times.It's just a short reminder to myself that it really is important to be aware of the culture of the time,even if I am trying to avoid having that influence raw memory.That could change with time though.
I'm still feeling a sense of awkwardness when it comes to writing with a computer,but I guess that's the way it is done these days.Still though,I'm a note taker and there is a lot of work product in written form.I'll try to save and preserve that too,but really I haven't seemed to be organized enough to do that in the past.That is part of the reason that I've allowed this blog to show some of the background that,for me has gone into producing the memoir,and not just the memoir itself.Really,getting there is way more than half the fun,and I wanted to share that with my readers.
So,on completing my first chapter,there are a number of thoughts that come to mind.The first is that the writing needs to get better.I use a spell check which likely takes countless hours of revision and turns them into minutes.But I'm not great at revisions and by that I mean I'm not especially dedicated to revising on a regular basis.I though that that is one thing the computer might force me to be better at,and it still might.So,try to picture what you see here as my daily notes,like you might find in the room where I write if you were to visit.It's much more that than it is a finished product.For the most part it doesn't occur to me that my story is especially compelling.Life,after all has been rather ordinary.But I have to remind myself that,in a world that changes as rapidly as ours does,the time and culture is not necessarily something that everyone is informed about.In fact,the world of the early 1960's sometimes seems very foreign to me.There is also the fact that,like most of us,I have lived in some parts of the world that are not really familiar to everyone reading this memoir.I can stretch my imagination to believe that I may write something that is interesting or informative to them,even if those events seem mundane to me.Why should that not be true?After all,a big part of the reason I read anything at all is that I want to see places that are exotic to me through the eyes of people who live there.
Most of the stories I've related in chapter one I've been carrying around in my head for some time.Those things,once they happened have never really left me,though,as memories they have tended to evolve over the decades.One of the most insightful parts of writing chapter one was the opportunity to consider memory and how it works.Recalling things now is much different from the experience itself.I can never be certain that I've got everything exactly right.You see,I'm still firmly convinced that the quality of memory is related to the level of language development a person has,or ultimately attains.I've also come to see how a young child's mind works very differently from that of an adult.The very best memoir writers that I know have the ability to take a child's point of view in writing.It's not the only way to relate things,straight narrative will work quite effectively,but I've always admired that ability to take on the mind of a child.It's something that I need practice at.
I've never seemed to get over the idea that what I'm really doing here is writing practice.With time,and more inclination to revision,I hope the craft will get better.The completion of a first chapter really doesn't change that point of view in my mind.Keep in mind that what is written here is not a finished product.
Some of the research has been fun.Being that it's a memoir,that is to say,the world through my eyes,I tend to not do a lot of research,though at times I feel I must.I'm sometimes inclined to put things in a wrong time frame,forgetting if they happened in say,1963 or1964,in spring or fall or some such thing.So those are the things I need to double check a lot. I tried to get copies of some of the old magazines such as Newsweek or The New Yorker,as much out of curiosity as from any extraordinary effort to do research.I like to think about those times so that I have a greater understanding of them,but I don't really want that understanding to color my experience of the times.I fear it may change the story.
Ever since I was a child I've had a bit of a thing for maps.They fascinate me to no end.So,in relating this story about Redmondville,I am delighted with one particular piece of technology.Google Maps.It is utterly fantastic to me that today,when I'm looking at a map,I can literally take a stroll down the streets of Montreal or Jakarta or Moscow and see all the sights as though I were really there.The same applies to Redmondville.Really,though,Google Maps is a bit more valuable,perhaps, to writers of fiction than to memoir writers.Still I was spellbound by my virtual walk down that stretch of road where we lived in the early 1960's.The whole point of spending several hours in front of the computer screen was,of course,to find the old house we lived in.To this point,I don't know that I've done that.I think I've narrowed it down to a most likely possibility,but in the nearly 50 years that have passed since then,I cannot really be certain that it is exactly the house.It may well be,but I was greatly surprised at how different that area looks from the way I remember it.The house I've picked out sits in the right position,relative to the road,and it's outbuildings are in roughly the right place,relative to the house,though the driveway is not the way I recall it to be.There is no trailer to the south either,nor have I been able to locate that mud road.It is possible,perhaps even likely that both are gone.The next farm to the north looks unfamiliar too.There seems to be no little hollow between it and our old house,the way I remember.Nor can I spot the old school a bit farther down the road on the opposite side.I'm planning to take that walk a few more times though.
For the time being I've decided to keep the technique of trying to fix the various times we lived in in their historical context.Again,it gives me a chance to do some research that I might not otherwise do,and is so interesting to my mind.I love the idea of presenting new words,and thinking about how they emerged from those earlier times.It's just a short reminder to myself that it really is important to be aware of the culture of the time,even if I am trying to avoid having that influence raw memory.That could change with time though.
memoir-chapter one-conclusion
1964.The big news stories involved civil rights in the United States,and The Beatles,who were the hottest act in pop music and who began their first visit to America in February.
Lyndon Johnson was the President Of The United States ,and it was in 1964 that he signed into law the Civil Rights Act,that outlawed segregation in schools,public places and employment.The act was vigorously opposed by southern politicians.Three civil rights workers were killed that year in Mississippi and members of the Ku Klux Klan were investigated in the deaths.It was also the year that Martin Luther King king won a Nobel Peace Prize,and Sidney Poirtier became the first black man to win the Oscar for best actor in "Lilies Of The Field."Things may have been improving for black Americans,but there were still deep racial conflicts.
America seemed conflicted in other ways too.The Vietnam War was raging and,during 1964 The Warren Commission came to the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald had been the sole killer of President John F.Kennedy.In the same year,Jack Ruby was found guilty of Oswald's murder and was sentenced to death.Meanwhile,in the United Kingdom,the death penalty was being abolished.
The Olympic Games were held in Tokyo during the summer and in Innsbruck,Austria during the winter.A World's Fair was held in New York City,where the Verrazano Narrows Bridge opened as well,and was the longest suspension bridge in the world at that time.
In Alaska,an earthquake struck on Good Friday.It was the strongest earthquake ever felt in the United States,at over 9 on the Richter Scale.
In 1964,gas cost about thirty cents a gallon and a loaf of bread around twenty one cents.Most new cars were under $5000 and an average home cost $13,050,with the average yearly salary being slightly less than half of that.That was the year the Ford Mustang was first produced.
The most popular names for boys in 1964 were Michael(as it was three years earlier),John,David,James and Robert.For girls,the most popular names were Lisa,Mary,Susan,Karen and Patricia.
Three hundred and sixty three new words appeared for the first time in The Oxford English Dictionary.They included condo,disco,ninja,paki,a derogatory name for some one of Pakistani decent.I guess with all the leaps and bounds we were making towards racial equality in North America,we really needed another racial slur.Pop tart was used for the first time,as was skateboard.Skateboards had been in existence for some time,but the term was first coined in 1964.Sitcom was also used for the first time.
There didn't really seem to be what we would call a sitcom today among the listings of popular television shows,unless you could call The Lucy Show a sitcom.Other popular television shows of the day included Bonanza,Gomer Pyle,The Beverly Hillbillies,My Three Sons,Peyton Place,Lassie and Flipper.
Early in 1964,Bob Dylan released an album called"The Times They Are A Changing"(still my favorite Dylan song).I guess if I'd had such things in mind at the time I would have thought the song appropriate for the occasion.It certainly seems that it was a rapidly changing society at the time.It was the age of Civil Rights,The Vietnam War,with all of it's associated protests on the near horizon.The Kennedy assassination seemed to usher in an era where people were less inclined to trust their governments.From the conclusion that Oswald acted alone,the whole incident seemed to escalate into the ultimate conspiracy theory.It seemed a beginning of a whole age of conspiracy theories.
Things were changing in our family too.My father still worked just down the road from our home in Redmondville.But he had somehow decided to move the family to Moncton,about eighty miles down the road.It was to be a big move for us and must have been a difficult decision for my father.The only thing he ever said to me about that decision was that the schools were better in the city,with better funding and newer,and students at those schools achieved at a higher rate.So he decided to sacrifice and commute the eighty mile to work every day.It was to be a decision he stuck with from the day it was made,as he moved us into the only home he had ever owned.For us,it was a big move,from country to city.The times were indeed changing.
End-Chapter One.
Sources:thepeoplehistory.blogspot.com
www.weddingvendors.com/baby-names/popular/1964
wordorigins.com
Lyndon Johnson was the President Of The United States ,and it was in 1964 that he signed into law the Civil Rights Act,that outlawed segregation in schools,public places and employment.The act was vigorously opposed by southern politicians.Three civil rights workers were killed that year in Mississippi and members of the Ku Klux Klan were investigated in the deaths.It was also the year that Martin Luther King king won a Nobel Peace Prize,and Sidney Poirtier became the first black man to win the Oscar for best actor in "Lilies Of The Field."Things may have been improving for black Americans,but there were still deep racial conflicts.
America seemed conflicted in other ways too.The Vietnam War was raging and,during 1964 The Warren Commission came to the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald had been the sole killer of President John F.Kennedy.In the same year,Jack Ruby was found guilty of Oswald's murder and was sentenced to death.Meanwhile,in the United Kingdom,the death penalty was being abolished.
The Olympic Games were held in Tokyo during the summer and in Innsbruck,Austria during the winter.A World's Fair was held in New York City,where the Verrazano Narrows Bridge opened as well,and was the longest suspension bridge in the world at that time.
In Alaska,an earthquake struck on Good Friday.It was the strongest earthquake ever felt in the United States,at over 9 on the Richter Scale.
The most popular names for boys in 1964 were Michael(as it was three years earlier),John,David,James and Robert.For girls,the most popular names were Lisa,Mary,Susan,Karen and Patricia.
Three hundred and sixty three new words appeared for the first time in The Oxford English Dictionary.They included condo,disco,ninja,paki,a derogatory name for some one of Pakistani decent.I guess with all the leaps and bounds we were making towards racial equality in North America,we really needed another racial slur.Pop tart was used for the first time,as was skateboard.Skateboards had been in existence for some time,but the term was first coined in 1964.Sitcom was also used for the first time.
There didn't really seem to be what we would call a sitcom today among the listings of popular television shows,unless you could call The Lucy Show a sitcom.Other popular television shows of the day included Bonanza,Gomer Pyle,The Beverly Hillbillies,My Three Sons,Peyton Place,Lassie and Flipper.
Early in 1964,Bob Dylan released an album called"The Times They Are A Changing"(still my favorite Dylan song).I guess if I'd had such things in mind at the time I would have thought the song appropriate for the occasion.It certainly seems that it was a rapidly changing society at the time.It was the age of Civil Rights,The Vietnam War,with all of it's associated protests on the near horizon.The Kennedy assassination seemed to usher in an era where people were less inclined to trust their governments.From the conclusion that Oswald acted alone,the whole incident seemed to escalate into the ultimate conspiracy theory.It seemed a beginning of a whole age of conspiracy theories.
Things were changing in our family too.My father still worked just down the road from our home in Redmondville.But he had somehow decided to move the family to Moncton,about eighty miles down the road.It was to be a big move for us and must have been a difficult decision for my father.The only thing he ever said to me about that decision was that the schools were better in the city,with better funding and newer,and students at those schools achieved at a higher rate.So he decided to sacrifice and commute the eighty mile to work every day.It was to be a decision he stuck with from the day it was made,as he moved us into the only home he had ever owned.For us,it was a big move,from country to city.The times were indeed changing.
End-Chapter One.
Sources:thepeoplehistory.blogspot.com
www.weddingvendors.com/baby-names/popular/1964
wordorigins.com
Sunday 23 September 2012
memoir writers homework-a rainbow
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But on July first,2011,I saw a different kind of a rainbow flag,and it offended me,to be honest.Now I'm really not one who defines a person by who they choose to sleep with,so the rainbow flag,by itself does not offend me.I know many gay people,and I've found that most of them want to live in peace and dignity and safety,in a country that values them as people.And in Canada,I think we do,to a greater extent than in many other places.The problem with this particular flag was that it featured a Canadian Maple Leaf in it's center,as a Canadian flag should.However,the outer parts of it were composed of the rainbow colours of the flag indicating gay pride.Again,I bear no ill will to the gay community.The nature of the offense has nothing to do with gay rights in my mind.It was,and is,to me a simple matter of patriotism.I don't like to see my flag corrupted,especially on Canada's national holiday.Not by rainbows,marijuana leaves,or pink potatoes,or anything else for that matter.To me,the flag stands in part for the collective values of Canadians-things like freedom and human rights.Gay rights is not something that is embraced by all Canadians.So,fly the rainbow flag,and I promise not to be offended.Fly it with,and by with,I mean along side of the Canadian flag.
So I walked home that warm summer day in a rather introspective mood.Was I being too much of a redneck?I hoped not.Was I getting old and set in my ways?Again,I hoped not,having always considered myself fairly liberal.But the presentation of that flag bothered me.It still does.I'm sure that there are those who would point their finger at me and say"homophobe" knowing how I felt.I try not to be.
memoir,chapter one-continued
Redmondville is in the northern part of the province of New Brunswick.In winter it can be very snowy and quite cold.Winters were often that way when I was growing up.Roads there were not anything of the quality of the ones today.In summer they were rough and in winter they would have been snow packed and icy.On the warmer winter nights they could be covered in black ice,invisible to the eye,but enough to send a car out of control.But those were later winters.The winter we spent in Redmondville,and there must have been only one,to the best of my recall,has fallen victim to the frailty of my mind ,such as it is.I simply do not recall a lot of snow,so it may have been a mild winter.
Of that winter I have only two snow memories.The one is of the neighbor throwing snowballs in the spring or summer,past the time that snow lingered on the ground.She must have kept them in a freezer inside the trailer.My other memory of snow,or,to be more accurate,ice,is of a time we drove a babysitter home in my fathers car.It really couldn't have been so far away from where we lived,but,at that age,all things seemed very far.My whole world you see was a small strip of driveway,so going anyplace where that house could not be seen seemed very different to me.
We must have taken her to a place near the coast,Black River,perhaps,or Point Sapin,as my father knew people in both places.But we drove down the back roads for a while.Now there may have been snow on the ground then,but I don't remember it.At some point we came to a large body of water,a bay of some sort.Here my father stopped the car and let the young woman out,and she started out across the surface of the bay on the ice.We watched her for a while,and I suppose that it may have been that my father feared she may fall through the ice.But she did not.It must have been no later than March as people would not normally have crossed open water later in the spring.The lady with the box full of snowballs must have come later,and that would have been very close to the time we left Redmondville for Moncton,in 1964.
Of that winter I have only two snow memories.The one is of the neighbor throwing snowballs in the spring or summer,past the time that snow lingered on the ground.She must have kept them in a freezer inside the trailer.My other memory of snow,or,to be more accurate,ice,is of a time we drove a babysitter home in my fathers car.It really couldn't have been so far away from where we lived,but,at that age,all things seemed very far.My whole world you see was a small strip of driveway,so going anyplace where that house could not be seen seemed very different to me.
We must have taken her to a place near the coast,Black River,perhaps,or Point Sapin,as my father knew people in both places.But we drove down the back roads for a while.Now there may have been snow on the ground then,but I don't remember it.At some point we came to a large body of water,a bay of some sort.Here my father stopped the car and let the young woman out,and she started out across the surface of the bay on the ice.We watched her for a while,and I suppose that it may have been that my father feared she may fall through the ice.But she did not.It must have been no later than March as people would not normally have crossed open water later in the spring.The lady with the box full of snowballs must have come later,and that would have been very close to the time we left Redmondville for Moncton,in 1964.
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