Tag: emotions

Moving On

Posted on by Admin

For the past two weeks I’ve been sitting on the second round of edits I need to make to my memoir Loveyoubye and then it will finally be done.

Five years of working through all the emotions, the tears and anguish. Five years of waking in the middle of the night, filled with doubt that I had the right to tell my story. Five years of sorting through what to put in and what to leave out. Five years of memoir writing classes and workshops, learning how very different memoir is from fiction, getting past fiction’s iron clad rule to “show don’t tell.” In memoir, it’s tell, tell, tell.

I spilled my guts. And then I sent the manuscript to Thomas White, an editor recommended by my memoir writing mentor for a comprehensive edit. I didn’t realize just how comprehensive his edit would be. He picked up each line, turned it over, examined the bottom, sniffed it, held it up to the light. And asked questions. Difficult penetrating questions that made me realize that I’d held back, that there was still more to tell. His questions took me down paths that unearthed tiny pieces of the puzzle of my experience I didn’t know were missing.

And now all I have to do is make those last few changes. Easy ones, especially after what I’ve been through. But there’s been a force field around my manuscript. I haven’t been able to crack that file. I’m anxious and miserable. I think what’s happening is that I’m afraid of finally being done. I’m afraid I will have nothing more to write. I’m afraid of sending Loveyoubye out into the world where others will get a peek into what I’m about. But you know what, I have to do it. Writing this book revealed a whole lot of me to myself and provided a healing I wouldn’t have found any other way.

Maybe now that I’ve been able to write about it in this blog, I can make those changes. And get on with writing.

Book Review–Every Last One

Posted on by Admin

My first book review!  Yaaaay.  Anna Quindlen’s “Every Last One.”

By the time I got to this book, one in a massive stack of must-reads threatening to crash to the floor beside my bed, I’d forgotten what attracted me to it in the first place (well, other than I loved Ms. Quindlen’s Black and Blue, and One True Thing).  I didn’t read the blurb on the back, I just launched right into it.

I’ll dispense with the storyline.  Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly had to say about it:

“In her latest novel, Quindlen once again plumbs the searing emotions of ordinary people caught in tragic circumstances. Mary Beth Latham is a happily married woman entirely devoted to her three teenaged children. When her talented daughter Ruby casually announces she’s breaking up with her boyfriend Kiernan, a former neighbor who’s become like family, Mary Beth is slightly alarmed, but soon distracted by her son Max, who’s feeling overshadowed by his extroverted, athletic twin brother Alex. Quindlen’s novel moves briskly, propelled by the small dramas of summer camp, proms, soccer games and neighbors, until the rejected Kirenan blindsides the Lathams, and the reader, with an incredible act of violence. Left with almost nothing, Mary Beth struggles to cope with loss and guilt, protect what she has left, and regain a sense of meaning. Quindlen is in classic form, with strong characters and precisely cadenced prose that builds in intensity.”

What I loved about the story is how Anna Quindlen hits those side notes of family life in a way that is both realistic and intimate.  Her ability to express the essence of a personality in just a single line of dialog or a physical mannerism is impressive–I felt as if I truly knew these people.  Not only that but she gives us insights into the way women bond and think.

I highly recommend this book.