My brother, the hippie, basketball star, frisbee freak, preacher, husband, father, dog owner . . .
How do you solve a problem like a brother? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
Good afternoon! It’s Easter week, maybe the most appropriate time to tell you about my brother. Then, read about my latest editing efforts for my memoir: My Own Private Waste Land.
My brother. Trying to write about a biography about my brother seems horribly reductive. He’s so much more than the labels I have put on him all my life. He was 10 years older than me.
Which brother do I write about? The one who took me to Lodge Pole in Sequoia in winter with his friends when he was 17 or 18 (I was 7 or 8) and pushed me down a snowy hill? I was a little kid, and it was my first time to the snow. I trudged back up the hill. He held out his hand to help me up, and then grasping it like he was shaking my hand, pushed me and I rolled down the hill again.
Do I write about the brother who dunked me in the pool, or sat on me and gave me pink bellies?
Do I write about the brother who I ate whole boxes of cereal with while we watched cartoons and television when we were kids, both eating with our left hands?
Do I write about the brother who protected me from my sister? Once when we were all home after the older kids had left, Lynn sat across the kitchen table from us. Lisa and I sat next to each other. She was picking on me. I pulled her braid, and she pulled my hair, hard. My brother slowly put his fork down and stared at her. I knew then that I was protected. I yanked my sister’s braid even harder, and she tugged my hair and got up from her seat and ran out the front door. My brother went out the back kitchen door and caught her as they reached the lawn. Running he reached for her and gave her a little push. She fell and slid on the grass through a pile of dog poop. Lynn ran in and locked the doors. My dad had followed to stop the commotion and got caught outside with the doors locked, and my sister chased him. She came in, laughing, and headed straight to the shower since she had a date. Family lore. That’s how I remember it. I’m sure my sister will let me know what details I got wrong.
Do I write about the brother who had me, an 11-year old kid, be his best man at his wedding, or about my preacher brother who declined to officiate or even attend when I got married the first time, because he didn’t approve of our cohabitating before marriage and required us to be counseled by him in a religious way before he would marry us?
Do I write about the hippie brother who I shared a room and bunk beds with until he moved out to the garage, put tapestries on the wall, put up a “War is not healthy for children and other living things” poster, and drove a VW bug, and had a red golden retriever with a red kerchief and hitchhiked up and down the coast, the ultimate hippie cliché.
Do I write about the brother who took me backpacking and hitchhiking to Hawaii for three weeks, where we ate mangos, papayas, pineapples, and coconuts that we found on the trees and in the fields, and who karate kicked and picked on me the entire trip?
Do I write about the brother who would not send my nieces and nephew out to visit when I lived in New Mexico and Kansas because my values were not his church values, and he never stopped thinking of me as his “little brother,” and thus I never had a chance to truly develop relationships with my nieces and nephew?
Do I write about the brother who joined the church and founded churches for the deaf in Seattle, Spokane, and Portland, before being stricken by major depressive disorder and being suicidal for 13 years before he finally jumped from the Fremont Bridge?
There were many sides to my brother, most of which I idolized.
My brother died when he was 51 years old. I am 10 years younger than him. So, not counting the first, say, 4 years of life when memory and consciousness aren’t really formed yet, that gave me about 37 years to know my brother when he was alive.
When I started writing about my brother, I came up with only 12-15 strong memories of him. I know I interacted with him on a daily basis when I was a kid. When he moved away, I visited him several times as a teenager and in my early 20s, and I saw him a couple times on vacations. But 12-15 strong memories doesn’t seem like a lot for someone who plays such a large role in my life.
But that’s just it. He plays such a large role in my life because I was compared to him throughout my life. The surface similarities between us, the family resemblance was so strong that it bled into many other areas of my life.
Next time, family resemblance aside, I’ll tell you about the uncanny ways in which we were like each other, as confirmed by people outside of our family.
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Editing My Memoir - Progress!
Editing on my memoir is going quite well. I set a goal to cut it so it’s under 100,000 words. After completing it the first time, it landed at 203,000 words. After a series of cuts, it was at 168,000 words. This is the third serious cutting session, which requires some rewriting - I’m at 136,000 words and falling, with 325 pages of manuscript yet to review. It’s happening! My goal is to reach the under 100,000 word goal by the beginning of May in time for my attendance at the Atlanta Writer’s Conference. Of course, I hope that the editors I’ve chosen to work with ask to read the entire manuscript, but if they pass on it, it’ll still be in much better shape to query more agents.
In general, most memoirs are in the 60,000 to 100,000 word range. For publishers and editors, 100,000 words is a psychological barrier. Books by unknown writers that are more than 100,000 words are great financial risks, and thus, to increase my chances of securing traditional publication, I must tame my memoir to under 100,000 words. There are exceptions, of course. Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is 143,000 words, and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes is 141,000 words. If an editor ever thinks my effort is similar in quality, well, I have 168,000 and 203,000 word versions ready for them. :)
My editing process is a bit like marching, straight and steady. Each day, I take a chapter, or anywhere from 10 to 25 pages, count the words, and then try to cut those pages by 50%. Sometimes, on first cut, I cut only 20%, so I make another pass. And another, and another. I am probably cutting about 40%, not the 50% I’m shooting for, but it’s still a significant amount.
Enjoy your week. You’ll hear from me again on Good Friday.