In my mind, sometimes it feels like a garage sale, all of the artifacts from life on display, discrete entities with little connection between them. Maybe it’s just the summer heat frying my brain.
Summer Solstice
“Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it.”
For years, I posted this message on social media, asking for chapter, character, book, and author. (answer below)
Now that we’re there, I can safely say that I didn’t miss it this year.
Query Letter Quest
I sought help for my query letter. I got back some good suggestions. Not sure yet if the suggestions will pay off. It was a modest investment. The editor said now that I have a good query, rejection won’t be because I don’t have a good query letter. Ha! It’s good to have an editor with confidence.
Tomorrow, after this three day weekend, I will turn to that query, finish it up and start the next phase of querying for my memoir.
Westward-Ho! (coming soon)
We spent yesterday at the Coca-Cola Museum. We’re trying to go to places we haven’t been before we leave town. My attention has been turning to packing, getting rid of things, selling things, taking items to Goodwill, scanning old files and discarding them, and packing things up to send to gf’s mom in California. Our goal is to fit most everything we own into our one car and drive across country without a trailer. We will have a rooftop luggage bag, but that’s it.
Guitar Lessons (part deux)
I’ve been self-studying guitar now for 2 years. I can passably play a few songs. I enjoy the process of learning and making music so much. For someone who couldn’t keep time on the piano, I am learning to keep time on the guitar very well. I’ve developed a few bad habits that trip me up, but overall, I’m making good progress. For a while, about a year ago, I took lessons for a couple of months, but I don’t think I was well-matched with my teacher. He was a nice guy and into literature, so we chatted over Zoom about literature more than about guitar.
I’ve now made arrangements to have a guitar lessons from Richard, one of the official Justin Guitar approved guitar teachers. My first lesson will be on Friday, so I’m looking forward to that, getting out of my rut and seeing if I can take my playing to the next level. Stay tuned.
Naming Names and Memoir
Since my memoir concerns a lot of dysfunction from family, friends, and coworkers, I struggled while writing with what to do about naming characters. Should I change everyone’s names? Should I change their attributes? What is my responsibility to my work and truth vs. what is my responsibility to others? I no longer have relationships with most of these people - they’ve either cut me out of their lives or I have said “enough” and cut them out of my own.
I don’t live in the land of regret or vengeance. I don’t live in the past in any daily way, brooding over slights big and small, the papers cuts and severing of limbs common to those who have dysfunctional pasts.
During writing, when my forward motion stopped from overthinking whether I should use pseudonyms, I turned to memoir craft books for guidance. The advice was mixed. Use names. Don’t use names. I finally decided to just write and worry about that later. If I’m fortunate to get published, a lawyer for the publishing company may suggest I change some names.
I changed some names, I used some pseudonyms, I avoided using some names in cases. I used real names in other cases. A couple of the names were ripe for metaphorical implications, so I hinted at the truth of names, but I did my best not to reveal who people were in any way that might hurt them. Of course, anyone who looks up my history through offical records can sort out who these people are. I don’t know that it’s important at this point. To be true to my story, it’s important that readers know what happened with these people and what everyone did, as well as what my relationship to them was. One can only go so far in hiding those facts.
In her book, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott writes,
“Ethan Canin insists that you should never write out of vengeance, while I tell my students that they should always write out of vengeance, as long as they do so nicely. If someone has crossed them, if someone has treated them too roughly, I urge them to write about it.”
Her famous suggestion is to disguise people who have treated you ill in order to avoid libel claims. Change the details about them, change their names, “give him a teenie little penis so he will be les likely to come forth.”
I’m satisfied with the approach I took, but I’m open to changing more names and details if it serves my story. I’d rather tell it directly, with all the names intact. While I’ve made mistakes in my life, I’m not ashamed of my actions. I can’t speak for others about their own actions and regrets they may have. Those who have wronged me the most wouldn’t have the self-regard to consider that they made any kind of mistake or acted improperly - and that just speaks to the kind of people they are.
And that’s why I’m now here in my life - and they’re somewhere far out there - with more peace in my life than I’ve ever had.
Thanks for reading. A-querying I go. We’ll delve more into the business of memoir and the making of my memoir over the next few posts.
Summer is here. Happy summer everyone. May the rays of sunlight brighten your lives and spread the happiness of sunshine through all the shadows of life.
Until next time, I’ll . . .
Just keep writing!
* Summer Solstice answer - the quotation is from The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chapter 1, spoken by Daisy Buchanan.