Someone recently asked me why I wrote my book (pub date April 2016). She said that she was interested in writing a memoir so she can shine a light on mental illness in her family. Is or was my goal that lofty in the beginning? I had to admit it wasn't.
In the beginning, I just needed to write, write my story, write to understand why my life had not gone the way I thought it would, write to get things down on paper so I could have a look at them.
Then I realized that I would have to learn to write, to use techniques used in fiction writing in order to make my story readable, and understandable to others. Techniques like: having a story arc, writing scenes and dialogue, using description, showing, not telling.
Then, some years into the process, two important things became obvious to me: that I liked to write and that I actually was learning about my life while doing the process of writing my story. It was then that I also knew that others could learn from my story. So I decided then to publish it.
James Pennebaker's research on how the simple act of writing can heal shows that writing that's authentic has three components:
1. It reveals the facts of the situation, using details that evoke the senses.
2. It shows how the writer felt then.
3. It shows how the writer feels now about what happened.
By learning to write, really write, I realised that I could do all this.
In the beginning, I just needed to write, write my story, write to understand why my life had not gone the way I thought it would, write to get things down on paper so I could have a look at them.
Then I realized that I would have to learn to write, to use techniques used in fiction writing in order to make my story readable, and understandable to others. Techniques like: having a story arc, writing scenes and dialogue, using description, showing, not telling.
Then, some years into the process, two important things became obvious to me: that I liked to write and that I actually was learning about my life while doing the process of writing my story. It was then that I also knew that others could learn from my story. So I decided then to publish it.
James Pennebaker's research on how the simple act of writing can heal shows that writing that's authentic has three components:
1. It reveals the facts of the situation, using details that evoke the senses.
2. It shows how the writer felt then.
3. It shows how the writer feels now about what happened.
By learning to write, really write, I realised that I could do all this.
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