eleninycwriter-blog
My book
this blog will document my journey through the writing of my book. I'll post excerpts, thoughts, struggles, questions, and anything else that pops up. I'm hoping having this blog and being in contact with fellow writers, will help make this writing process easier.
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Bad Weather
That’s going to be the title of the book. It came to me the night before my thesis presentation, while I was practicing my read-through of the couple passages from the book I read out loud.
“Bad Weather” is the title of my aunt Vanya’s favorite songs, by a band called Poco on their album From the Inside. And I think, not only is a song title a fitting title for the book, especially since it is from one of the quirky, little-known 60s bands that my aunt loves, but because the words themsevles are fitting to describe parts of her life.
I love the irony that I was able to provide because, at the end of the book, I describe a scene when my aunt and uncle are sitting inside arguing with each other on a rainy day. I think the theme of weather is one that I can include throughout the length of the book. In this respect, I am drawing inspiration form Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water (which, if you have not read, I highly recommend. One of the best memoirs I have ever read,) because throughout her whole book, Yuknavitch uses the theme of water to tell her life story. I can only dream of writing as fluidly and beautiful as she can, but I am glad I have her book for inspiration!
Bad Weather is going to be the beginning of a journey for me. One I hope to keep chronicling here. For now, the thesis is done and presented. Next I am looking toward publication of the short story, and ultimately publication of the book.
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Titles...
One of the hardest parts of the writing process for me is coming up with a title. I find one that I think I like, and then the next day I hate it and try to come up with something else.
How do writers come up with titles they like, and what to stick with?
One of the stories within my piece is called “Jane Doe,” because my aunt was admitted into the hospital under that name, since she didn’t have any identification on her. I thought this was a good title for the entire piece because of the message is carries; this idea of having no identity, searching for yourself, and wanting to be loved and included are very present in my story. But I don’t know if “Jane Doe” packs the punch that I want the title of this book to have.
I settled on that title for the thesis project; so the short story that is comprised of 40 pages of the overall book can be called “Jane Doe.” But I don’t think it will work for the entire book…
My question for this week is; how do writers come up with titles? Do you have a process that you use, that’s a surefire way to find a title for your work? Or have the titles of your pieces always just come to you organically?
#writing#writers#book writing#writing community#Author#writing help#title#Biographies & Memoirs#oral history#family history
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The day is gone
The thesis project is DONE! It is turned in and I feel very confident about it. I think I have written a really great piece from the book that will be about my aunt’s life. Now that the schoolwork aspect of this piece is done I am starting to look into the future; of actually getting this story published.
I am currently looking into literary magazines and small presses, in the hopes that I can spark some interest in this story that I am writing. I am hoping to get the story (the short version I have done for my Honors thesis) published by any one of these platforms, so that when I approach a literary agency to help me get the completed book published, I will already have sparked some interest in the story.
But before I submit the piece of any of these magazines, I’ll need to –
· Pick which small presses and/or literary magazines publish the type of content that I am writing.
· Write cover letters, stating my overall intent for the piece and why I would like it to be published within their platform.
· More than likely shorten the piece. I have 40 pages, so I’ll need it cut it down by at least 10 pages or so. Depending on the word limits of each individual publication.
· Look into literary agencies that publish the type of book that I am writing.
This is going to be a crazy journey ahead, but I am ready!
���
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Unsolicited vignette
This week, I am going to share one of my vignettes. I won’t give much content, because I think the story I wrote say it all; Let me know what you think!
During one of her story-telling sessions, she leaves her recorder on. She signs off, tells me she’ll talk to me later (as she always does) and forgets to shut the recorder down. She places it back on her bedside table, next to her where she’s lying in bed.
I hear the sound of the machine she uses to take her blood pressure. She fastens the Velcro armband around herself, and pushes the start button. The machine whines for a moment or two, I can hear it tightening around her arm, and then it stops once it has a reading.
She says something about an arrhythmia. She takes a deep breath and starts her machine back up again. She’s silent as it whines and tightens and takes her BP. The television is on in the background. The washing machine is loudly finishing its cycle. The sounds of home.
“Babe!” Vanya calls to her husband. He doesn’t answer.
“Let me take one more…” she says to herself. She takes her BP again. Another deep breath.
She mumbles something to herself about needing to clean up her room. She files her nails. She gets up and fumbles around the house, looking for something or sorting something. She finds Robert.
“Some of this shit we’ve got, we need to get rid of,” she barks at her husband.
“Like what?”
“The chairs!”
“What’s wrong with the chairs?” Vanya doesn’t answer him.
I can only guess that she started moving the chairs out of the house, because Robert spoke up again.
“I hate when get all impatient and shit. I can’t do everything at one damn time. If you can’t wait, then tough!”
Vanya slams something down. “You know what ---"
“Well I’m just saying, sweetie, you’re not supposed to be moving that shit!”
“I want this shit gone! Throw it out! You throw it out, or I will!”
“Goddamn it. I’ve more than just one fucking thing to do here –“
“So do I! Shut the fuck up!”
They go back to their neutral corners. Vanya tidies up and heads back to the bedroom. Robert stays in his favorite chair in the living room. Some time passes, and Robert comes into the room.
“You should put something up so that Man-Man and them can get up onto the counter there. They can’t hop up on anything, sweetie.” Robert gently reminds his wife that the cat’s food is up on the counter, and she has just thrown out their way of climbing up and getting to it.
“They’ll be okay for a night,” she replies, still annoyed. “I’m getting rid of a bunch of that shit, I’m tellin’ you. I’m tired of this place being cluttered up.”
Robert starts to protest, but Vanya cuts him off. “No, no more! I’m tired of this bullshit. We don’t have that many people here anymore.”
“Thank God.”
They discuss where to move a bench that was in the living room. Vanya doesn’t like it where it is, and she wanted to move it. Robert helps her. This goes on for 10 minutes or so.
Vanya comes back into the bedroom and settles into her bed. She takes her BP again. I can hear Robert in the background, talking to the cats. He comes in and they discuss the rain gutters. They’ve been flooding and he has to clean them out.
Vanya says, “Not today though. You’ve been soaked twice already. Wait until it stops.” Robert agrees.
Vanya chews on something and continues, “So here’s what I’m thinking… You hate when I start a sentence that way, don’t you? Ha HA! I think that bench that we’re not using, the one I just put in the other bedroom, why don’t we just set it out there and put it on some masonry bricks, so that when it rains it doesn’t get soaked. And then put flowers on it.”
“What do you mean ‘so it won’t get soaked?’ If that wood gets wet at all – “
“Well, it needs to be used for somethin’ so for the time being – “
“That’s not a wood that’s made to be outside.”
“I know, but my flowers would look really pretty on that.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
This may just seem like idle banter to you, just the mundane lives of two grandparents annoying each other on a rainy day. But to me, its music; there’s music in the dialogue of two people in love. It is not always sunshine and happy times, but it is always beautiful.
#writing#writers#book writing#writer community#writing update#book update#book community#Biographies & Memoirs#memoir#nonfiction#creative nonfiction#criticism needed#make edits#tell me your thoughts
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Structure
Structure structure structure has been on my mind for days. I printed out all of my stories that I have typed up so far, laid them out on the floor, and played with different orders. I think I have an order that suits the story. I am going to divide the book up into three sections of stories. These titles are all pending, but it will go something like this;
1. Men
2. Family
3. Drugs
And within each of these sections, I will have stories pertaining to the topic at hand. But, throughout the entire book, I will have overarching themes that connect each section to the others. Some themes/motifs I already see forming in my story are;
1. Leaving your roots.
2. Returning to your roots.
3. The consuming need to be loved.
4. Substance abuse.
5. How lovers share demons.
6. Family ties, that bind and break.
As the story is progressing, more and more of these themes are coming to light and I could not be happier. The story is coming along so richly.
^ �ڐ
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Vignettes
One problem I continue to run into with this piece is the spacing of my vignettes. My aunt’s stories are almost entirely narrative, very little descriptive language or exposition. So that Is what my vignettes will (or should) provide. But I do not what this book to heavily display my own voice. It has been a little overwhelming, trying to sort these stories into an order that will allow for a break in Vanya’s voice, and give me a chance to provide some descriptive relief.
I’ve spoken to my advisor about writing the piece in chronological order, and he confirmed my instinct – this piece doesn’t warrant a timeline. Jumping back and forth in time not only keeps the reader on their toes and interested in the content, but it also stays true to the form of my aunt’s storytelling. She so often digresses from one topic to another, one decade to the next or the previous, so seamlessly. I want to preserve her voice and her nature in this way.
I am putting these pieces off until the very end, and I don’t know if that’s the best thing. But I don’t see another way that I can write them and do the transcriptions in tandem.
I’d like to pose a question; have any of you ever written a piece from more than one perspective? And if you have, how did you balance the voices? What brainstorming methods did you use?
Also, if there are any works of literature with examples of this type of writing, that you can recommend, I am all ears!
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First 10
The first 10 pages have been submitted! I submitted them to my adviser the day before they were do to the Honors College (I never seem to leave any time to spare.) Luckily, my adviser had minimal proposed edits - he loved the story overall! He said that was incredibly fun to read! What better compliment could I get?
I wrote one present-day vignette from my point of view, but the rest of the pages were stories from Vanya. I have been doing well to find a natural break in her story-telling to insert another expositional and descriptive vignette. This story is going to be so heavily “narrative” that I definitely need to provide a healthy balance of setting and description.
One struggle I have this week is the names in my book. There are very real and very true crimes written about in this book, some of which were committed by my aunt, but mostly by the people around her. So I do not know whether or not I should change the names in the story... I have always felt that the names provide the authenticity for the story, so I hesitate to change them.
My sister proposed that if I cannot physically ask someone their permission to use their name, then change their name. But for my aunt herself, I think her name carries so much weight. It’s so... her! I wouldn’t even begin to know how to change her name. And I truly don’t want to.
Have you all ever written anything where you considered changing the character names, if they were characters based on live people? How did you come to the decision for or against changing the names?
#writers#writing#author#books#book writing#biographies & memoirs#personal essay#family history#dark history#sordid past#substance abuse#runaway teen#bikers#outlaws#writing update#book update#writer community#book community#book lover
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Transcriptions transcriptions transcriptions
I am still in the process of transcribing my aunt’s recordings. One of the files was about an hour long, and turned out to be 6 pages long in the end. Most of the stories are much shorter in length so, volume wise, I have enough to meet my next deadline. The first 10 pages of the book are due this Tuesday, but I need to send what I have to my adviser by tonight, so I can meet with him Monday. I’m sure he’ll have some fixes for me, but I should be able to get all of the editing done that night. I am confident in my content.
One thing that I need some help is how much the stories overlap and jump around… My aunt recorded most of these stories while she was sick and recovering from one surgery or another, so her stories can be confusing and sometimes unclear. She’ll also sometime digress into a story when she’s already in the middle of another story! So I have a lot of organizing to do; that’s what today and tomorrow will look like.
Some of these stories… gosh, you wouldn’t believe the hell my aunt has been through. I don’t know if I could write a more interesting story if I tried.
Like I said, volume-wise, I have enough content. It is just a matter of cleaning up the formatting. That’s not going to be an easy task, but I’m prepared!
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Slacker Week
I knew this would happen; I’m starting to lose momentum. I’ve had a lot going on at work and with school and moving into a new apartment (which I still haven’t found yet,) that writing has taken a backseat. I regret to write in my blog post for this week that I have not made any progress. I have not transcribed any more stories, I have not worked on any of the vignettes. This has definitely been a slacker week for me.
But I’ve got to turn this ship around, because I meet with my advisor next week. And he is going to want to see what I have come up with so far… which is not a lot. The first 10 pages of the project are due on 10/17… And I don’t have that yet.
I am staying at my mother’s house in the Poconos for the long weekend. Hopefully the fresh mountain air and fall foliage will help get me out of the writer’s rut. I hope it does, because I have deadlines closing in…
This is a short blog post, because of my lack of progress. But since I’m up here in the mountains with my family, I’ll get some writing done. I always hear less noise in my head when I’m out here, as opposed to the chaotic hustle and bustle of the city.
Next week will be a dramatic turn-around from this week. It’s got to be, if I ever want to get this project off the ground!
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Rearrangements
This week I focused mostly on transcribing the recordings from my aunt. There are so crazy stories in here already, and I have enjoyed listening to her voice telling these tales.
I have transcribed about 5 stories so far. I have about 20 or so recordings left to go through. and I am struggling to figure out just what to do with each one. I like the idea of telling these stories in the past tense, with Vanya as the narrator of her own story. But I do have to clean up the sentence structure and make the stories flow better…
Since she was sick during some of these recordings, sometimes her stories veer off in different directions – she’ll remember someone from her past and tell a little story about them, and then have to divert back to her original story, (which she always does!) But I cannot decide if these little digressions should stay or go. I want to stay true to her voice and her story-telling, but I also want to write a good book.
I think what I’ll end up doing is keeping these digressions in, but trying to tie them together somehow… There are consistent characters within her stories, so maybe if I can organize the cut-aways as character exposition for a future story about said character, then I can keep them in. I think that rearranging some parts of the story would be truer to the integrity of her voice, than if I were to just take them out entirely and try to stick to one story at time.
Plan for next week: I’ll rearrange some of the word-for-word transcripts that I have into more cohesive stories, and try to form a chronological layout. I’ll also continue to transcribe the recordings and try out new ways to sort the stories into chapters.
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The book proposal
I have all but completed the introduction to my book. I just kind of hit the ground running, I don’t do much in the way of exposition. Since this book is not a cookie-cutter memoir, I don’t think the classic introduction will work.
BUT I don’t think I ever made it clear what this book was going to be about, how I’m going to write it, and what my outlook for the whole project is. I wrote a book proposal and I have included that here;
Vanya has lived the hard and fast life for over thirty years. She has ridden with various motorcycle clubs all over the country and experienced the outlaw life firsthand. She has battled drug and alcohol addictions. She was a dancer at clubs with performers like Chuck Barry, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Grand Funk Railroad. She suffered emotional and physical abuse in her traumatic childhood. This woman’s personal history reads like a novel; and I am going to write it.
Vanya is my father’s sister, and because of her troubled past, we have not always been close. My father kept my sister and I distant from Vanya, fearing her corrupting influence. But over the past ten years, my aunt has turned her life around. She is now in her sixties and living in rural, central Florida. As a result of her hard and fast living, her health has been declining for the past couple of years. She has been in and out of hospitals with various illnesses, like pneumonia, heart congestion, kidney failure, and even breast cancer (which she beat.)
Vanya values, above all things, honesty and openness within her family. It is important to her that her story be told so that generations can learn from her mistakes. She wants to ensure a better life for her grandchildren and nieces. But for that to happen, we all have to understand where we came from, what it means to be a part of our family, and what our lives could turn into if we follow the family path. She wants a different life for her loved ones. So I am going to help her tell her story.
I sent Vanya a voice recorder. Since she has been sick, and often bed-bound, she has been telling stories into this recorder – any story from her past that comes into her head. According to her, the recording sessions have been good therapy. This project seems to already be helpful. My job is to compile these stories she tells into a book of personal essays.
All of these stories will serve a different purpose and teach a different lesson. But all these stories will be connected by a common thread; all these events happened to one woman in one lifetime. Every story that I will write will be the complete truth. Every story that I write will be a recollection from Vanya herself, using mostly her words while adding some of my own. Every story that I write started from her voice recordings, that I have listened to dozens of times, and transformed into written essays. Each story will make up one essay within the collection. So far, essays have spanned 6-10 pages. The complete thesis project (which is just a fraction of the overall personal project) will be roughly 30 pages of writing, including 4-5 essays.
I do not have a title for the book as of yet – for my writing process, the title is always one of the last things to come. I can only call something by its name once I know what it truly is. The titles of each of these essays will be direct quotes taken from Vanya’s recordings. For example, one story I have is called “The First Time I Ever Did Coke Was with my Mom.” You can infer what this story is about. The stories themselves are written from Vanya’s point of view, told from the stories she recorded for me. I’m writing these stories using her story lines, and including my own literary devices and language embellishments. But I would like to make it clear that I will not be embellishing her stories with fictional anecdotes. There is no need for my additions; these stories stand up on their own.
Vanya’s lack of modesty and complete disregard for political correctness makes for incredibly entertaining reading. She all but invented the term “no filter.” She tells her truth the way that it is, the way she lived it, and how she remembers it. And despite her ill health and the decades that have passed, she remembers these events in vivid detail. The stories are shocking, heart-breaking, brutally honest, and so essentially Vanya. She has a knack for giving her tragic stories the appropriate amount of gravity and solemnity, while also providing humor and light-hearted narration.
I believe that readers will not close these pages feeling heavy and upset. I think everyone will read these stories and be shocked that one woman can experience all that she has experienced and come out clean on the other side. I think these essays will leave readers with a sense of admiration for a truly remarkable lady, and with a faith in themselves for overcoming any personal hurdles they have in their lives. Because if my aunt Vanya can survive a cocaine addiction, a mentally-ill and abusive father, an alcoholic and distant mother, domestic violence at the hands of biker boyfriends, sexual abuse at the hands of strangers, and her current health crises, then her readers can survive anything.
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The introduction
I saw my aunt this past week. I flew down to Tampa to see her after her cardiac catheterization; she had a stint put into one of the veins leading to her heart to prevent further blockage and get more oxygen flow to her brain.
She’s on the mend from the surgery. And hopefully this will turn a lot of things around for her, health-wise. She;s been sick for so long, I hope this gives her some relief.
Post-surgery, she was bright-eyed and pretty lucid. She’s hopeful for her full recovery, just like all of us.
My sister and I came to visit her at her house the day after her surgery. She was well enough to greet us at the door, and then we all three piled into her bed for the day. We talked, we laughed, and she told us stories- some of which I recorded for my book. She is just as excited about his project as I am.
On the plan ride back to NYC, I transcribed a couple of the recordings. At her house, I emptied the voice recorder I sent her into my laptop. So she’s all set to record more stories, and I am ready to start the process of transcribing.
I also wrote the introduction of the book, the first little vignette, while I was in Tampa. I am planning to include 2-3 page little vignettes in between the stories of my aunt;s past. These vignettes will take you to present day, to my sister and I listening to our aunt tell these stories as a 60+ year old woman in her sickbed. I am not quite done tweaking the intro; that will be next week’s post.
This story is coming together, slowly but surely...
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