Writing
Its Friday! Its Friday! Its Friday!
I have been slacking off on my blogging. Its not because I haven't had much to say or haven't been writing... to the contrary actually. Its just that the stuff I"ve been writing, well its not for the blog. I'm busily working on something I hope to publish one day. Or at the very least run it to Staples and do it myself! LOL!
Writing is hard. Well, writing itself isn't, what I struggle with is discipline and the ability to stick to one through-line or plot. I am not very good at fiction so what I"m writing is basically a whole bunch of short stories. I can write these and I can write them well. I hope to be able to string them together and come up with a Growing Up Granby book. Published under a pen name to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent. And change all the names. And the location. And probably embellish it and then change just enough so its a fictionalized version of Sherwood Drive and the Curran family history. So, basically, I"m starting with what I know and as time goes on I'll really in a sense be re-writing my own history and making it into more of a "what if."
So, that's the method I'm working with. I have no idea if this will work, but after taking the pressure off of writing a "novel" I have certainly been prolific. There are certain moments in my life I wouldn't mind a do-over at, so this is pretty fun actually. Certain really stupid decisions and choices or moments of naivety that I would take back in a minute can be sort of mashed up and fixed a bit. I like that.
What's really odd though is thinking and writing about stuff that I hadn't thought of in so long. Old games (I am trying to remember the Colored Eggs game...any of you 01033ers remember this? One kid was the wolf and the others sat on the steps and the wolf would guess different colors, if he called yours you had to run in a loop around the tree in my yard and try to make it back to the steps? Anyone remember this?), names we used to call each other (gaylord was a big one). That sort of stuff.
I think there is a mis-conception as to what a happy childhood means. Certainly the kids in our neighborhood were no strangers to tragedy, sadness, loss and some really hard times. I think what it means to have a happy childhood is that you are surrounded by enough people who truly love you that you get through. They make it possible so that as an adult, when you reflect back, you remember the happy stuff long before the sad. Our neighborhood saw an awful lot of horrific stuff. It doesn't matter that we lived in a tiny town, each in our own little ranch houses and our own yards.
Life happens everywhere, and it often brings with it un-wanted and un-welcome events. Death, divorce, murder. Yeah, we had all that. But I don't think of those things when I remember our hill or what the street looked like from my Huffy bike as I rode by all those houses, as I rounded the corner where Sherwood became Acre Brooke. I remember being terrified of the white-faced hornets that lived in the sewer drains more than I remember much else. I remember my neighbor's shepherd that would absolutely have ripped my legs off if he could catch me. The huge puddle at the end of the Slater's driveway. The bike tracks we would draw with found drywall and the time Joey did a jump at the end of our driveway and landed on the top of Mrs. Z's yellow VW beetle. Walking to Tom's Berry Farm for fresh fruit and veggies or the peas in the pod from The Old Man up East Street. I remember all of that as much as I remember when my neighbors decided to divorce and a brother and sister sat, crying their eyes out, hugging each other under our grapevine.
You see, I can't write my story directly. I can only tell everyone's story and that in turn is mine. I think the truth of our lives in our sleepy town will likely remain untold in their exact form and what will come to see the light of day will be something we can relate to and find moments that we lived while happening in another place to other people.
I think as long as the truth of those moments are there, in a very real and very honest way, our stories will live on. All the while we'll still be able to duck and hide when the kids peek over the edge of the book and ask, "MOM?! You did WHAT?!"
:D
I have been slacking off on my blogging. Its not because I haven't had much to say or haven't been writing... to the contrary actually. Its just that the stuff I"ve been writing, well its not for the blog. I'm busily working on something I hope to publish one day. Or at the very least run it to Staples and do it myself! LOL!
Writing is hard. Well, writing itself isn't, what I struggle with is discipline and the ability to stick to one through-line or plot. I am not very good at fiction so what I"m writing is basically a whole bunch of short stories. I can write these and I can write them well. I hope to be able to string them together and come up with a Growing Up Granby book. Published under a pen name to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent. And change all the names. And the location. And probably embellish it and then change just enough so its a fictionalized version of Sherwood Drive and the Curran family history. So, basically, I"m starting with what I know and as time goes on I'll really in a sense be re-writing my own history and making it into more of a "what if."
So, that's the method I'm working with. I have no idea if this will work, but after taking the pressure off of writing a "novel" I have certainly been prolific. There are certain moments in my life I wouldn't mind a do-over at, so this is pretty fun actually. Certain really stupid decisions and choices or moments of naivety that I would take back in a minute can be sort of mashed up and fixed a bit. I like that.
What's really odd though is thinking and writing about stuff that I hadn't thought of in so long. Old games (I am trying to remember the Colored Eggs game...any of you 01033ers remember this? One kid was the wolf and the others sat on the steps and the wolf would guess different colors, if he called yours you had to run in a loop around the tree in my yard and try to make it back to the steps? Anyone remember this?), names we used to call each other (gaylord was a big one). That sort of stuff.
I think there is a mis-conception as to what a happy childhood means. Certainly the kids in our neighborhood were no strangers to tragedy, sadness, loss and some really hard times. I think what it means to have a happy childhood is that you are surrounded by enough people who truly love you that you get through. They make it possible so that as an adult, when you reflect back, you remember the happy stuff long before the sad. Our neighborhood saw an awful lot of horrific stuff. It doesn't matter that we lived in a tiny town, each in our own little ranch houses and our own yards.
Life happens everywhere, and it often brings with it un-wanted and un-welcome events. Death, divorce, murder. Yeah, we had all that. But I don't think of those things when I remember our hill or what the street looked like from my Huffy bike as I rode by all those houses, as I rounded the corner where Sherwood became Acre Brooke. I remember being terrified of the white-faced hornets that lived in the sewer drains more than I remember much else. I remember my neighbor's shepherd that would absolutely have ripped my legs off if he could catch me. The huge puddle at the end of the Slater's driveway. The bike tracks we would draw with found drywall and the time Joey did a jump at the end of our driveway and landed on the top of Mrs. Z's yellow VW beetle. Walking to Tom's Berry Farm for fresh fruit and veggies or the peas in the pod from The Old Man up East Street. I remember all of that as much as I remember when my neighbors decided to divorce and a brother and sister sat, crying their eyes out, hugging each other under our grapevine.
You see, I can't write my story directly. I can only tell everyone's story and that in turn is mine. I think the truth of our lives in our sleepy town will likely remain untold in their exact form and what will come to see the light of day will be something we can relate to and find moments that we lived while happening in another place to other people.
I think as long as the truth of those moments are there, in a very real and very honest way, our stories will live on. All the while we'll still be able to duck and hide when the kids peek over the edge of the book and ask, "MOM?! You did WHAT?!"
:D
Ya i remembe the color egg game remember sending the wolf away to go brush his teeth and make him come back,there is lots of stories to tell thats for sure!! have fun, hey change my name hahahah love ya Kate
ReplyDeleteYes!! That's right! There was a person who was a door! The wolf would knock, the door person would hear his color request and if it was wrong, he would send him to go do crazy things! LOL! Oh my gosh! That was such a fun game!
ReplyDelete