The Dark Knight instructs

Whenever life becomes too hard, I beat a cinematic escape. A few weeks ago: The Dark Knight. Knowing what helps you refocus and recharge can renew your commitment to life’s extraordinary demands.

What does the latest Batman movie have to do with writing memoir? As a child, I immersed myself in the worlds of certain characters and took on their traits. Now such escape offers a different level of perspective.

Toward the film’s end, the questions arise: Should Batman be the hero Gotham City deserves? Or should he be the hero the city needs?

Why not both? Back to my memoir, I need to be both the hero it deserves (doing it well), and the hero it needs (getting it done). I now write for three publications regularly, and delivering publication-worthy content has finally got my writing to the level my memoir needs. I’ve found my uber-standout voice. Now the heroic task is to express that voice on every edited page of my memoir.

Bullets and bracelets insights

Confess I’m a Wonder Woman fan, even at a comics shop, and I feel the need to justify. “I’m a capital-F fan, but you need to understand she’s really, really cool.” But why bother? Why not simply embrace what works for me and gives me pleasure along the way?

George Perez draws Wonder Woman

In 1987, I was 11 and Wonder Woman was relaunched under George Perez’s artistic magic. The relaunch meant I could collect the series from issue one, something I’d never done before. Perez drew heavily from Greek mythology and created characters I still remember better than many childhood friends.

Diana (Wonder Woman) was on a mission: to stop a god gone mad (and later to represent Amazon ideals in man’s world). Then, I was on a mission: escape the abuse of the Northern Territory and return to my faithfully loving Melbourne family. Now, I’m on another mission: tell the story of that escape and the return in my memoir.

A ridiculously simple tool I’ve created to aid my progress forward is the Mission Log. From my sluggish waking moments to my hyped retiring moments, I record the time, and my purpose right now. When completed, I record what I did well and learned lessons.

My first awaress of being on a mission came from Wonder Woman, but now I’m mission-focussed each day. The Log keeps my mind on goals and makes me question how I use my time.

Superman syndrome

AKA ‘Big boys don’t cry’ or ‘Real men pull themselves up by their bootstraps’. Real men don’t make excuses for why they fail to keep their commitments, to themselves and others, but they are honest about dealing with the reasons that keep them from being Supermen.

I’ve never had a tooth pulled. Never, that is, until last Wednesday, when I surrendered my bottom-right Wisdom tooth, and the molar in front of it, to the dental student who relished in his God-like role above me.

Stumbled into the wall on the way out and figured that after a few hours, when the numbness wore off, I’d be able to knuckle down to work. I’d handled getting my teeth removed like a real man.

But the numbness masked pain – as much pain as had made me want to get the teeth removed. The following week became a blur of eating choc-hazelnut sandwiches at odd hours so the the painkillers weren’t digested on an empty stomach, and a semi-conscious fog as I slept in the four pain-free hours before the painkillers wore off. Work got pushed to one side and I couldn’t concentrate on what people were saying.

Today, I awaken from the painkiller blur into a different world. My brother broke his back in three places. Another family member verges on psychosis. Someone else in the family is trying to get me to give up on him – like everyone else.

The week I’ve had dealing with my pain has taught me how to handle its highs and lows. Now, still in pain, I’m called to reach out to help others in their pain.

What is the difference between excuses and reasons? Excuses are lies you tell yourself to get yourself off the hook. Reasons are the admission that after trying all the options you could in the time you had, you still didn’t succeed.

Right now, I may not meet all my work commitments. I may make mistakes in my personal relationships. But I’m not Superman. And I’m a better man for it.

My kingdom for a good editor

Sometimes I wonder whether what I write here really, really sucks. Other times I think it’s OK, and maybe, just maybe, I can do this writing thing. Often I forget that although I tap the keys alone, writing is never a solitary act (unless you’re blogging, but that’s another story, which Kevin Alexander covered in his column in the June Writer’s Digest). It’s a team effort; the most important person after the writer, the editor.

Today I had a personal essay (freshen up on your life writing defintions here) published on why I choose to be a fundamentalist Christian – despite my sexuality. You can read the article here. I hope it gets picked up by some print publications because it affects so many  people and my editor and I worked hard to polish the piece.

First draft scored a 10 out of 10 on the lameness meter. I thought it was OK, but my editor shuttled it back with the advice it failed to answer the big questions I’d posed. The straight journalism style – interviews and third person – had the impact of being whipped by a feather.

When redrafted, I had one of those this-may-be-moving-in-the-right-direction-but-maybe-not moments, and sent it unpolished to the editor so he could point the way.

He obliged, and I rewrote it almost from scratch for a third time. That’s the piece which you’ve read if you clicked earlier, or can read if you click here.

A good editor is a blessing to find. In a world where many see themselves as time-poor, the past few months with an editor committed to the craft rather than time management have helped me reawaken my old writing skills.

Due to changes within the company (acquisition of a local print publication), I won’t be working with him once I finish the series of articles he’s already commissioned. I only hope the editor I get to work with on my memoir is as skilled as this editor has been.

Managing writing demands

As a writing coach, one of the top concerns people bring to me is the lack of time to write. Although I’ve always been able to help people, it wasn’t until I started revising my memoir that I’ve come to appreciate how tough it can be to find the time for my most important work.

So these are my top tips to write the most in whatever time you can carve out for yourself:

• Banish the belief that you need big chunks of time to get anything worthwhile done. A few minutes here and there throughout the day will add up to the big chunks you’re after.
• Do something every day – bar one. Take at least one day off from your customary work each week. You’ll gain freshness and many of your writing dramas will solve themselves.
• Think through your day to foresee pockets of time you can use, and make sure you have your notepad, laptop, and any files you need. You can get a lot done in your commute. On public transport you can work in a notepad. In a car, dictate into a digital voice recorder.
• For speed’s sake, invest in dictation software. It takes a while to train it, but when it’s up to speed, your speed is up.

Another aspect needed is motivation, which comes from setting mini-milestones on a big project and achieving them. This, however, is another blog for another time.

Simplicity on the far side of complexity

Over the past couple months, I’ve read dozens of memoirs. Those that stand out do so for their own unique reasons. Those that fail, do so for similar reasons: they have the structural soundness of a house built on a sand. Filled with memories retold because they’re remembered, not because they have any dramatic function, the book ends up scattered and unfocused. But how can a writer decide what fits – and what needs to be cut?

Since July 1, I’ve been using Dramatica Pro to help answer that question with my memoir. While it’s software aimed at fiction writers, memoirists can find it helpful because creative nonfiction uses many of the techniques of fiction. Notably, it gets the writer to develop a narrative structure, and emphasize the aspects of characters in relation to their dramatic function.

This means that those fondly remembered but out of place anecdotes and characters get cut. Other areas that needed to be fleshed out are developed. Whole characters disappear because they serve no purpose. In short, it helps life make sense.

And what you’re left with is a clear guide to the story you plan to tell. When it comes to the revision – adding and deleting scenes and characters – this clarity allows a writer to move forward with speed and boldness. Readers may not notice the underlying structure, but they’ll enjoy reading a stronger story. One that’s foundations are built on rock.

P.S. So I can put more time into the memoir, and less time blogging about it, I plan to update my blog weekly until further notice.

Work intensifies

It’s 1.11am on Tuesday, July 1: Today I promised myself I’d stop reading creative non-fiction and sit down and start to work. I’ve also promised myself that I will deliver one chapter a week to people who have agreed to read this latest draft of my memoir.

Picked up some manilla folders I wanted for the editing, but now I’m set to go.

I think this is possibly the lamest entry I’ve rewritten, but I couldn’t get to sleep, it’s late, and I’m itching to get to work. Next time I promise to be more intelligent.

Hard enough to write anything

Whether we want to sell a million copies, or write the best book on our topic the world has seen, our desire to get it just right can bring us to a halt.

In the April issue of The Writer, Allen Marple says: “Posterity has a way of making up its own mind, and besides, it is hard enough to write anything without having to write a masterpiece.”

A goal to write our best should be the aim of every writer, but at some point you need to press print, write a cover letter, stick the piece in an envelope and mail it out. A time comes when your baby must be shared with those you hope will care for it: agents, editors, and readers.

Any writer knows you can tinker with a piece of writing – no matter how big or small – ad infinitum. How do we avoid this trap? Set a due date, as I spoke about here, or on a big project a series of them.

Fourteen years of magazine due dates means I’ve learned to make a piece of writing as good as I can get it – in the time available – and then let it go. Until now, this logic hasn’t applied to my memoir. The case I’ve made to myself: “I’ll only send it out when it’s as good as it can be”. The reality: I’m afraid of the the fallout.

But that’s another article, for another time.

Zen and the art of library suggestions

Most of the creative nonfiction I’ve been reading lately has been borrowed from the library. Another plus, besides being a cheap way of reading a heap of books, is the recommendations the librarians – and the other people in the checkout queue – give.

Over the past couple of months I’ve been on a quest through lists of creative nonfiction, especially memoirs, lists that have come from the back of writing instruction books I’ve enjoyed. My first reason for borrowing books from the library was the cost, but as I’ve gone along, I’ve discovered that two of the books I’ve most enjoyed got a plug from people at the library.

The first of these was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, which inspired a series of articles, starting here. Another book that people were thrilled to see I’d borrowed was Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure.

Some of the books I’ve read have been dreadful. Many have been okay. But both the books that received rave reviews from the library have been excellent. So when in doubt about what to read, ask a librarian – or other punters.

Work expands to fill the time available

How long does it take to finish a writing project?

Whether you’re a writer or the last time you wrote was for school, you may be familiar with the following scenario:

You’re given three weeks to complete a writing assignment. When do you start it? The night before it’s due. Do you win a passing grade? Quite probably.

So how long did it take? All up, less than 12 hours. Would it have affected the quality of your work if the teacher had only given you two days to do it? Not at all.

Someone said, “Work expands to fill the time available.”

Now to connect this to memoir writing, work on a memoir with only a vague sense of the finish line – when it’s perfect – means that the work expands to fill the indefinite time. No matter how many improvements are made, you can always see more that could be done. New techniques to try, which end up with revisions to the book from start to finish.

An insight I gained recently was to treat book chapters as articles, rather than daunting 100,000 word behemoths. I’ve set a deadline to quit reading other people’s memoirs and creative nonfiction (30 June), and start the physical task of editing my manuscript. Once I begin that task, I give myself a deadline of completing one chapter a week.

And if I cram, I just may get it done.