In 1994, when 18, I started a journey into my past.
A past filled with happy memories of growing up in a two-parent family provides a boring story.
Fortunately, my past was thousands of kilometres from a perfect childhood. That same distance separated me from the family who loved and supported me. Instead, I grew up on another planet in the Northern Territory, Australia. First in unreachable Gove, then the satellite city Palmerston, and finally the desert-locked Tennant Creek.
Of course settings play a part, but without characters hell remains simply a lifeless pit. My hell wasn’t lifeless, and its characters ensured I enjoyed a childhood filled with emotional and sexual abuse; devoid of love.
The first draft, 75,000 words, was a dry journalistic narrative, completed when 19. It lacked heart.
The second draft, started when I was 26 had too much heart. Reliving each tasteful event, reawakened the memories – and the emotions. A resultant manic episode stranded me in hospital for five weeks.
The third draft, 50,000 words, written in a week, had the right quantity of heart, but more details than I wanted to share, and more than readers could bear.
The reasons I write my memoir are here.
So here I am, editing this draft so throughout it says what I mean. That’s a lot harder than it sounds.
I’ll be doing five things every day toward the completion of my memoir – and I’ll be blogging my efforts and learnings here. If you’re a writer or interested in a candid look into the writing process drop back often.
In 2008, at 32, I start the next leg of my journey into the past.
[...] the quick start option. It’s only now, as I take the time to read the manual as part of my goal of five things a day, that I’m realising how powerful it [...]