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.

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.

JT LeRoy’s Legacy

My post the other day that mentioned JT LeRoy has been popular, so I’m posting something juicier for the all the LeRoy fans in the house.

It’s an article I wrote for a Sydney, Australia paper on my interactions with LeRoy. Here it is, enjoy: Knowing JT LeRoy.

For the others who have been reading this blog, it’s a memoir in action. And if anyone wants to find out about republishing the article, my email is wryterman@gmail.com.

Throw the gauntlet down

My best friend, Paul, challenged me to drop the distractions and finish my memoir. He’s seen me throw up excuse year after year – business ideas, community projects, and an assortment of incomplete writing projects – that demand time, energy, and money that deserves to be focused on one thing: finishing what I started 14 years ago.

Life writing instructor, Patti Miller, in The Memoir Book, looks at several reasons why budding memoirists struggle to finish their projects:

• Would anyone want to read what I’m writing about? Is it worth putting all this time and effort into it?
• What right do I have to present the less favourable side of others?
• Where do I start?
• How do I end the “one day I’ll do it” quandry?
• How do I restart when the project stalls?

Miller’s answers are to sidestep the problems or stare them down.

For me, I believe I’ve been called to tell my story and it’s my duty to carry this through to completion. Every opportunity or invitation that comes my way now gets evaluated against this question: Does it lead me closer to completing my memoir or further away?

How to treat characters – Part II: Taking a stand

Yesterday I spoke about extending grace to characters. Today let me address the flipside: taking a stand.

Some people, at least when it comes to writing a memoir, don’t deserve grace. My step-mum and uncles fall into this group. While their abuse helped me develop my good character today, and I have forgiven them, when it comes to talking about what they did, I need to stand up for what’s right and make clear their evil against the child I was.

One person in particular needs to be addressed. My beloved uncle. When he began abusing, because of the abuse I was getting from others, I believed the sexual abuse must be normal.

I got even further confused because I enjoyed being around this uncle so much. Unlike the other abusers in my life, he stayed kind outside the abuse. I kept liking being around him.

Over the years, because of this, I’ve taken the view that what he did was less wrong. But my view was wrong. If what he did to me had been done to someone else, I’d be angered. Why do I care so little for myself?

In the next draft of my memoir, I’ll make clear who did wrong. This courage will be balanced with consideration. Some people made honest mistakes and deserve a gentle touch.

A memoir that tells the evils of everyone comes from a bitter core, not that of someone at peace with his or her past.