Ok seriously now.

“The chief privilege of writing memoir, it seems to me, is the opportunity to go back and make sense of events that left you dumbstruck and mired in confusion, unarmed, with the luminous power of words.”

Theo P. Nestor, Writing is my Drink.

I can see how memoir can help to make sense of the world. Haven’t quite figured out how to do that with fiction. Love love love reading memoir. Don’t read as much fiction as I should if I want to be a fiction writer. But to be honest, my life is too boring for memoir And that is the sad truth. That and there is the spectre of family floating over my head, wagging their fingers and saying I’m not supposed to tell.

But then there is the wise advice from Anne Lamont:

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

And reading Theo’s book, that is the feeling as well. After living a lifetime downplaying the fact that she let a horse stand on her food for minutes because she didn’t want (or feel able ) to interrupt adults, she went on the write a book where she could fully admit that the women in her family didn’t really like kids. What if all of us who grew up like that admitted it in writing? That was supposed to be the perfect world of stay at home moms, the world some would like to see again. What if it came to light that it was all a lie?

Maybe that is a question to ponder. But in fiction? Or a memoir?

Welcome to my latest exercise in an attempt to reach my goal of being a prolific writer in 2025. So, in addition to writing 1 short story each week (Because Ray Bradbury said you can’t write 52 bad ones – challenge accepted!) I will  post an entry from my Commonplace book and a short note on why the quote spoke to me on that day. I can hear you now – sucky stories and random quotes? Sign me up.

For more information about the blogging challenge, see http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/)