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MEMOIR #2: REFLECTION Vs DOCUMENTATION
TO WRITE ABOUT OUR "UNRULY PAST" (as Laura Kalpakian names her own delicious memoir!) is by necessity a distortion of "fact" in order to name "truth." Away back when, we didn't have the words needed to name our experience. It's only time, education, and perspective that gives us the articulation we now need to make sense of what was. A memoirist therefore revisits her past with tools to reflect truth rather than document it. Except we run into a few dilemmas.
A first is . . .
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#1 Cover Mistake for Self-Publishers: Fonts That Yawn—Part I
by Brenda Wilbee
Self-publishing has its advantages, but let's face it—the hurdle to overcome is the inevitable assumption you don't have what it takes to go traditional. This may or may not be true, but one thing you don't want to do is look like the amateur everyone assumes you are. First the bad news. You do this to yourself. You go cheap on a cover. The good news? There are ways to cut costs. . .
Author Bookplates
by Brenda Wilbee
The old-fashioned bookplate is making a comeback.
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#1 Cover Mistake for Self-Publishers: Fonts For Content, Part III
by Brenda Wilbee
Font choice has to match the genre. For nonfiction, you can't go wrong with classic. Pull out the tux, so to speak. For fiction, something a little more organic. For fantasy, well, calligraphic fonts work. The thing is, if you don't hit the mark, your title will mislead. . .
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#1 Cover Mistake for Self-Publishers: Font Rules, Part II
by Brenda Wilbee
1st RULE OF THUMB when it comes to book cover fonts is no more than two. Why? It’s too much. It’s like reading amphetamines. All hopped up and chaotic and leaves you feeling a bit dizzy. You can sometimes get away with an italic of one font. But tread carefully.
Here’s a cover with four fonts. Graphic Design Basics by Amy E. Arnston is super cool for this artsy genre, but for the rest of us? Our fiction and memoirs? Not so much.
Orchid and Dandelion
by Brenda Wilbee
—THAT I WAS AFRAID OF MY MOTHER is no secret, but I understood her struggles. Her life had been fraught with abandonment issues, unresolved and deeply buried. I seem to have been a lightning rod for her frustation. So how do I handle this in a memoir? When I don't wish to hurt her?
Redirection
by Brenda Wilbee
THIS NEW YEAR SEES ME focusing on design over writing. For those of you who're wondering why the change, here is the answer. . .
You Don't Wear Leotards When You Visit the Queen
by Brenda Wilbee
I AM GRATEFUL to be living back in Canada the day our Queen died. There is something to be said for societal identity and collective grief.
When Princess Elizabeth was crowned Queen, I was five days old. Which means she's been my queen all my life. Seventy years. And although I've spent most of my life in the States, loyalty to her has always been a big part of who I am.
I suspect much is due to my grandfather. He was a royalist and took me to see her when I was 7. She'd come to Vancouver for a visit, and a visit Grandpa intended to have.
When Princess Elizabeth was crowned Queen, I was five days old. Which means she's been my queen all my life. Seventy years. And although I've spent most of my life in the States, loyalty to her has always been a big part of who I am.
I suspect much is due to my grandfather. He was a royalist and took me to see her when I was 7. She'd come to Vancouver for a visit, and a visit Grandpa intended to have.
Hidden History and ADGD
by Brenda Wilbee
I CAN NEVER LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE. When my father asked me to do something with his memoir nineteen years ago I could have just published it. But no, ever the over-achiever and infinitely curious, I am two decades later thick in the hidden history of "the Wilbees."
If Dad writes of memory lane, I write the landscape. Maps, photos, sidebars, history dating back to 1694. I'm currently finishing up his chapter on Little Grandpa, a real character who, before his life was over, created a bit of tension in the family—and sometimes down at the police station.
If Dad writes of memory lane, I write the landscape. Maps, photos, sidebars, history dating back to 1694. I'm currently finishing up his chapter on Little Grandpa, a real character who, before his life was over, created a bit of tension in the family—and sometimes down at the police station.
I MEET A MOOSE
by Brenda Wilbee
"This Could Have Gone Wrong In So Many Ways."
DRIVING SOUTH ON THE AlCan HIGHWAY, I zippity-zipped up behind a double tanker full of liquid hydrogen peroxide. Not so crazy about trailing such a monster, I waited for a straight shot in the road to pass. No sooner had I cleared the truck and gotten myself back onto our side of the highway when another twist in the road took me around a bend, onto about a football field of straightaway. On the 75-yard line ahead, on the other side of the road, a moose. Walking away from me.
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Absolute clarity took over my mind.
DRIVING SOUTH ON THE AlCan HIGHWAY, I zippity-zipped up behind a double tanker full of liquid hydrogen peroxide. Not so crazy about trailing such a monster, I waited for a straight shot in the road to pass. No sooner had I cleared the truck and gotten myself back onto our side of the highway when another twist in the road took me around a bend, onto about a football field of straightaway. On the 75-yard line ahead, on the other side of the road, a moose. Walking away from me.
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Absolute clarity took over my mind.
Fear and Faith and a Squished Banana
by Brenda Wilbee
My first memory is of fear—and faith.
I am three. The month is May and cherry blossoms are in full bloom. My mother and father and big sister climb the high, very wide steps ahead of me. I dawdle in the hum of bees and a breeze. The door slams shut at the top of the stairs. I startle. I'm alone!
What is WRONG With Me? (I'm an Orchid.)
by Brenda Wilbee
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED how some people can be Mean Girl behind the scenes while publicly charming? Leaving you in a wilt? I attended a writers workshop the other day and there SHE was. Mean Girl with her smiley face a square on my computer screen. She smiled and charmed, and was oh-so-helpful and witty and wise while I spent six hours wondering why I could not function. I couldn't even manage to speak. Six hours! Why could I not get myself together? What was wrong with me?
Love and Succor In Civil War - and Beyond
by Brenda Wilbee
"Moon went out the night we ran away, but all I kept thinking was they gonna find us and we gonna be in for a beating. Maybe they’d kill us. Or maybe send me or Calvin away. Or maybe take my baby. By the time we got to the Union camp I couldn’t hardly breathe, I was so scared. And tears was running down my face. Sure enough, wasn’t two days later when Massah showed up at camp. . ."
Some Kind of Story
by Brenda Wilbee
ARRIVING AT METEOR RANCH, May 16, 1962:
LATE ON THE THIRD AFTERNOON, California’s suffocating heat roared off the pavement and slammed with a punch through Betsy’s open windows. Tresa had her head hanging out again, looking like a fish too long off the ice. Her freckles were turning green too, but I was too sweaty and miserable to bother warning her
Mum plucked her map off the dash. We’d gone west into rumpled and fuzzy hills—looking like Paul Bunyan had shaken his bedding and let the blankets fall willy-nilly—and were now driving north for a change. Clear Lake popped in and out of view on Dad’s side. On mine, the rumpled hills sloped up in waves, thick with yellow grass and spotted through with oak trees, a soft and lazy land I decided—though a bit lonely in the gathering shadows. . .
LATE ON THE THIRD AFTERNOON, California’s suffocating heat roared off the pavement and slammed with a punch through Betsy’s open windows. Tresa had her head hanging out again, looking like a fish too long off the ice. Her freckles were turning green too, but I was too sweaty and miserable to bother warning her
Mum plucked her map off the dash. We’d gone west into rumpled and fuzzy hills—looking like Paul Bunyan had shaken his bedding and let the blankets fall willy-nilly—and were now driving north for a change. Clear Lake popped in and out of view on Dad’s side. On mine, the rumpled hills sloped up in waves, thick with yellow grass and spotted through with oak trees, a soft and lazy land I decided—though a bit lonely in the gathering shadows. . .
MEMOIR #3: PICK AND CHOOSE
by Brenda Wilbee
MEMOIR #3: PICK AND CHOOSE
MEMOIR is not autobiography. Autobiographies are for famous people. Autobiographies rely on the facts of a person’s life to chronicle their journeys to fame, power, wealth, talent, and triumph—like Helen Keller in her The Story of My Life. Memoirs, however, use life to serve a larger theme or idea—like J. R. Moehringer in his memoir, made into film, The Tender Bar. The story is less about J.R. and more about his identity, a bigger issue that drove J. R.’s day-to-day.
Autobiography focuses on Joe Friday’s “just the facts, Ma’am.” Memoir relies on emotions and epiphany. Readers pick up memoir not because they care two hoots about the writer but because readers like what memoirists offer: universal themes and resolution to existential crises.
But it leaves me in writing a memoir with two major problems . . .
MEMOIR is not autobiography. Autobiographies are for famous people. Autobiographies rely on the facts of a person’s life to chronicle their journeys to fame, power, wealth, talent, and triumph—like Helen Keller in her The Story of My Life. Memoirs, however, use life to serve a larger theme or idea—like J. R. Moehringer in his memoir, made into film, The Tender Bar. The story is less about J.R. and more about his identity, a bigger issue that drove J. R.’s day-to-day.
Autobiography focuses on Joe Friday’s “just the facts, Ma’am.” Memoir relies on emotions and epiphany. Readers pick up memoir not because they care two hoots about the writer but because readers like what memoirists offer: universal themes and resolution to existential crises.
But it leaves me in writing a memoir with two major problems . . .
Barbie Doll and Missing Body Parts
by Brenda Wilbee
AFTER BREAST CANCER and mangled attempts at reconstruction, I was looking a bit like Birch Bay Drive of WA State after a vicious storm took the road out. My friend Judy was a buoy during the storm, keeping my head above water. But she wasn't a lot of help when the tide went out and it was time to face the damage. No one was. And I wasn't about to take my clothes off just to show folks exactly what we're dealing with here.
Here's the truth, and trust me. . .
Here's the truth, and trust me. . .
Memoir #2: Reflection vs Documentation
by Brenda Wilbee
MEMOIR #2: REFLECTION Vs DOCUMENTATION
TO WRITE ABOUT OUR "UNRULY PAST" (as Laura Kalpakian names her own delicious memoir!) is by necessity a distortion of "fact" in order to name "truth." Away back when, we didn't have the words needed to name our experience. It's only time, education, and perspective that gives us the articulation we now need to make sense of what was. A memoirist therefore revisits her past with tools to reflect truth rather than document it. Except we run into a few dilemmas.
A first is . . .
"I Am Born" - Tinsy Winsy
by Brenda Wilbee
Tinsy Winsy opened her eyes. Where am I? she wondered, blinking two times and looking around curiously. “What an interesting room, it isn’t finished!”
She was right of course about the room. The walls were up all right, but they weren’t painted. The windows were in, but they had no glass. The floor was there, but it had no carpet. And in the middle of the floor, goodness, stood two rickety old saw horses with a long skinny tree lying down on them! Yessireebob, a tree! With all its branches sawn off, and most of its bark, too. Now what is a tree doing in a house, Tinsy Winsy wondered, more curious than ever.
She was right of course about the room. The walls were up all right, but they weren’t painted. The windows were in, but they had no glass. The floor was there, but it had no carpet. And in the middle of the floor, goodness, stood two rickety old saw horses with a long skinny tree lying down on them! Yessireebob, a tree! With all its branches sawn off, and most of its bark, too. Now what is a tree doing in a house, Tinsy Winsy wondered, more curious than ever.
A Christmas Story, Grimm Brothers
by Brenda Wilbee
ONCE UPON A TIME a shoemaker by no fault of his own became so poor he had leather for one pair of shoes. In the evening he cut out them out. In the morning; he'd make this final pair. That night, he lay quietly down in his bed, commended himself to God, and fell asleep.
In the morning after he'd said his prayers and was about to sit down to work, the two shoes stood quite finished on his table. He was astounded! He took the shoes in his hands to more carefully examine. Not one bad stitch in them! Masterpieces both. . .
In the morning after he'd said his prayers and was about to sit down to work, the two shoes stood quite finished on his table. He was astounded! He took the shoes in his hands to more carefully examine. Not one bad stitch in them! Masterpieces both. . .
Reflection: Grownup Coloring Books, All the Rage
by Brenda Wilbee
Rain slides down the windows. My sisters and I are at the kitchen table, coloring. We’re chatting.
“Do you know where the silver is?” Tresa might ask.
“No,” I might say.
Linda might find it on the floor. Maybe she rummages through the 300 million crayons we keep in a Peak Freans cookie tin; most with rounded noses, peeling paper, and smelling of wax and something else perfectly and gloriously wonderful.
“What are you going to color silver?” is something I might ask.
The point is, coloring was a way for my sisters and I to enjoy each other’s company on a rainy afternoon and apparently exercise our brains, find focus, calm down, and choose colors that can heal. In recent years, adult coloring has become quite the “thing.”
So what’s the deal?
Memoir #1: On Making Stuff Up
by Brenda Wilbee
MEMOIR #1: ON MAKING STUFF UP
"Your writing strength is scene, Brenda," so says Laura Kalpakian, a mentor of sorts. "Play to your strengths. You've zipped right through this narrative. What does the courtroom look like? Who's there? What is being said?"
The thing is, I didn't want to overly dwell on my great-great-grandfather and his day in court. I only wanted to establish the faith of grandfathers as a long-standing heritage that both helped and hindered me. Besides, Sarratt, England, doesn't and didn't have a court house. The village is a hole-in-the-wall about 30 miles NW of London and I'm not really sure where the hearing took place. More to the point, do I really want to make a scene of it?
"Your writing strength is scene, Brenda," so says Laura Kalpakian, a mentor of sorts. "Play to your strengths. You've zipped right through this narrative. What does the courtroom look like? Who's there? What is being said?"
The thing is, I didn't want to overly dwell on my great-great-grandfather and his day in court. I only wanted to establish the faith of grandfathers as a long-standing heritage that both helped and hindered me. Besides, Sarratt, England, doesn't and didn't have a court house. The village is a hole-in-the-wall about 30 miles NW of London and I'm not really sure where the hearing took place. More to the point, do I really want to make a scene of it?