Sandra Gail Lambert

The Floating World: Truth, Facts and Memory in Memoir Writing

 
Jane's Stories Writing Women Retreat has its schedule of events out.  First up is a two hour memoir workshop with Karen McElmurray. (And it doesn't conflict with my presentation.  Whew.)  "The Floating World: Truth, Facts and Memory in Memoir Writing" - Really and truly, the title makes me think Karen peeked over my shoulder as I wrote and thought "this woman needs a little help here." 

Karen McElmurray is a novelist, creative non-fiction writer, teacher, and ex-sporting towel factory worker.  Her books include the memoir Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother's Journey andThe Motel of Stars, a novel.  Southern Scribe offers a compelling interview with Karen that includes this quote - "To write this memoir . . . I had to look hard at events that I’d scarcely spoken about with anyone, no less summoned as words on a blank page." 

So Jane's Stories Women Writing Retreat - Saturday, October 15th in St. Augustine.  Be there. 

"We write about what we don't know about what we know." - Grace Paley

Retreat Report - I didn't write as much as I had imagined, but wrote more than I have in a long time.  The memoir did not pull itself into a seamless whole.  It did deepen and have moments of organization.  The next nature essay is not submission ready, but it does have form and direction.  So, except for my put-upon-myself expectations, the week was a success.

Lovely Downtown Deland was a good retreat site.  My suite at The Artisens Inn was beautiful, De la Vega Restaurante y Galeria, where I ate three times, has scrumptious food, and I desserted at three different homemade treat places and visited a bookstore and two museums - all without ever getting in my car.  A friend met me for the trip home and we strolled around the Lake Woodruff NWR (photos included here) and then ate make-your-own (apple slices with cinnamon and blueberry for me) pancakes at the Old Spanish Sugar Mill in DeLeon Springs. 

 

 

Vacation writing

The first day reddish egrets danced over the mud flats.  On the second, dolphins rose and huffed in a high-tide bay while silver anhinga wings gleamed out of from the walls of mangroves. Today, the third and last day, I haven't left the hotel room.  I'm writing.  (Imagine my voice rising into a squeak on this last syllable.) 

35, 569 words.  No, that is not the word count for today.  Get real.  But there is a pile of yellow pad notes finally typed into the computer.  They are stories, vignettes really, about these past years of mother-care.  Some of them I expanded and revised.  There was crying. 

And this is where I've stopped.  The next step is, well, I don't know what it is.  Something organizational?  Taking each individual scene and polishing it?  Writing new scenes?  But what I could do, right now, is count up all the words - 35, 569.  Not bad.     

Staying Awake.

It seems to be a problem.  I dart off of freeways for micro naps.  I doze over the computer and wake to find a line of sssssssssss's where my finger was heavy on the keyboard.  I tape TV programs so that I can rewind and try again, and again.  It seems I'm making up for this past mother-stress era of crappy sleeping.   

Can a person write anything worthwhile in this dazed, unreal state?  It's as if there is a veil between me and the world.  It's odd not to be on alert, ready, prepared.  I keep thinking I should do something to be awake - travel to Vancouver or Spain or Savannah, start drinking coffee again after giving it up twenty-five years ago, muster my will power, cold showers, something. 

(Okay, I just yawned and yawned, but managed not to fall asleep writing this.)

But maybe this blurred place is real.  It might have something to offer.  Perhaps this is not the time for will power.  

  

Bringing Her Home

Today I'm taking my mother's ashes to Georgia.  We're using her beloved teapot and cosy as an urn and interring it alongside my father's in the Marietta National Veterans Cemetery. 

And then it's one final trip to Roswell, Georgia for a memorial service.  For thirty-eight years this is the drive I would make to visit her.  And this is where I accompanied her to the sale of her precious house, loaded her (She was sobbing.) into my car, and delivered her to a retirement community here in Gainesville.  She was angry about this for a long time.

It feels good to bring her back.    

Re-beginning

It's been two weeks of hospice world with my mother.  We've all worked hard for her to settle in on this new (lower) plateau and today is the day for me to take for myself.  I'm going to try writing again. 

This post is for me to remember where I was.  A list will help.

1.  A generous writer friend gave the "Rolling in the Mud" essay extensive notes.  It's time to look at them.

2. The still unnamed essay set in the Everglades was left pulled apart in an attempt to figure out what it is really about.  Wouldn't it be great if I opened that folder and there is the answer all obvious after this long break?  Right.    

3.  The memoir about this time with my mother - you'd think I'd start here what with the recent wealth of material.  Except that it's not "material" just yet. 

4.  Oh, and then there are the novel chapters an agent requested and now has waiting on his desk. That's an archaic phrase these days.  "On his Kindle" is probably more accurate. Whatever, it's best not to think about either too much. 

5.  The next novel.  It's a faint siren call that compels me to write obscure notes like "future - everything recycled," "anger under everything," "have a real plot," "a bookstore owner in a dying business."

6.  Submissions.  Somewhere in this neglected pile beside me is a list broken down by month.  I'm pretty sure that April's are done, but I should check on that. 

Okay, I'll start with #2.  It offers the best chance of quick accomplishment. 

Or I'll go figure out where to plant the Hop Hornbean tree I bought at the Native Plant Sale.  Or I'll watch reruns of Criminal Minds.  Or maybe take a mid morning nap.  And I'll have to call and check on my mother.  Just in case. 

Writing in the Floridiana Spirit - A Travel and Memoir Writing Workshop

  
During the camping trip to the Everglades, in the middle of one night, while smashing mosquitoes against the ceiling of my van, I thought about my writing life and figured out a couple of things.  I decided to continue with the memoir, that there was something to work with there. And also that I would balance all the "delving into" of the memoir by doing more with my essays about the natural world of Florida. 

I'd almost forgotten these during the dark of night illuminations when the postcard pictured above arrived in my mailbox - a travel and memoir writing workshop put on by the Anhinga Writers' Studio not three miles from my house.  I signed up immediately.  Does anyone want to join me?