Been recently working on a radio drama script. It's a while since I wrote anything for radio and it's great to be creating script again, such a good break from holding eighty odd thousand words in my brain while writing a novel. And while my new book is in the hands of my agent, it's useful to focus on something different.
I plan to do some more work on my memoir over Autumn and Winter and as part of this will be staying in Ireland for several weeks in 2015. I'm finding it hard to decide on what to leave out... and where to begin and wonder if this is a common problem. My inclination is to start with my parents and their coming into the world because it all begins in Ireland and the influence it has exerted on my life. However, life isn't a straight line, it curves, twists, fragments, comes back on itself and I'd like to somehow convey this is in the structure of the memoir.
I'm also pondering on the notion: the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Because is there only one 'truth'? Don't we all have different versions of it. My mother used to tell a story of when I was two, in rural Ireland, walking from the well carrying two buckets of water, sporting a shaved head and a blue gingham dress that she'd hand sown. An American couple stopped in car and took a photo of me because I looked so 'cute'. I could barely walk because of the weight of the water. They sent a copy to my grandmother's cottage and I remember seeing it when I was older... but that was before my mother burnt all the family photos and that's potentially another starting point for the memoir.
So, maybe I'll stop thinking about it and allow my memory to take me where it likes.
I plan to do some more work on my memoir over Autumn and Winter and as part of this will be staying in Ireland for several weeks in 2015. I'm finding it hard to decide on what to leave out... and where to begin and wonder if this is a common problem. My inclination is to start with my parents and their coming into the world because it all begins in Ireland and the influence it has exerted on my life. However, life isn't a straight line, it curves, twists, fragments, comes back on itself and I'd like to somehow convey this is in the structure of the memoir.
I'm also pondering on the notion: the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Because is there only one 'truth'? Don't we all have different versions of it. My mother used to tell a story of when I was two, in rural Ireland, walking from the well carrying two buckets of water, sporting a shaved head and a blue gingham dress that she'd hand sown. An American couple stopped in car and took a photo of me because I looked so 'cute'. I could barely walk because of the weight of the water. They sent a copy to my grandmother's cottage and I remember seeing it when I was older... but that was before my mother burnt all the family photos and that's potentially another starting point for the memoir.
So, maybe I'll stop thinking about it and allow my memory to take me where it likes.
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