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Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Memoirs and Blogging - IBOT

I've been getting out lately - it helps to force myself to get out there when the black mood descends. Last night I was invited to a talk at Officeworks by Stuart Bocking and Jason Morrison from 2UE and from BRW on running a business.  They had lots of useful advice on tax, depreciation, legislation, promotion on social media and websites and how to apply for a government grant, things that every business needed to know but weren't aware that the so much information and assistance was freely available to them.  You'd think I would nod off with all that exciting banter, but surprisingly I didn't have to feign interest.  It actually made me want to start my own business.  One day.  Not for a while.  Too scary.

They put on a great free event for local businesses with nibblies (wish I hadn't eaten dinner beforehand!) and a goodie bag which made my kids very happy - who doesn't love stationery!  To top it all off they gave away some great door prizes to most of the attendees.  I was a lucky recipient of a HKC Multi-Touch Tablet!  It was really heartening to see a successful company like Officeworks wanting to help the small business owner.

Tonight was an event more up my alley.  A couple of well respected bloggers (and ones I've been lucky to meet before), Zoey Martin and Eden Riley, spoke with Jo Case about Memoirs and Blogging at the NSW Writers Centre in Rozelle.

It was a nice and intimate affair with Eden and Zoey sharing their stories on how and why they started blogging and how different it is to writing a memoir.  Jo Case had published a book on the story of her life and about her son with Aspergers.  She also blogged for awhile and also had a lot of input on the differences between blogging and writing a memoir.

Now to be truthful my initial motivation to go tonight was just to hear Eden and Zoey talk about blogging, I had even forgotten that the ad in the SMH Spectrum had said it was also about writing memoirs.  I've had it in the back of my mind that I would one day write a memoir as I haven't been able to take writing fiction seriously for a long time.  Not that my life has been stranger than fiction (some people may beg to differ), but the more I think about people's real lives, their relationships and family history, the more I believe that the truth is so much more entertaining and enthralling.

Does this mean that I'm about to take on the great personal story?  Can I hold the interest in myself for the amount of time and dedication it takes to actually produce a book?  Do I have the ego big enough?  Probably not, but maybe I could use it as a stepping stone to learn about my parents' stories in more depth and present that as a great read.

This brings in a whole lot of bumps in the road that I've been grappling with for awhile.  To tell the whole truth I will have to bring up some painful stuff that not everyone involved will be happy with and it also brings up the problem of do I KNOW the whole truth?  Probably not and because there were so many skeletons in the family closet I don't think I'll ever know the truth so it brings me to the decision of making a fictional memoir.  Writing some truth and embellishing other truths.  That way everyone will be happy, right?  mmmm.....

p.s. To those siblings reading this, let me know what you think would be the right way to write this story right!

**Joining with Essentially Jess for IBOT.**

5 comments:

  1. I have been thinking about writing a book about my childhood up until now. Funny that. It would be a memoir of my childhood. I think if you can bring yourself to tell the whole truth and only the truth it may help. THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE!

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  2. I found this post interesting, as it's something I've been pondering myself lately. My belief is that your story is YOURS and belongs to you, so you are free to do with it as you please, if you choose to fictionalise (is that a word?)parts of it, you have every right.

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  3. Good luck when you decide to go ahead with your project !!! I think it is a great idea - if our family wasn't so boring I may have even considered it myself except I am not a very good writer and my imagination is even worse than my writing !!!!
    Have the best day !
    Me

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  4. Sounds like two great events!

    I have a draft manuscript of my own memoirs, which I've been plodding away on for years. Mostly it's been therapy for me. I used to think about getting it published but didn't want to hurt people (eg my mum). But she has since passed away ... it's hard to know though if my memoirs would be of interest to anybody else though ...

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  5. PS forgot to say, visiting from #TeamIBOT xxx

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