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Blog: MEMOIR ON THE ROAD: Writing a book-length memoir
August 11, 2010
Tearing it all apart to find the real story
When my mom got sick and I traveled to her home to take care of her, I left behind a manuscript one-third done—the beginning of a new book of memoir, the concept of which I was crazy about. I thought it was solid work.
Then suddenly my mother was dead. Nine days later my kitty was dead, and well, I just gave it all up and went to Europe to walk it off by following the trail my parents had traveled sixty years earlier, a goal all tangled up with grieving and the book I had been writing, but then you know that if you’ve been reading this blog.
When I came back I was jazzed to write. What I didn’t expect was the way I would respond to the material I had already written.
I thought it was crap.
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July 2010
Following the labyrinthine road of creativity
I’ve been back from Europe long enough to skitter into the chaos of day-to-day life, but not so long that I have forgotten what it felt like to be rising every day to ride a train to a new locale, to have no deadline, one suitcase, and a ticket to anywhere I chose to go.
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July 16, 2010
And then there was Amsterdam . . .
The day I took the train out of Brussels, destined for my last stop on the Continent, I emerged from the station in Amsterdam and tumbled into a setting so surreal I thought I’d walked onto a vintage, post-nuclear-apocaplyse movie set: glassy-eyed automatons wandered through urban decay. Newspapers swirled in gusts of wind. Sun flickered off dust whipping round people’s hair and coats. Paper cups pivoted in half-orbs in the gutters scratching on asphalt—cree-ehsch, cree-ehsch. Bottles heaped corners filled with fast food wrappers.
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May 20, 2010
Update: Brussels
Lots of cold and rainy weather as I travel. It’s been hard to coordinate time to write with the appearance of trustworthy wifi. But here I am—in Brussels, Belgium. This is a city balanced between old and new . . .
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AND HERE’S A LINK FOR MORE BRUSSELS PHOTOS ON MY FACEBOOK PAGE: http://bit.ly/9GrvoM
May 11, 2010
My truth about Paris
Dear Reader,
I have been dragging my heels about writing here of Paris. Why? Because, quite frankly, my experience did not live up to the myth I was seeking: Ah . . . Paris in spring . . . .
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AND HERE’S A LINK TO MORE PHOTOS ON MY FACEBOOK PAGE: http://bit.ly/9GrvoM
May 6, 2010
The things we carry . . .
I am in Paris. My first evening here I washed some clothing in the bathroom sink; it was time. I’d been holding out on a pair of silk pajamas. It’s true, dear reader, I had not washed them since I left home, but as you will see, there is a reason.
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May 4, 2010
Luxembourg—I was here . . .
I ate salmon grilled crispy on the outside this evening, moist and juicy inside, served with carrots cut on the bias and coated with the most luscious sauce. Simple food, but so satisfying to the soul. Served just off the Place d’Armes in a brasserie where I listened to a Brit talk long and excitedly about his job with the ministry while his dinner companion tapped his foot impatiently under the table, much to the obliviousness of the Brit.
First impressions: Luxembourg feels like a mini Paris. French predominantly is spoken, although I’ve also heard German that sounded German, German that sounded French, British English, American English, and a language I could not even name . . .
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April 29, 2010
Pondering in Zurich . . .
Have you ever been so tired you just don’t feel inspired?
Here I am finally with a real internet connection, and I can’t think of a thing, witty or clever to say, just that I’ve been traveling day-to-day. Venice, to Vienna, to Salzburg, to Zurich. Long train rides, early mornings to get to the station, and walking, walking, walking . . .
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April 26, 2010
Internet, Internet where are you . . . ?
I’ve detoured off the path of my parents’ journey and traveled across Austria to Vienna, a city I’ve wanted to see ever since my study of music in college. Access to internet has become harder and harder to maintain on this trip. Our approach to technology in America is not mirrored in European countries. Free wifi is rare and even the hotels still charge high rates.
Sitting in a Burger King where they play Mozart. Will write more when I find another connection.
April 19, 2010
Thinking about story . . .
I have been thinking about story today, about what qualities I attributed to my mother and her story telling, and how those qualities differ from the way I tell stories.
I suppose all this pondering is to be expected since my mother just died, I am a writer, and I am in the mythic land of The Continent, Europe, the wellspring of my mother’s most treasured stories—whether they were her own spun from memory and imagination and shared round a table, listeners held rapt by her words, eyes, gestures, or those of the writers she read, stories set in Europe.
Somewhere in all this pondering is a convergence of knowing and understanding, and I could feel the edges of it scraping up against my heart as I rocked and rolled through Tuscany today on a regional train from Florence to Siena.
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April 17, 2010
Ancient Stone
I am sitting in a wifi cafe in Florence. These are not nearly as common in Italy as in America.
I am freezing.
I had forgotten how cold cities constructed of ancient stone can be. They retain the cold, reflect the cold. I am wearing layers and still chilled to the core.
I’m supposed to rave about the sites of Europe, right? But the fact is traveling is full of minor inconveniences that often become so big they don’t seem minor—like I’m so cold I can’t get warm even under four blankets and a quilt at the hotel, i.e. a convent turned hotel. That translates into centuries of old stone, cold old stone.
A high point though is the garden, a square of pristine quietude in the heart of the city, wisteria vines tangled above walks, trunks the size of trees, blooms hanging low perfuming the gentle green of an early Florentine spring . . .
April 15, 2010
Michelangelo
I sat for an hour in the Sistine Chapel today. I have been there before, and I felt blessed to be back a second time. It is a place people visit once if they are lucky. I have been doubly lucky. My parents were lucky, too, once upon a time, when they stood in that same room nearly 60 years ago. Did they, too, hold their breath in sharp recognition?
What I was struck by this time was different than the last time, four years ago, but then that has a lot to do with art, and who we are, and what it pertinent at any given time—what we are worrying with our attention.
This time what infused me was the potent realization that Michelangelo captures in his work the key moment when a character makes a decision.
God reaches with urgency toward Adam’s hand, to give life. Adam waits passively. His left hand hangs limp from the arm draped on his leg. But it is God making the choice, that driving moment of decisiveness when he Knows, and so must reach, reach—reach!—for Adam’s hand.
It is the same with the Pieta in St. Peter’s . . .
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April 14, 2010
Caravaggio
Saw the Caravaggio exhibit today (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1571 – 1610) at the Scuderie del Quirinale. Big crowds. Great exhibit!
Only about twenty-five paintings, but they were perfectly representative of what the exhibit terms the three phases of his life and creative work. You can really see the changes from the young painter Caravaggio to the tortured soul he became, and the painfully humane, transcendent art he created toward the end of his life. (He was only 39 when he died.) The palette changes, the use of light, and the subject matter.
The use of light is inspired, even today—reproductions in books simply do not do justice to these paintings. There is a luminosity and dimensionness that is lost.
The faces he paints are infused with horror, compassion, contentment—all are rendered so that the face looks as if it is a human across the room from you.
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April 13, 2010
Swimming in Language
I am in a sea of sound, the elegance of Italian, the gutteral punctuations of German, the fluidity of French. I am in heaven listening and listening and not talking. All around me the pulse of Rome is padded by voices like music. I walk for miles and listen.
April 9, 2010:
Roma
I made it to Rome. Plane was late leaving America. I’ve been up for for about 32 hours. I fall asleep at the keyboard , and my head tumbles forward, if I pause to think, so I keep my fingers moving . . .
I wonder what it was like for my Mom and Dad when they docked in Southhampton and rolled their bikes down the gangplank and had to ride on a hard, narrow seat just to get to the first bed. I took a train from Leonardo di Vinci airport to Termini Station.
My parents began their European adventure at the northern end of the territory covered. I’m starting at the southern end. Somewhere in the middle our stories will converge—in so many ways, I am sure.
This evening I watched what I call the peacock parade on Via del Corso: The boys walk in front of the girls, be they girlfriends, sisters, or mothers. Erect and wearing suits, or suitcoats and jeans, leather coats and jeans, they strut fully conscious of the cut of their clothing, the tightness of their pants, the style of their eyewear, watches, haircuts. They are beautiful.
FIRST BLOG POST—April 5, 2010:
The Weight of Our Stories: A European Manifesto
I am on a journey, dear reader, to find the next story, the book that will define my life in the coming years. This is a journey all of you are on too, if you have found your way to this site and hold in your heart the dream of crafting from your life a story.
Here is the tale of what I am up to. I invite you to join me over the next six weeks:
My mother was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, metastasized to the bone, on January 14, 2010. Forty-five days later she was dead. I spent those last days with her, as companion, caregiver, friend, daughter, cook, nurse, and gate keeper to all who wanted access but to whom she denied it. I was the border police.
It was a horrible and brilliant shining journey, and I was spent at its end.
To understand the next piece of this story, you may need to be an animal lover, and if you are, you will “get” why I am taking off for new horizons . . .
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- Lisa Dale Norton is the author of the acclaimed literary memoir Hawk Flies Above: Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills (Picador USA/St. Martin’s Press.)
- Lisa’s popular book Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir (Griffin/St.Martin’s Press) is in bookstores everywhere.
- She is one of a handful of developmental writing coaches in the United States with a specialty in memoir. She edits memoir manuscripts, and helps clients develop books of memoir. Click here to read about her private work with writing clients.
- Lisa teaches Memoir Writing on-line. Click here to learn about her classes.
