Return to writing

Thank you for your patience!  It has taken quite some time for me to return to the discipline of writing.  The new page entitled "Family" is my latest effort to define the project and why I must pursue it.  I am deeply grateful to all those who have expressed their interest and support for this project and I hope to reward us all with more rapid progress.  Strangely enough, I find the process of transcribing and refining the recipes that I hope to include the most difficult part of the project.  I would have thought that would be easy!  But it demands my full attention on a regular basis to plow through it.  Not something that comes naturally.  I will persist.

Weird!

Had the TV on as usual while doing laundry, etc. hear that '80s TV star Linda Evans has just published a book of her memoires with recipes entitled "Recipes for Life."  If you haven't been following this blog, check my post below about book titles. 

I guess I will be looking for a better title.  I know my recipes are better!  Like I said, Weird!

Back in focus

I lost my focus last Spring.  The upheaval of a job that doesn't suit me at all, combined with the continuing need to earn a paycheck and the horrendous job market, conspired to drag my attention away from all that really interests me.  I have made a temporary peace with the job and I am getting back on track.  One of the things I really have struggled with on this project is my own inability to organize and provide structure to this piece.  I write little pieces but they are almost unrelated and out of order.  I have decided to seek help.  I purchased a software package for authors called Writer's Blocks 4.  It allows you to write the things that bubble to the surface, in whatever order they come, and then rearrange them to find the relationships and structure that will tie the pieces into a whole.  I should have it by the end of the week.  I hope to be a quick study in how to make the most of it.  I have another weekend away planned for November (before the holiday) and hope to feel that progress is actually being made.  I want to give myself a goal/deadline of next spring for a complete first draft.

Updated page

I have added the parallel segment written by my grandma about her own grandparent's home.  The similarities are startling.  This project is taking me places I never expected to go. 

Taking a risk

Two weeks ago, on my long weekend, I wrote something about the loss of my mother and her loss of her mother.  It seemed almost too personal to share so I didn't post it here right away.  Thinking it over during the intervening weeks, I came to the conclusion that this book I am trying to write had better be personal or it will have no hope of being worth writing or reading.  So I have added the new page and hope you will understand why I had to write it.

I always look forward to your comments.

Writing

I pick up a pen and the words come.  I try to write it all without editing, without judging whether it belongs as a part of this book.  It is there in the pen and needs to flow out onto the paper so I let it.

My hope is that once it is all out I will still have a clear vision of the book and can provide the editing and structure that will allow me to put aside the words that do not belong.

This is a much bigger project than I realized but I am enjoying the process so far.

Yes, the silence has been deafening.

I have been doing the necessary things of life and now I am rewarding myself with a four-day weekend!  I have been thinking alot about where I want to go next with this project.  I found myself thinking about chapter titles on the way to work this morning.  The first two will be "Food and Family" and "Talent and Personality."  That should keep me busy between naps!