The Memoir-Writing Journey

Last week, I laid out the health issues of this past year. As I did so, the word fallow came to mind: the seed of my life lies dormant within dark, rich loam. In the weeks ahead, I hope the seed will crack open and that from its broken shell a sprout will inch its way upward to the freshness of air, the warmth of sun, and the vast view of what is possible for me in the coming year.

If that doesn’t happen—if the ill-health continues—then what I know is that I need not only to live the day, but to embrace it. All truly is possibility if I look for the good within the fallowness. I’ve tried to do that this year as first the pain captured most of my attention and then the months of recuperation slowly—ever so slowly—helped me reclaim the activities I’d once done so easily. Now, I am hoping that the recent eye operation will help my sight stay stable.

As we all know, we can control only how we respond to the fluctuations of life. I know I’ve quoted my mom to you before, but I want to share her words again: “Dolores, you find what you look for. If you look for good, you will find it. And if you look for bad, you will surely find that too.”

Given that Mom said this to me repeatedly as I was growing up, I learned to look for good, Mostly I have found it. Some events, some years have been challenging, but one of the advantages of aging is that I can look back over a long life and see that all—ALL—has worked out to good.

Now, having wrapped up my health report, I want to spend a few moments sharing my writing life with you. I’ll be blogging about that off and on for the next few weeks, perhaps months, as I prepare to self-publish a memoir entitled Prayer Wasn’t Enough.

Two friends and my oldest niece are helping me with the intricacies of self-publication. One artistic friend designed the cover of the book. It pleases me mightily! Another friend is going to format—through Create Space, a subsidiary of Amazon—the print and the e-book that will be available on Amazon at some future date.

My niece is trying to help me figure out Facebook and Twitter. We’ve had difficulties because when I first began my Facebook account I didn’t know what I was doing. (Do I ever???) Consequently, I messed up the author page, the Timeline page, and another page as well.

It’s a real muddle as to what I presently have and how I can establish one of these pages as the place where readers can contact me. My niece has spent hours sitting in front of my computer trying to make sense of what I did and also talking to fellow computer whizzes about this. So far, we have no solutions.

I’ve begun Twitter and have to admit that I’m puzzled by how all these things connect. None of this makes much sense to me. Would it, if I were younger? Was my mind more eager to solve a challenge then? I’m not sure. I know only that I now dwell in social-medium-confusion-land.

Have any of you experienced difficulties in understanding how to use Facebook or Twitter? If so, please share your confusion with me OR how you met the challenge of the Facebook-Twitter Alps and conquered it.

Today I wish for you peace, pressed down and overflowing.

Photo from Wikipedia.