Kate's Blog

Follow me if you will as I try to navigate through the ups and downs of my world.

I'm writing this blog to help me make sense of all that has happened - from my diagnosis with non-Hodgkins lymphoma while pregnant with my third child in May 2008
, through to my reflections on chaotic family life as I try to pick up the pieces of my life again.


The kids are so small, and I'm working hard to keep us all safe and to stay in remission.

Stay with me - it won't be all doom and gloom I promise!



Saturday 21 November 2009

Writing Memories

Doing this memoir writing course has really made me think about lots of things in my life - not just things that have happened recently. As part of the reading list I am reading Blake Morrison's 'When Did You Last See Your Father?' - I've not read it before and am absolutely captivated by it. The best memoirs seem to be able to effortlessly move between a child and an adult voice and weave them into something which gives a sense of the complete person.

In particular it has made me think a lot again about my father's death 10 years ago - I feel I have stuff to write and I feel as if it kind of needs to write itself. Time as always is the problem. I really wanted nothing else but to sit down this morning and write what was in my mind but the demands of the kids meant that I haven't been able to stop all day - and this is the first time all day (and now it's the evening) I've been able to take any time at all. One reads of writers who've written fantastic novels in the evenings when their children are in bed - I don't know how they did it, I suppose they're extremely motivated and disciplined.

I'm shy to tell people that I'm writing a book - it seems too presumptious and I feel silly, but also I do think I need to be a bit more upfront about it in order to feel serious about it myself. But you know what? I've studied literature long enough, taught it for long enough and have read non-stop since the age of 3 - maybe just maybe I could write as well. It's the only thing I've ever really wanted to do and that's the truth.

4 comments:

Jen said...

Maybe they were just insomniacs. Don't be too hard on yourself.

Rebecca S. said...

Or maybe their husbands were unemployed and could do everything while they wrote their novels.

Unknown said...

go kate! you can do it!

Mummy mania said...

You can do it. and every first time novelist must have felt like we do - great pretenders. but i reckon the more people I tell I'm writing a book, the more I have to do it. it makes it real. i'm usually too tired to write in the evenigns too - we have to grab it when we can. keep going - you'll get there - we all will!