With all the time spent on reading about writing, social networking like twitter, FB etc around the business of writing, and then the writing itself, I think I can honestly say that I have opened the Reader tab on WordPress fewer times than the sum of my fingers on both hands! Forgive me, dear blog followers. This is entirely unintentional and nothing to do with anything you have posted or written. I simply forget that this is a source of info too.
But since I missed my intended bi-monthly blog, I thought I’d reblog or Press this (trust it’s the same thing?) because it resonated with me so strongly.
Because really, in a nutshell, the most common reason why writers don’t write is because they fear that they will offend or hurt someone (particularly in non-fiction or specifically memoir) or simply because no-one will like it. It’s that self-doubt demon again: ‘This is drivel’.
And then only yesterday I came across a brilliant interview on National Geographics Booktalk by Simon Worrall, (wish I knew how to embed or link these things here…!) about one of my most inspirational writers, Alexandra Fuller, entitled ‘ It’s taboo for women writers to write about private matters.’ This, she says, despite so many male authors using their tortured relationships as fodder for their work (Hemingway being cited as one of them), and adding that though new to her too, she has decided that she is a memoirist and that’s just what she does.
And this made me smile inside because I think I have found a label for myself: a memoirist. Because no matter WHO we are, we all want to be labelled. An acclaimed author (or even just an ordinary one), an MD, the CEO, the founder of…, the principal of…., the owner of …, a Professor, a writer, a mother. Wife seems too common (though perhaps ORIGINAL wife is a less common one). Mother seemed to me for the best part of the last 15 years not enough. So you can imagine my joy when I found another one … a memoirist. A mother and a memoirist aMong some more. ( I told you the letter M had a comfort sound for me…see last blog!)
Linked to this though (of course, why should life be any less complicated, like logging onto a site and wondering what the hell my username is, let alone my password) is my ambivalence about the whole traditional publishing / e-booking /indie publishing debate which seeks to throw itself at me every time I read anything vaguely related to writing/publishing because as much as it sounds wonderful to sell 1000’s of books online and perhaps have your work translated into more languages than you can understand, I would love to have a “publisher” acknowledging my work.
But in the meantime, I am going to carry on writing and hopefully publishing again soon – in some way or another and let the readers decide for themselves.
As I said recently on Twitter, ” Better to have found your voice than not have a voice at all.
Glad I popped onto my reader this
morning Diane MacKinnon, MD!
Niki Malherbe 