Great to read your writing again, great to have the chance to get to know you as we never had the time while at Goucher... it was a black period in my life, when I was moving away /tearing myself free from a life where I was never fully honest, never fully me... struggling to re-anchor myself in the universe, struggling to live a life where I was finally fully honest, fully me... it was a bitch and it took years (and some help from others), but I came out the other side.... it sounds like you may perhaps know what I am talking about ;-) Great writing, nice to see you again, Cindy!
Yeah, I'm working on the Circus book... spent the past 5 years learning how to plot a story, mostly using ideas and techniques the scriptwriters have put up on Film Courage on Youtube... I can't believe no one at Goucher ever even mentioned the idea of form and structure when writing, especially long form. Pete did go into long form journalism a bit, but that's not the same as plotting a memoir that has the different layers and levels that build some kind of tension and lead to revelations and a kind of conflict-climax... also trying to figure out my motivations, who I really was while in the circus (rather than who I wanted to be or wanted to think I was) took quite a while, also dissecting my motivations, e.g. seeing how my selfishness, narcissism, my teen-aged determination that other people were responsible for things, etc all played out in my circus experiences... I was initially determined to be the "innocent", the "victim" when really I was basically sacrificing a bunch of people in the circus on the alter of my arrogant selfish narcissism... sort of hard to look at, once I took away my teen-aged self-righteousness and anger / disappointment at my position in life... I realized that there is something that I call victim narcissism, where because I was victimized, I could immerse myself in my loss and disappointment and anger, while basically ignoring and otherwise blocking out how I was causing damage and disappointment and anger to the people around me in the circus, many of whom had more severe victimization and disappointment in their lives than I did... but I was the poor-boy small-town college kid, wronged and disrespected (or so I imagined) by the rich kids at my university... crazy shit....
Let's keep in touch! I'm at the point now that I've got all my plot ideas / events / arcs / objectives / blah blah blah written out and halfway organized and I'll be creating a chapter order trying to interlace the different themes and timelines to create a coherent structure for the book... which means in the next few weeks I'll start sketching chapters as "short stories" and showing them to a few people (you, perhaps, if you're interested) for feedback about what works, what doesn't, what strikes them (and what doesn't ;-) etc... Let me know! BT
so brave, deep, true and helpful, dear Cynthia. gosh. thank you for all women who've been touched by what you've shared here.
Thank you Elena. Your support means a lot.
Great to read your writing again, great to have the chance to get to know you as we never had the time while at Goucher... it was a black period in my life, when I was moving away /tearing myself free from a life where I was never fully honest, never fully me... struggling to re-anchor myself in the universe, struggling to live a life where I was finally fully honest, fully me... it was a bitch and it took years (and some help from others), but I came out the other side.... it sounds like you may perhaps know what I am talking about ;-) Great writing, nice to see you again, Cindy!
Thanks Bob! Great to hear from you. You still writing?
Yeah, I'm working on the Circus book... spent the past 5 years learning how to plot a story, mostly using ideas and techniques the scriptwriters have put up on Film Courage on Youtube... I can't believe no one at Goucher ever even mentioned the idea of form and structure when writing, especially long form. Pete did go into long form journalism a bit, but that's not the same as plotting a memoir that has the different layers and levels that build some kind of tension and lead to revelations and a kind of conflict-climax... also trying to figure out my motivations, who I really was while in the circus (rather than who I wanted to be or wanted to think I was) took quite a while, also dissecting my motivations, e.g. seeing how my selfishness, narcissism, my teen-aged determination that other people were responsible for things, etc all played out in my circus experiences... I was initially determined to be the "innocent", the "victim" when really I was basically sacrificing a bunch of people in the circus on the alter of my arrogant selfish narcissism... sort of hard to look at, once I took away my teen-aged self-righteousness and anger / disappointment at my position in life... I realized that there is something that I call victim narcissism, where because I was victimized, I could immerse myself in my loss and disappointment and anger, while basically ignoring and otherwise blocking out how I was causing damage and disappointment and anger to the people around me in the circus, many of whom had more severe victimization and disappointment in their lives than I did... but I was the poor-boy small-town college kid, wronged and disrespected (or so I imagined) by the rich kids at my university... crazy shit....
Let's keep in touch! I'm at the point now that I've got all my plot ideas / events / arcs / objectives / blah blah blah written out and halfway organized and I'll be creating a chapter order trying to interlace the different themes and timelines to create a coherent structure for the book... which means in the next few weeks I'll start sketching chapters as "short stories" and showing them to a few people (you, perhaps, if you're interested) for feedback about what works, what doesn't, what strikes them (and what doesn't ;-) etc... Let me know! BT