Finding the Story within the Experiences, Part I

When I set out to write my memoir, I had no idea what I was doing.  I’d just graduated college and had undergone a mind-bending year of life changing experiences.  At twenty-three, I had a hard enough time writing reports and term papers.  Taking on a project to write a cohesive and entertaining tale of selected exploits that would engage readers from the first to the final page wasn’t something that I was trained to do.  But it was what I wanted to do, and desire is an extremely powerful tool.

And so I began with a straightforward starting point: I had over six hundred pages of handwritten journals.  I transcribed these into a Word document and took notes along the way to help find separation within my stories.  This note taking created the outline I needed as I began to see a sensible chronicle of my life in Taiwan.

Over the next three years, I worked on this version of my story, and as I did so, I also followed a regimental reading program to learn more about authors, writing, and what makes a great novel.  I followed a four-book rotation: Classics, Modern Lit, Religion/History/Politics, and Other, which included Sociology, Grammar, and Biography and Memoir.  The contrast between these genres taught me essentials to developing my own voice and writing style and advanced my grammar, sentence development, and storytelling skills.  Additionally, I also learned a great deal about history, language, culture, and time’s changing effects as new eras redefine popularity and what is deemed “good.”

While I’d love to say that first draft was good, I’ll have to admit it was not.  It was good for a first try though and after taking a few months off and getting some very important feedback from some professionals, I was able to step back and reassess my work.

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