Vacation tchotchka

I'm on vacation this week. Yaaaaay! I told my mom I had the week off, and she was like, "Oh. If I had known I would have come out to see you." I KNEW she was going to say that. I think she said the same thing last year when I took a week off in the fall. Also, the topic of blogs came up, and she asked me if I had a blog. I can never lie. I'm really bad at lying, even over the phone, so I said "Yes. But I'm not telling you where it is." I just don't know how she'd feel about reading some of this stuff--especially the autobiographical stuff that involves memories of her. And I don't want to censor myself because I know she might be reading what I write.

I started off my vacation by taking an awesome weekend workshop with the playwright, Will Dunne.

I wasn't sure how writing plays would translate to writing memoir, or even fiction, but Will led us through a number of exercises that I think would be helpful for anyone who's doing creative writing--even if you're writing non-fiction. We read for drama, no matter what the genre. We mostly worked on character--determining motivations, strategies for dealing with events that come at them--and letting the characters tell you what they want to do. I worked through Annie's character in one exercise, and found it very powerful. She has a lot of baggage that makes her act the way she does. I knew that, but somehow the act of writing it all down made it all much more important to the story. Before, it was all just in my head.

So now that the weekend is over, I'm trying to do the same thing for the other girls in the River piece, and I'm using this work to create some background chapters. I don't know if I'll eventually include this in the final piece (or even the first draft), but I may use parts of it. And I'm hoping that this work I'm doing will help me write more authentic, richer characters overall.

The hardest thing has been imagining myself as a character, since this is an autobiographical piece. Putting myself through those character exercises, I had to ask, what were my motivations? My strategies? What were my fears, loves? What was I angry about? We go through life rationalizing the hurtful things that happen to us--we come out of it thinking "it was them, not me." Treating myself as a character, I had to examine the good and the bad. Maybe it will help my narrator (me) be a more well-rounded character too. But ouch.

Anyway, so I'm planning to do lots more writing this week. And shop for a new car too. My old Subaru is in the shop for the second head gasket replacement in two years. I think it's about time to trade the bugger in. Good thing I decided to stay home instead of taking a road trip!