When Writing is Easy...

When writing is easy, you know it's the right story.  It can be right even when it's hard, but when it's easy, it's so very, very right.  If it's super hard, consider taking a different direction.  When I started my NaNoWriMo novel a couple years ago (still not done LOL), the beginning just keep stopping me.  I kept getting caught up in how I wanted to make the dynamics between the characters.  But it just hit me one day and BAM!  Easy to write. 

I've started my memoir literally twenty times in the past twenty years.  I've written it all sorts of ways and with all sorts of ideas of how I wanted it to work or how I wanted to put it together.  And this time, it just flowed out of me like water.  And I almost have three-hundred pages done and it's been around a month that've been writing it.  Considering it takes me YEARS on end to finish my stories (I have ADHD and get bored and wander off to do something else more exciting...bad habit, I know), this is quite amazing.  Maybe this is because the stories are true and I don't have to invent them, like we have to with fiction?  That could be why writing this was easier.  But as to why this time writing my memoir is easier I can only assume is due to the fact it makes sense to do so now.  I can look back without being in the thick of things (though, I kind of still am with some things).

Twenty years ago my father died and I thought my memoir would be about him.  Then I thought I needed to write one just about my mother.  Then I thought it should be about me, but I wasn't sure how to make it interesting.  But now, I can write about all of these things and then some, because I have the life experience and hindsight of a 43-year-old.  I've been broken, I've sought answers, I've healed, and some things I'm still working on healing.  And I can write about it all.  AND it can have a theme, which is great because a memoir without a theme is kind of like a diary that nobody wants to read. 

I'm in the process of editing it now (only a little over a  month after writing it) and I'm excited for how it's turning out.  I won't rush to get it published.  There may be more things to write about as I let it simmer in my mind for a bit.  But I'm excited to get so much done in such a short period of time.  And I am really loving how it's turning out (before, it was just a mess of unrelated stories). 

After it's edited and done, I will be working on my fiction again, which also excites me to to no end.  I just love writing.  I just need to push myself to finish what I start, so I don't end up with 500 more WIPS, like I have now!