Finding Courage to Begin College

My treasure! They helped

me survive college.

Happy Mothers’ Day, everyone!  I wish you smiles and sunshine, love and laughter.

My memoir is a story about believing in oneself, of finding the courage to begin a dream and then discovering the strength needed to see it through to completion.   The perspective is an older student beginning college, one with no college preparatory foundation.  A person with children to raise, a home to maintain, and a college curriculum to understand.  It’s supposed to be a humorous journey of a mother of five through college: how I coped with both motherhood and college.

I don’t know if I was afraid of academia, afraid of going to college exactly.  I think it was more like I was nervous about embarrassing myself in front of other adults and people I didn’t know.  But aren’t most people worried about that?

            Compounding this was the fear of looking bad in the eyes of my children.  Let me explain.  I was the head of my household.  Okay, I shared the duties with my husband, but I was in charge of the home front.  I did the homework and projects with the children.  I retaught my learning disabled firstborn each day.  I was their entertainment more often than not.  We were a tight family unit.  [God blessed us for sure!]  If I did poorly at college, I thought, it would be like I failed my family.

            These are some mental issues I address in my memoir.  But I need to go deeper.  I need to explore this idea of finding courage.  And then maintain that courage to gain that degree.

            Now because I lacked the courage to begin college, I feigned bravery to be able to register, to take the basic skills test, and then the basic skills math courses.  Because I was afraid and dressed myself in a false front, I became edgy and started lacking in my attention to the children, their antics, their well-being, the home, meals.  These anecdotes fill the pages of the memoir.

            If I think about it, it was more a feeling of being unprepared for college.  Other college students, younger college students, had a preparatory foundation that I lacked. 

            Not having this college foundation tied into my next obstacle attending college:  a feeling of inferiority.  And it intensified once I gained entry to University of Pennsylvania.

Critiques: A Necessary Part of a Writer’s Life

Testing the waters of critique.
It’s deep and luminous in there.

Why is it easier for writers to see what’s not working in other writer’s work but not their own?

            *Sigh*

            This is why all writing needs to go through critique, because more often than not, writers may not be able to unlock the problems in their own writing.  It’s probably because as writers, we are so married to what we wrote, we can’t see past it.  Having someone who does not know our story look at it with fresh eyes is extremely necessary for all writing.   

Take my “collection of anecdotes,” ahem…I mean my memoir.  I know the memoir is mostly a collection of anecdotes, but they’re funny anecdotes.  However, I also know that anecdotes alone do not make a memoir.  At this point, I’m just not exactly sure how to fix it.

            Organization and pacing is what’s needed according to Kate, my super Author Accelerator editor. 

            People come to memoir looking for personal connection with the author, she reminded me.  Readers are looking for my progress as a human being and not just a progression of college courses.  Just as in story, the protagonist needs to grow and change.  I knew this, too, and in my memoir I certainly grew and changed.  But it seems that I didn’t put in enough whys and whats and hows and a consistent overarching theme that affects the plot arc.  

I have so much work to do.  

           

            But I need to help Kate understand that no one was abused or tragically died in the making of this memoir journey.  Well, except for that shy and unsure mother who was afraid of her own intellect in the beginning of the memoir.  The mother who emerged at the outset of this college journey is a more confident woman. 

Or at least she was…until the critique of the memoir came back.

            Does there need to be more substance in the memoir?  For sure.  How do I do it?  Um…that’s what this next leg of the journey will be about.   

This is when, my dear followers, I dry my tears, blow my nose, and consider and decide and revise.  I haven’t even gone through the entire manuscript critique yet.  I’ve only read the summary of the critique.  I need to remember this will take time and lots of intestinal fortitude. 

You have all been very helpful with your insight.  Do you have any advice to share regarding these points?

The Narrative Voice in Writing

The narrator guides readers through 

the story journey just as a trail guide 

leads hikers through the forest. 

The narrative voice is just as important in memoir as it is in fiction, for memoir is a true story. 

Writers need to think who is telling the story. 

What point of view should they use? 

First person; I, me, through the speaker’s mindset only. 

Third person; he, she, Victoria, through his or her mindset only. 

Omniscient; think God here, the narrator knows all and can think and see the action through the minds of more than one character. 

This is just a quick stroke from the point of view narrator palette.  The main point is for the writer to focus in and realize whose eyes the writer is looking through to make the story exciting for the reader. 

A good way to find the narrator of a story is to determine who changes the most in the story.

Most times, memoir is a first person account of a particular time in the writer’s life.  Remember that memoir is only a slice of life story and not the entire life of the writer.  Sometimes the writer can act as an observer of another in a third person account of the time being remembered.  For my memoir about attending college as a mother of five, I am the narrator who is experiencing each of the lessons in the story as they unfold.

Like any important character in the story, the narrator must be well-developed for readers to stay connected.  He or she needs to be the guide in the story, taking the reader along the journey of events.  The reader needs to be immersed in the scenes, feeling what happens.    

To do this, the writer must provide specific details to flesh out the scenes and make the world real to readers, details that encompass the senses—not forgetting taste and touch.  The narrator’s primary job, according to John Gardner in The Art of Fiction, is to convince the reader that the events she recounts really happened. 

                                                                                                       

Beth Kephart says, in her book Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir, the narrator needs to remain vulnerable in order to learn, along with the reader, on the journey of the story.  The narrator must discover something new, something surprising—even to her.  This shows the growth and development of the narrator character throughout the manuscript.  The narrator can find the order in the disorder of story life.

This is how good authors write.  We want the readers experiencing the drama right along with the narrator. 

            Is it easy to do?  Hardly!  If it were, writers would have a seamless time of it.

            By the way…my “seams” are in tatters after all the comments made in my synopsis. 

However, instead of revising and getting yet another copy of the same manuscript with the same flaws, I decided to send my 73,099-word, 237-page memoir about attending college as a mother of five for a developmental critique by professionals.  The Author Accelerator group says it will take about a month to get back the critique.  I’ll let you know how it turns out. 

In the meantime, do you have any thoughts on the narrative voice that you’d like to share?  They would be greatly appreciated.

Synopsis Mini Course Part 2

Surviving critique and revision in writing is
as tough as backpacking the
Appalachian Trail.  But it can be done!

Okay.  My revised synopsis critique came back. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to hate question words.  You know the type.  Why did you do that?  How did this make you feel?  When did this happen?  What exactly do you mean by that?  What finally made you decide?  Where’s the trigger?  Why now? 

Why, why, why?  How, how, how?  I feel like I’m in therapy.  She’s worse than my children with all her questions.  It seemed like everything I wrote wasn’t specific enough for this editor.  

All these details are supposed to be in the synopsis? 

There are mountains of messages in my margins.

She picked on my phrasing:

            This is too formal.

            What happened to your humorous voice?

She unpacked my factual sentences:

            Clip some facts here.

            Sprinkle some other facts throughout the synopsis.  

She tried to get me to move from the general to the specific:

            Why is this important?

            What’s the bigger picture here?

             Comment on your experiences.

           

She poo-pooed my maxim: 

What is this statement tied to?  It feels random -

            I’d said, “Opportunity changes lives.”  [I thought it was one of my themes.]

This seems like a stretched reference:

            No person is an island.  [Okay…it is…but doesn’t it sound cool?]

Transition lines were missing.  So were some explanations.  I’m supposed to step back and reflect—even in the synopsis.  Then some of my reflections are too abstract, and others need to be more specific to me.  

Pick!  Poke!  Shred! 

…Boy, is she good.    

She helped me put my voice back into the synopsis.  I had changed some of the language, and even I thought it sounded too stilted.  I thought I needed to sound educated.  Obviously there’s a huge difference between educated and my particular voice.

I reminded myself that I asked for this carnage.  Unfortunately, it still stings.  But it’s the only way for the manuscript to get better.  For a writer to learn of her weaknesses.  To see what she can no longer see for herself in the manuscript story.  Don’t you think so?

As I sit here licking my synopsis wounds, crying into my teacup, I berate myself to get over it and send the entire manuscript in for a formal undressing if only to see what’s worth saving, what should be expanded upon.  This is my college journey, a ten-year ordeal.  Let’s not make the writing of it also a ten-year ordeal, Victoria.    

Thanks for listening.  Your insight is invaluable to me.  Feel free to share any experiences you have or to offer any tips.  Thank you!

Synopsis Is Not a Bad Word

Sometimes writing synopses can be like 

trudging through the tundra. 

It requires much stamina and effort, 

but it builds character in authors.

            Happy New Year, everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and are ready to get back to work on your dreams.                                                                                                            

            For me, it’s time to look for professional editing for my memoir about attending college with five children in tow instead of continuously changing and tweaking it.  To that end, I came across an offer after watching an excellent webinar called “The Synopsis Solution” presented by Jennie Nash, a book coach, for a critique of a synopsis for my memoir. 

            I was impressed.  Jennie gave concrete information and examples.  So I’m taking the chance.  Now all I need is that synopsis of my memoir.  *Gulp*

            Besides giving the format of a synopsis: single-spaced, present tense, third person, no more than three pages, Jennie informed her listeners to “tell a story and hook the reader” –even in the synopsis.  Not everything can be included in the synopsis summary of the story.  Use the main thrust of the story and give a resolution.      

            While I understood to tell whose story it was, in memoir or fiction, I never tried the line of thinking:  because this thing happens, the next thing happens and then the next thing.  I’ve heard of cause and effect, plot points, internal struggle.

            So I stepped back and looked at my memoir about attending college with five children in tow. 

            Because I had no prior college classes, I needed to take a Basic Skills test in order to begin my college journey.  And because I hadn’t had any upper level math courses or any algebra in *ahem* eons, I failed the math portion of the test.  And because of failing the math portion of the test, I needed to take basic skills math classes in order to begin my college journey.

            Okay, so that’s the external beginning of what happened.  What’s the internal struggle I faced?  Well aside from numerous motherhood duties, I couldn’t leave my fear of failure behind—that nagging thought that I wasn’t properly prepared for college—to be able to think positively, to engage in an experience of learning. 

            Then just when I thought I might be able to succeed in college, I was offered a scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania.  And another belief was tested, never to let opportunity pass me by.  I had to go to Penn.  I just had to, or another nemesis would enter the picture.  Regret.  Even if I failed, I had to try. 

            Wow!  Where did this all come from.  I could go on, but I need to write that three-page synopsis for critique.  I’ll keep you posted as to my experience and knowledge learned.

            Please share any tips or experiences you may have about writing synopses.  All the best to each of you in 2016!