Writing Tip

Each session I gain nuggets of wisdom from the women (and man) in my writing group. Sometimes they are just for me. Sometimes they feel universal. Of six of us, four of us are working on pieces that are largely autobiographical. Victoria, who has been working on her historical novel, a 900-page tale of her family's diaspora over five generations, for ten years, is trying to winnow it down to a publishable length. But the upshot is this: she is WAY ahead of the rest of us. We agonize about what we write. We agonize about whether it is accurate, or our memory is wrong. We agonize over whether the words and story contained within would KILL the ones we love. And this is what she said: "Just write. The first time through it will be pure autobiography. The second time through you start to refine your story, and see it as a story separate from yourself, with some distance, and an ability to tease out the more important events. The third time through you start to fictionalize it."

I take great comfort in this.