Cross-posted from LiveJournal (including comments).
So my great project was to transcribe both Spouse's and my old hand-written journals, years and years of them. Already, in the case of my own, I am discovering (as Natalie Goldberg said of hers) volumes and volumes of boring crap! After all, journalling isn't about doing good writing, or even recording interesting material. I think a whole heap of stuff will finally get chucked!
I will go through it all, and transcribe anything that does seem interesting or useful, anything that could become memoir or poetry or both. It's just that I see that'll amount to far fewer pages than I had imagined.
It may turn out to be the same with his, but so far his notebooks do contain a fair bit of interesting autobiographical stuff ... amongst outlines for stories that never happened, lists, spiritual reflections — and yes, some boring crap.
Well, the project looks like being quicker and easier than anticipated, anyway!
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From captlychee
ReplyDeleteYou're doing yourself a disservice by not just transcribing faithfully without a filter, because you may not be the best judge of your own talent, and because you then produce a skewed autobiography that, like Krusty the clown's, is 'self-serving and contains many glaring omissions'. Of course, you can do whatever you like, but even the boring crap is an insight into what was going on at the time and can be the springboard for something less boring. Says me, who used to do a post a day!
Max Barry did point out that his favourite writer, George Orwell's diaries were incredibly dull on a day to day basis but did go to paint a detailed picture of the whole man. or woman in your case.
And those who wish to model themselves on you can't do so without all the crap, boring or otherwise. Crap on, three-quarters of a century gal!
Date: 2014-11-13 06:28 am (UTC)
snakypoet:
If anyone should be so misguided as to wish to model themselves on me, the unexpurgated might do them the great service of dissuading them! However, if I were to transcribe the lot, it would run into several volumes. I think biographers, including the auto kind, have to be selective anyway, for practical if not egotistical reasons.
The boring bits are not events, but my deathless musings. Our friend Satya can make that kind of thing entertaining; I can't.
But I could keep the untranscribed for posterity, instead of chucking — or at least get a second and third opinion.
Fear not, though — I shall undoubtedly crap on from time to time, for the rest of my long life!
From: in-sac
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to read you after a long absence. You were born to write.