I now have another confirmation why I should never post at night; yesterday’s little blurb sounded suspiciously whiny.  I am a firm believer in a Whinge-Free Zone…especially when it comes to this particular venue.

I’ll save my snivelling – if I must –  for my journal or fellow-cold-sufferers. We can whine unrepentantly as we compare symptoms. But here? On this blog? My humblest apologies for the indiscretion.

I still retain the right to expound relentlessly on the suffering that comes with writing. That is an entirely different kettle of fish. Besides, it rather amuses me to watch me flail about and endlessly discuss the angst of it all. Let there be no mistake, I am always looking to be amused.

As requested, I sent off my first ‘chapter’ to my mentor at Humber.  Of course, I sent it off with a covering email disclaimer that explained I was sending him two very different opening chapters because I really didn’t know where I was going at all. One was the novel opening, and the other, the memoir opening.

Sometime after I hit send, I had the dazzling revelation that the two of them could be merged. Why not a novel in the style of a memoir, using both sections and their differing voices? I did not want to appear too crazy right out of the gate, so instead of immediately sending off an email telling him to ignore the previous email and to reveiw this new one instead, I decided to actually do the work and see what it looked like.

Immediately the devil and angel popped up like little groundhogs on their respective shoulder perches…

“What a pile!” says Diablo.

“A stroke of genius!” harks the heralding Angel.  

I forged on in spite of their chorusing and competing voices.

It is not for me to decide whether it’s good or bad at this point. Right now, I am simply moving the stuff around, adding a little here, subtracting some there, and trying to have faith in myself. Just a little faith.

For anyone else who needs a little help by seeing how others have done it…check out this great link at Women’s Memoirs site.

And just keep brushing your shoulders as hard as possible. Those two are bound to take the hint eventually.