Saturday, February 13, 2010

The greatest act of optimism.

So I'm preparing for a writing conference that I'm presenting a workshop at. It's stressing me out a little bit.

I mean, it's really cool. I'm stoked. It's always been a dream of mine to combine the two things I love the most (writing and talking). But also? The title of my workshop is:


Memoir Writing: Pulling your pants down in traffic


I'm not kidding. In related news? Perhaps I'm a little bitter.


Actually, bitter is the wrong word. I'm really, really, REALLY thankful for all the cool stuff I get to do. Seriously. Every time I research something about going green I think, "I get paid to write about this!". Every time I get an email from somebody who says, "Your book is so funny!" I think, "That's my dream and it's real". Whenever I write little blurbs that end up on dating websites (didn't know I did that, did you?) I think, "Considering how unromantic I am, this is really friggin' hilarious!" I mean, all those things are good. They make for a good life.

The other stuff? Not so much.

People ask me about writing a book about their lives. And why not, you know? Everyone has a story. I love stories about people's lives. But every time someone says that me I want really badly to scream, "OH GOD DON'T DO IT!" Because of how I feel. People can't understand why I feel that way and I can't really explain it either.

Regrets? I have them.

It doesn't keep me from writing, obviously, and it shouldn't keep anyone else from writing either. Would I do it again? Yes I would. In fact, I will.

Still. It feels weird to teach people something that is so conflicting to me.

I suppose that's part of the lesson. Something philosophical about the teacher being the student or something.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You'll do awesome!

The only people who have conflicts about writing memoir are those who have a story to tell.

So hang in there, and keep writing . . .

Jenski said...

It's also something worth talking about at the workshop. Good luck with prep and presentation!