A very necessary process
Stage one “splurge” writing is, I contend, a very necessary part of what will end up – several years later – as a finished memoir that someone else may read with pleasure. Stage One splurge is the leap of the cliff that may end badly, but since we are writing alone and for ourselves only, we do have total freedom to write and re-write whatever we like, as often as we need to, until our scalding thoughts have cooled enough to be moulded unto something more presentable.
I suspect that without this very necessary process of uncensored writing, our finished product may be very polished, but may lack heart. And since one of the purest defences to any allegations of unkindness, cruelty or falsehood is authenticity, I think that the creative splurge at step one of memoir writing is a vital part of the creative whole.

So we splurge, and then after acres of scribbling we surface and then what? Well, if you are anything like me, you will rewrite and edit about a million times, because while splurge is necessary for our sanity, it does not always make the best reading. It may be that only very select parts of our original splurge spree will ever get into print. A process of trimming and excision that is particularly true of memoir.
It is not much use asking a memoirist at the early stages in their journey to “stay objective” or “be nice to other people”. If a memoirist is worried about being unkind or subjective or cruel, s/he are nowhere near ready to go public. If, during the process of editing and refining, we are asking a memoirist to reconsider aspects of what they have written, that is either because (a) we are reading an early-stages manuscript that should still be locked-down and private, or (b) we have been invited to give editorial feedback on a manuscript which needs paring back and reorganising.
Thanks for listening. (To be continued.)
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March 7, 2020
Cancellation of the London Book Fair 2020
Fran Macilvey 'Trapped: My Life with Cerebral Palsy', Fran's School of Hard Knocks, Happiness Matters, Making Miracles, Path To Publication, The Rights & Wrongs of Writing 2 Comments
Cancellation of the London Book Fair 2020
On Wednesday, I thought I would check the website again. So I looked, and only ten minutes earlier, the cancellation of the London Book Fair 2020 had been announced.
In what would have been its fiftieth anniversary, the news was all over Twitter and Facebook, yet I found myself compulsively checking and re-checking, making sure there wasn’t a mistaken double-negative tucked somewhere in the public statements.
So I’m not going to London next week. Not such a big deal, you might think, apart from a meeting I have been very much looking forward to, the non-refundable train fares and costs of accommodation near the venue. No problem.
Except… The Fair is the one place I may hope to meet like minded folk, since, for the rest of the year, I spend too many hours with my nose up against my computer screen and communicating in the virtual world of avatars and emojis. This annual meeting of minds also throws in my direction the hope that I may meet interesting folk with a lot to say, and who have the same obsession with writing that I have, albeit with a different flavour and emphasis.
I feel at home in the London event even if, as usually happens, I come home with lots of postcards, fliers and ideas, few of which get further than my jotter or notes. But the hope inherent in such a gathering is motivation enough for me. Because the hope is what keeps me going.
Without that jolt of hope and enthusiasm to the system, the rest of my writing year now looks very different. And now, where will I find that jolt? Well, from me, obviously. I can hardly expect anyone else to supply it. So that’s where I’m at: despite the gloomy global forecasts, I have to start applying to myself and my own life, all the lessons that I wrote about in my three books to date: I know the theories, and now is the time to bring them out of retirement – that is, the satisfied glow of publication – dust them down and use them every day to take me forward, peacefully, happily, and in the certain knowledge that the biggest miracles I may bring into being, start with me.
Thanks for listening.
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