OK readers. I have a question for you. If I was to pour 5000% of myself into a book project would you as my loyal audience prefer:
a) Small, sweet collection of the best poems and photographs–Black Enough and the like. Well produced, and sold here on the blog etc.
b) A memoir of Mama C from sort of pre-adoption to today. I’d complete my book proposal, and try to get a publisher in the next year or so. Mama C and the Boys in book form.
c) something other?
Would love your thoughts, as I honker down for the winter, and focus very intentionally on one major writing project, instead of many little ones. It’s time.
I have two new pieces in print this month. One is my piece “You are not my real mom.” in The Adoption Constellation magazine, and the other is the poem “All gone now” in Hip Mama magazine. I am clearly able and drawn to both types of writing. At the workshop last month, I grabbed the stage and read two poems, that fit each event on each day. The response was magical to say the least. That moved me. What says you? Comment here, or off line, but please let me know. It will help me decide.
Why do you have to choose? A memoir can be all three, well done. I’d love a memoir with stories/essays, poems and photos!
I was about to write something similar to Cathy.
I like the idea of a memoir, but with the poetry telling part of the story. Both is my vote!
I would definitely read both, but I love to hear what motivates, drives, and encourages people in their decisions. I would love to read the story of You!
Yes to all of it! A resounding yes!!!
I agree with Cathy and Catherine and I’m going to say that my vote is for a hybrid C – a book of short pieces, the easiest way to convert your blog pieces into book form, self-published (probably print on demand) and sold from the website – a different less linear and more eclectic way of presenting Mama C and the Boys in hard copy. I guess I’d like to see The Best of Mama C and the Boys – an anthology of sorts, an edited selection of the short works you think would work best in print – but of course you could include new things too, the pieces you always meant to write but didn’t have a chance to finish and/or post. When you proposed a memoir as option B, I guessed that you meant something long form and it’s hard to imagine the transition. I like your poetry and photos and would like those included with the prose, and they all seem like complementary creative forms that tell your story from different “angles”, in bits and pieces and captured at different moments in time. Creative non-fiction and poetry have a lot in common; you’ve got a ton of material already; but this project would make it “new.” The work would be in pulling all this material together into a cohesive whole and arranging it in a way that makes the most of the print form and makes sense to those of us who’ve been following your blog and those who don’t know your family’s story yet.
Yes, can we get a B and then an A. Or maybe an A, while you’re working on getting B published?? =).
I’m with Barbara, Lesia & the rest. I just want to read it…
I want you to do whatever is best for you and your writing.
Go multi-genre….why not poems in a memoir? It’s funny, for me sometimes work morphs…my first picture book started out as a chapter book. It will find its form. Go Catherine!
Your writing is so powerful—-I’m happy to see this post. I think you should do whichever would be the most personally rewarding. I’m sure a longer book is a ton of work, but it seems there isn’t any hard work you can’t handle. Why not write the book and introduce each section with a creative piece.
Love from your admiring niece