I have never been good with my hands. It’s the cerebral palsy. There is no middle ground, for me, between the over-hard, stress-red clench of a pen and a tentative, trembling touch. So that I do not shake, I type too loud, and draw too… Read More
All posts tagged “writing”
Taking a Stab at “Starting from Solitude” (An Exercise for Memoirists)
This week, I shared a writing exercise with my writer’s group. It’s called “Starting from Solitude,” and it was developed by Richard Hoffman. It’s intended for memoir writing, and it’s unique in that it organically gets the writer back into her own head at a… Read More
Where Your Story Ends: Finding Memoir’s Fault Lines in MacIlvey’s Trapped
(IMAGE CREDIT: Marco Michelini via FREEIMAGES.COM) At a red light, once upon an icy evening, Mom and I watched as a woman on a motorcycle tipped over. The immediate fear, of course, was that she was hurt – if not from the bike falling on… Read More
What’s Funny: On Falling Down, Etcetera
On Wednesday, I started reading The Fall by Diogo Mainardi, a memoir about fathering a boy who falls down a lot because he has cerebral palsy. I have cerebral palsy, too. That’s why it’s on my reading list. On that same Wednesday, I fell. And… Read More
Scene and Theme in Before the Door Closes
I’m glad I read Before the Door Closes (by Judith Hall Simon) directly after Keeping My Balance. This, after that, reminds me that good writing is not so simple as replacing summary with scene, always; rather, good writing has both in moderation. If writing were as simple… Read More
Keeping My Balance: A Technically-Written Memoir, Imperfect and Important
Keeping My Balance is a unique memoir, because Stephanie Torreno’s life flies in the face of our stereotypical assumptions about disability. Torreno’s cerebral palsy is so severe that she cannot write without someone taping down the paper, cannot type except with a single thumb, cannot walk… Read More
For a Narrator with No Positive Role Models, Augusten Burroughs Sets a Good (Writing) Example
Running With Scissors is the memoir of a child who is neglected at best and endangered at worst, written by Augusten Burroughs. Living with his mother’s psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (who has no business tending to the mental illness of others), Burroughs loses his innocence as well… Read More
Perspective Shifts in Lucy Grealy’s “Autobiography of a Face”
Reading Autobiography of a Face was much different than reading Karen, and not just because Lucy Grealy (its writer) dealt with Ewing’s sarcoma (cancer of the jaw) instead of cerebral palsy. As I read I focused on the opposite trajectory and mood of the narratives. Karen takes place… Read More
Cerebral Palsy Since Karen and Killilea: The Luxuries of Help and Atheism
Step one in writing about my own childhood with spastic cerebral palsy has been to read Karen, by Marie Killilea – a book about another cerebral palsied kiddo, written by her mother. I thought it’d be smart to get a parent’s perspective. What I didn’t… Read More
For Myself-Doubt
Repeat after me: I don’t think I know what I am doing. I only know what I think I’m doing. Yet, I must act. I must. When I choose a course of action, the idea is not to avoid failure. I am going to fail… Read More