THERE IS A STORY IN YOU (THE MEMOIR)

LAST Friday afternoon, I went to visit my step-mum and pass on some Wallisian necklaces to my sister who has been nagging me about them for the last few months.

While there, I had a conversation with another mother who was there (whom I shall refer to as an aunt).

The aunt is in her late 50s, and is a reader – she loves books. As we were discussing books, I mentioned something about writing.

I told her that my interest is to get other people interested in writing – as in writing their own story.

I told her, as I have told others so many times, IN EACH PERSON, THERE IS A STORY, THERE IS A BOOK.

Whether that story is told or not will very much depend on that person.

And the best way to tell that story is to write it and it was my wish to get many people to write their own – as in writing a MEMOIR.

Others will read a memoir and learn about life and the choices people make, as well the consequences that followed.

Good stories help you see how privileged you are regardless of where and when you were born – and it you were reading “the right way up”, you will learn to make better choices in life.

AB FACEY’S BOOK

I pointed to her that it is not too late to write stories. I gave the example of the story of Albert B Facey’s memoir, “A Fortunate Life” ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fortunate_Life

He wrote the book very late in life.

I got a copy of the book almost 20 years ago and read it.

I left it in the house and my father picked it up and read it.

When I came home one afternoon, I heard him urging all the young people in the house to read it.

So, the story touched him too!

THE STORY

AB Facey, the Aussie boy who grew up away from his mother and grandmother, faced many hardships in life.

But his voice in the story tells you that the hardships were “just part of life”.

Facey started working when he was eight and could not read and write.

While working for an employer, he was physically abused and escaped, walking for days to get away from the cruel master.

He later taught himself to read and write.

At 18, Facey became a professional boxer and even enlisted in the army and fought in the Gallipoli Campaign where he was injured.

It was the woman who became his wife who urged him to write his stories.

Facey, who was then in his 80s, wrote the stories in a number of exercise books and later had the notes typed up.

He had requested a printer to print 20 copies for his family and friends to read.

However, the printer saw the potential of commercial success and had it published in 1981.

The book became a bestseller, selling more than 800,000 copies.

Sadly, Facey died nine months after the publication of his memoir.

I TOLD THE AUNT

I told the aunt Facey’s story and said, we do not have to wait until we are 80 to start writing some part of our story.

We can start right now.

I told her also that if people are uncomfortable talking about themselves, they can turn their story into creative fiction, as in penning a novella or novel.

I told the aunt, we would continue the topic when I see her again.

May you learn too.   

Nov 18 … DO NOT COMPARE YOURSELF WITH YOUR PEERS … When trying to evaluate your skills and aptitude; do not compare yourself with your peers.

If you do, you will be lowering your standard. (Teach that to your children and younger siblings too!)

Find others out of your locality who are running at a much faster pace than your peers and join them in their race.

In doing so, you are already setting the pace for those in your locality. You are raising the benchmark.    

Nov 18 … HEAVY WRITING TAKING TOLL … For this writing project that I assigned to myself to do, on some nights the word count is about 2,000, at other times it is 1,500 or thereabouts.

(No, nobody’s paying me anything for this as yet.)

The heavy task is now taking its toll.

I just caught flu and had to rush off this afternoon to the other side of town to restock up my medicine chest.

Tonight, I will take it easy – just read and edit. May be there will be no writing as such.

Will I put down the pen in resignation, because I caught the flu?

No. I aim to get this thing completed – I will.

I am set – I am focused, I am moving, I will end next week, the last week in November.

REGISTRY TO EXPRESS CONDOLENCES FOR VICTIMS OF PARIS ATTACK

THE French Embassy will be opening a registry here in Port Moresby tomorrow (Nov 17) for those who would want to pass on their condolences, words of prayers or other messages of comfort to the families and friends of the victims of the attack in Paris on November 13. 

...

Personally, I was shocked to have learned on November 14 the tragic incidents of the night before.

It was a shock.

LESSON IN PROBABILITY AND LIFE …

IF you take one shot in the dark, there is a probability of you hitting the bull’s eye – like 1/1000 or 0.001, or even 1/1,000,000 (or 0.000001). But there is still a possibility of you hitting the bull’s eye.

Now if you do not take a shot in the dark, your probability is 0 (zero). That is, you have no chance of hitting the target.

And, if you keep on shooting in the dark, despite not getting expected outcomes, you are increasing your probabilities of hitting the bull’s eye.

Now for the good learner: If you heard one of your shots (in the dark) made a thud against the target board, then aim your shots in that direction and your probability of hitting the bull’s eye is further increased.

Now it is over to you.

Go and start shooting!

When you hear a thud, aim your shots in the direction and increase your chance of hitting the bull’s eye.       

PROBABILITY THEORY: In probability, the extremes are 0, signifying an IMPOSSIBILITY of an expected outcome, and 1 signifying CERTAINTY in an expected outcome.

A skilled marksman training his rifle on a target has about 0.95 (or 95%) chance of hitting it.

A rookie shooter may have 0.3 (or 30%), depending on his/her experiences in handing shooting weapons, as well as his/her hand-eye coordination abilities. 

NOTE: THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT SHOOTING A RIFLE OR FIREARM BUT ABOUT VENTURING OUT TO TRY SOMETHING NEW – AS IN TRYING YOUR HAND IN A BUSINESS VENTURE OR PRIVATE PROJECT. 

YOUR FIRST TRAVEL JOURNAL OR NOVELLA

THIS is a tip to help those of you who have been struggling to put out a longer piece of work – like a 20,000-word novella, or travel journal.

Here is the suggestion.

KEEP A JOURNAL

On your next two-week vacation trip to a city, or exotic spot, go with a big notebook, pen and camera.

Use the notebook as a journal and note down the things you SEE, HEAR, SMELL, TOUCH or EAT.

(Yes, that is right; a good writer is a keen observer and makes good use of the physical senses!)

At the end of each day, or early the next day, try to note the observations of the day and your thoughts.

Make a note of people you meet and sketches of them.

Write the date neatly at the top left hand corner of a new page for each day.

TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS

Each place you go to, take pictures.

If people are willing to pose in your photos, take shots of them too.

As a rule, take three shots per scene, in case one does not turn out to be good.

The photos can help you remember things and people you meet.

They can help you with descriptions of the site and environment: Where there coconut or mango trees in the background? Was the building you were standing next to blue or green in colour? How many children ran up to you and asked for their photos to be taken? How old/big were they? Where they neat in appearance or scruffy-looking?

Your photos will help you recollect details.

Photo: Youths of Wallis and Futuna perform an item during the closing ceremony of the 2013 Mini Pacific Games at Kafika Stadium, Wallis. The picture tells me a lot.

INTERVIEWS

Conduct interviews with locals and note what they say. (Or, make mental notes of things that people tell you, and later write them in your journal.)

Some of the locals would give you a lot of information which would later save you time to look up – or point you to sources you can get more information from.

At other times, some of the given information may not have been documented yet – it is new, fresh. 

WORD COUNT

If you put in the right amount of effort each day, it is likely that you can jot down 600 words on average, every day.

Later when you start typing notes into your laptop and taking the time to consult the dictionary and others sources, as well as restructuring sentences, you can really be looking at 700-1,000 words on average per day.

That means at the end of 14 days, you should have about 14,000 words.

The other 6,000 words can come from your preparations (the days, weeks and months before you actually took the trip). Even the wait at an airport can give your more things to write about if you ran into friends or a lone stranger from a European nation who was interested to share with you his/her experiences.

More information can also come from other sources you can consult to confirm details given you by locals.

Remember, what you write can help your readers know more about a place, so dig deep in your research and try to add sufficient background information to help your readers better understand the place and the things you have observed.

A TRAVEL JOURNAL OR NOVELLA?

Your work can be shared as a journal or entries of a travel blog. Alternatively, you can use the information as background information to do a creative fiction work, as in the form of a novella where a foreigner visiting that exotic spot and is stunned by the physical environment and customs of the people, as well as the friends made while there.    

OVER TO YOU

So, it is over to you now.

Plan for a trip to a place in PNG, or to one of our neighbouring Pacific Islands, and may that trip start you off on your first long piece of work.

Travelling to some is a good time to collect information for creative work.

Cheers.

A LONG SHORT STORY CAN BE LENGTHENED

I MAY have said this before, but I will say it again.

Many people see the attempt of writing a novel or novella as an impossibility.

However, if you have penned a long short story – say, 5,000 words long – then you can always lengthen that story and turn it into a novella.

A count of 5,000 words is one-sixth (1/6) of the way through completing a 30,000-word novella.

If you think about it, some of your shorts will be justified if you lengthen them.

Time – and a good eye and ear - can send along to you events that you can use to thread into the short story to turn it into a novella.

Keep looking and keep listening.

(Oh, do you listen?)

WHOLE LIFE – OR IN A YEAR

Some people prefer to write one novel in their whole life.

(Some plan to, but never do it)

If you really, and truly, want to become a writer, you should try to at least pen something lengthy once every year – a long short story, a novelette, novella or novel.

You might not complete all of them but at least you are pushing yourself to put “something heavy” out each year.

When you go “lucky” on one of those “heavy” projects (as when one is published), then you can go back to the others and nicely tidy them up.

So, in a lifetime, you can have more than one big work.

That, I think, should be the goal.  

NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH … NaNoWriMo …

A SPECIAL MONTH FOR WRITERS …

This is an edited version of something I wrote last year in November.

Last year, a female writer in England (whose blog I read) brought up this quite popular concept in certain parts of the world – NaNoWriMo – or, National Novel Writing Month, where writers are challenged to try to pen a novel in the month of November, one that is 50,000 words or more.

PUSHING YOURSELF TO GET A NOVEL DONE

The interesting thing about this is - it pushes the writer to put out something, a novel.

Whether the novel is taken on and published by a top publisher and makes the bestselling list of the New York Times is irrelevant.

(If it does, the writer will earn much more – and the fruit of that is the 30 days of work and sweat in that month.)

The exercise itself should bring out the best in a writer.

IF YOU CONTINUE PARTICIPATING IN NOVEMBER EACH YEAR

Think about it – if a writer challenges himself/herself every year, for five years, to participate in NaNoWriMo, s/he will have five manuscripts that s/he can try to sell to a publisher.

And if one or two of those are accepted by a prominent publisher, s/he can opt for a full-time writer’s job.

And if all things go well, in years to come, a filmmaker may even pay him/her for the movie rights to adapt the story for the screen.   

EVERYONE HAS A STORY

I have stated this for a long time now – each one of us at least one good story. It is about time that we get that story down in a novel or novella.