Process: Building Off Memory for Fiction

By writing scenes based on memories I aim to capture an elusive something.

• A meaning, a purpose for going through it all. 
• The essence of the difficulty and the consequential growth. 
• The patterns that still haunt my present life, so I can change it. 
• Something to share to prevent distress for others in similar situations. 
• A healing, a closure.

This is a lot to ask of a jumble of rapidly fading memories.

There are so many emotions that pit the lifetime of a sensitive person like me, and so much to write about. 

But where does the story begin? And where does it end? Real life exists on a continuum that does neither besides birth and death. 

That’s a much longer story. I find that a year can expand over hundreds of pages. I certainly have the notebooks to prove it.

Since November I have been chaining memories down, circling around a plot I have constructed out of wisps of nothing, a thread of feeling.

The past resurrected. I open the closets I fear, though often I find the contents more palatable than expected.

And now I come to the crux of the matter. The heartbreak. As I mentioned in How I Became a Witch and a Writer, once upon a time there was a particularly hard year for me.

I managed to keep the house of cards up until I met one very particular person. Not such a great person, but I was heart deep by the time I found that out. And angry. 

“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” William Congreve

As a woman scorned I have burned the hottest anger in my life. I have the emails, I know what I said, what I thought. Words sent that I never thought I could direct towards anyone. Not gentle spirit me.

When I’m mad like that, I’m a bitch. I’m not classy and cool. I know it when I read the words, and I war with myself. He deserved it, I deserved better. But my heated behavior didn’t demonstrate any superiority. 

And even when I directed all that anger at someone who wronged me so, even if I could rationalize that to myself—what I really didn’t deserve was my attachment to the situation. To step into the role of the angry scorned woman. It brought me no happiness.

When I cooled I realized the best way to step above is to move on, not waste my time.

I’m not perfect. And in my worst hours, I have done things I regret now. 

But hot damn did I express myself. I laid my soul open.

On one side of the coin is deep love, and on the other is real heartbreak. 

It’s real. It hurts. It moves. It disturbs. It’s terrifying. And it makes people do stupid things.

And that’s life.

Without those scenes, there’s no book.