An ongoing series that focuses on how writing my autobiographical novel, Waking From Innocent Dreams, has changed me and helped me make sense of my past.
As I’ve started to tell people about my book, I’ve had to wrestle with how to describe it or classify it. While it is a personal story, I have fictionalized it in parts, so it’s not exactly a memoir. I describe it as an autobiographical novel, but how is that different from a memoir?
Something interesting happened a few months ago when I sat down to work on my book. After years of struggling, I felt like a "writer." I’ve realized that, when comes to identity, there is often a disconnect between the way others see us and the way we see ourselves.
As I’ve worked on my book, I’ve come to understand that spelling and grammar aren’t the same as writing. At the same time, I’ve gained a deep appreciation for the critical role they play in bringing a story to life.
For the majority of the time I spent working on my autobiographical novel, I never identified as a “writer.” In fact, I’ve had a somewhat contentious relationship with writing for most of my life. But writing the book has helped me overcome my weaknesses and has even led to a shift in my identity.
One of the most fascinating parts of Sebastian Junger’s fantastic book Tribeis when he describes how American Indian societies used rituals to help warriors deal with their traumatic wartime experiences. For me, these ceremonies hold the key to finding homecoming and belonging.
It’s easy to look at the celebrations at the end of stories and think they only exist to please the audience, but I’ve come to realize that these ceremonies serve a much deeper, and more important role in stories and our lives.
Just the other week I wrapped up coaching Ultimate Frisbee at a Beaver Country Day School. Coaching there is not only a lot of fun but is also deeply meaningful and plays a significant role in my book.
In my last post, I talked about selecting a Batman movie, The Dark Knight, as the masterwork for my autobiographical novel, Waking From Innocent Dreams. In this post, I will share a few ways that I incorporated this movie and the character of Batman into my book.
When my editor first suggested using a Batman film as my masterwork, I was intrigued but unsure how I could incorporate it into my work. After all, what does the caped crusader have in common with a journey about getting to know my biological family?
In the summer of 2019, when I started working with my editor, Rachelle Ramirez, one of our goals was to find a well-established novel, film, or any other story that I could use as a template to help ground my story.
Welcome to the first post in a series I’m calling "Beyond the Book," where I will give you a peak behind the curtain and provide you a window into my thought process of writing my autobiographical novel, Waking From Innocent Dreams.
