Saturday, January 26, 2008 - Write Your “Memoir” Today!
So my brain is suddenly consumed with writing! I’ve never been diagnosed, but I think I have some sort of “obsessive-compulsive” disorder. I’m almost sure of it. In my younger days, I was obsessed with sports. I played everything you can imagine, all day. Basketball, baseball, softball, tennis, ping-pong, every form of football, dodge-ball, or “war-ball” as we called it in my neighborhood, soccer, swimming, golfing, and others I will probably remember later. You name it, I played it. If we had snow in Los Angeles, I probably would have been good with the stick! Heck, in the eight grade, I was even in the Bowling Club! My high score that year was 191. Not bad for a fourteen year old. Years later I broke the 200 mark by scoring 220. Not bad for not playing in years!
Towards my mid twenties and early thirties I got obsessed with endurance sports. I ran the “LA Marathon” and biked the “Rosarito/Ensenada 50-Mile Fun Bicycle” five times, biked the San Gabriel River Bike Path from El Monte to Seal Beach (60 miles total) at least four times, and actually finished a triathlon. During that time, I was also obsessed with skiing, going every winter to the local mountains. I actually never tried snowboarding, but I did go snowmobiling a couple of times.
Then in my mid to late thirties, I got obsessed with real estate. Not so much the making money part, even though it was very nice, but actually figuring out the different ways to make money in the business. From doing real estate sales, I became a mortgage loan consultant. During the mid to late nineties I worked for various Savings and Loan companies, mostly due to the fashionable “bank mergers” of the time. In 1999, I got my broker’s license and opened my own real state and loan company. I eventually become an “investor”, buying fixer-uppers and selling them for profit. I also became a “landlord”, owning as many as five four-unit apartments. I even dabbled in teaching real estate, (if you can call five years dabbling!) and would probably someday work in a teaching or training capacity.
In the midst of my real estate obsession, I also became obsessed with learning about my Catholic faith. I read the Bible and everything that has to do with, got very involved and even taught Confirmation for my local Catholic Church.
Yes, obsessive-compulsive, the very first time I heard that phrase, it sounded peculiar. Yes, I think that’s me!
Last year, in January of 2007, on one forgettable early morning, sitting in front of my computer, I started typing a story about a miracle drug that can cure the effects of biological warfare. Three hours of writing that felt like three minutes. I had a title, the main characters, a beginning, a middle, and an end. Eight pages of synopsis, twelve-font on single spacing, I had the idea for “The
Rub”! I even came up with chapter titles of the would-be fictional sci-fi thriller novel. At this moment I am still finding interesting plots to fill its “smart-sci-fi thriller” premise, and trying to finish reading my research books on biochemical warfare.
This was the genesis of my new obsession, writing. Soon to follow was the “calling” of writing the biography of my late grandmother, an unlicensed midwife who delivered thousands of children in my hometown of Manila, Philippines. The obsession takes me to interviewing my parents and my siblings, and a two-week trip to Manila, to do the majority of the research and to interview the countless “Children of Lucia”.
It just dawned on me that I remember writing a “real estate book/manual” that I had written while teaching the real estate and mortgage classes back in 2003. I mentioned it to some of the students and they were very encouraging. One even said, “I should get it published.” Maybe that was the seed?
I had put together a curriculum and gave out the manual, in a bound form. Many lessons were technical, but there were also various “inspirational” pieces that I included in it. One is a one-page list of quotes I called “Real Estatements”, which includes Bill Cosby’s quote “Humans are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home”. (I’ve always loved that). Another is an essay I wrote entitled “How To Make $100,000- Per Year!” Unfortunately, this one was more inspirational than technical.
So that’s another book idea. In the works!
Which brings me to my latest “memoir” idea. Most people with memoirs, published or not, write theirs on average at what age, seventy-five? In most cases, like 99.99%, it is ghost written by someone else! Let’s break the rule, shall we?
So here’s an idea I came up with. The goal is to write interesting, funny, intriguing, or even educational events or moments that’s happened in your life. That would comprise a memoir. The topic could be a small event that happened in one evening, or a major one that took place for two weeks! It really doesn’t matter, as long as it’s worth writing, and worth reading for others! Going on a tangent, or using personal, opinionated references is a great idea. That’s part of the fun! If you ever watch “Family Guy” on television, you’ll never remember which episode a “tangent” or “reference” belongs, because there are so many of them! It’s what makes it all interesting, and what makes “Family Guy” so funny! Kind of like…life, (just not as funny!)
The length of each one should be between 800 to1200 words (just a guideline). Write it as a blog, an article, an essay, whatever you want to call it, and post it on any of the billion blog-sites on the Internet. Make sure you also save them on your hard drive as well as an external drive, CD-RW or one of those memory sticks. (I’ve heard horror stories.) This process might take longer than the life of your computer. (I hope not.) The title has to be memorable, or at least clever, or maybe funny. If you can score a hat trick, good for you! It doesn’t matter how old you are. If you are ten, and you happen to want to write, have had many interesting memories (who am I to judge?), this is a great way to start, or get writing practice! The ultimate goal is to write about one hundred of these! (If I can finish a marathon, you can write a hundred of these!) Okay, if you get to seventy-five, and can’t come up with anymore, that’s ok. That amount of words will be good enough to publish! With an average of about a thousand words per article, that’s seventy-five thousand words. That’s called a book! You might self-publish them and hand them out to family and close friends! I have only completed about thirty of them, and my personal goal of one hundred by the end of this year (2008) seems very attainable, since I’ve been writing like mad! I also have a “topic ideas” page on my Word program, to write down the ideas as they come up in my brain, so I won’t forget! I have another twenty or so in that page. I would even suggest categorizing the stories. For example, Sports, Childhood, Lessons, Careers, Family, you get the point!
Around my fifteenth story, emailed a link of my site to some family and friends, and I got a very positive response from everyone, especially from my sister. She couldn’t believe that I’ve suddenly become a serious writer. After reading one of the stories in which she was mentioned, she commented by telling me, “I never saw it that way!”
That, my friends, is “the ultimate goal of a memoir…realized!”
And as far as my “obsessive-compulsive” disorder?
Nah, I’m pretty sure I’m normal.
Remember: “The lack of curiosity killed a cat of boredom.”
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