The Blindman Book. I had to stop it for awhile. I believe it is mostly written, but saved by topic and event and not in chronological order. I wrote feverently as memories came back. The writing is good, in my opinion, but the chapters are not in order. Reading each chapter to insert it in the proper place in the kdp format is difficult.
I figured out another way. Chapters are saved by topic or event. Sometimes I wrote about the same event more than one time. Shall I read, read, read about the same thing to decide which one sounds best? Do I want to go crazy? No. I’ll just put them all in the format and when I get what I think is the whole book together in chronological order, I’ll go back and read a chapter a day. I’ll tell myself this is the LAST time I read about this stuff. I’ll choose the best written description of each event and that will be the chapter for that.
How long have I written this book? What is 1995 taken away from 2022. Twenty-Seven years. I have quit writing about it. I’ve tried to quit thinking about it. Sometimes a trigger will set me off, but mostly I am ok. Doctors say I have PTSD. Shall I go to the post office and try to find a friend? (Remember the “going postal” era?) Trying to joke to deflect the emotions.
Ok. So if this book isn’t completely written by now (you should see the folder of chapters/events I’ve written. So many saved chapters.) I will have to write whatever is lacking. I doubt there is anything.
So I am looking at the kdp format and what I’ve put in the book so far. I don’t have to set it up perfectly. I can look at what’s there and remember what went in between or after or before and look under that topic and read the first line of the first paragraph and the last line of the last paragraph and find where it goes. I can do it that way. If I’m fast and don’t linger and don’t read everything at once.
Ok. Then what? Then when it is all together, I will read one chapter a day. Edit. Revise. Done. Never to see again.
My kids have asked me to publish this book. They know what it’s about, although I don’t know if they have read any of it. I cannot be a Prince in my own country. My kids probably read less of things I write than anyone else does. I guess they already know? Who knows? I will order, inscribe and leave behind each of my books for them and maybe when I’m gone, because I do have a “voice’. Authors have a voice, and mine, I’ve been told, is developed. Maybe they will want to read them then.
I wrote a book to each child when I was pregnant with him/her. Recently one of them said his book meant more to me than to him because he didn’t share the memories. “But look at this”, I told him as I held up the Palm Sunday cross that I had taped into his book. This was from the day you were baptized. (Ok, so I wrote while I was pregnant and after the child was born until I ran out of pages.) The frond seemed to be no big deal to him. It may be in the future. Who knows? The book will go into the container I am making for each child. Maybe it will mean something when I’m gone? Who knows? I would have enjoyed reading a book my mother wrote to me when I was still in the womb. I guess I’m sentimental.
Constance As A Writer 