Thinking about writing

It's National Novel Writing Month, and I have thought about doing this every single year for the last four.
I have yet to do it.
I still won't be doing it because I wrote just over 2000 words today and realized midway through that I was actually writing two different things. This is the trouble I run into. I have such a hard time making myself plow through things, just to get to an end.

Now, what I think I have, is actually two essays about me. One essay will be about girlhood and womanhood, and the complicated relationship I have had/continue to have with both. I have gone from being a girl who spent time stuffing her hair under her hat and trying to imagine herself as a boy to being a woman who takes great delight in her body (most of the time). That's a heck of a trip.

The other, which I initially thought was sort of the same topic, covers sexuality: the good, the bad and the ugly. I hate thinking about it, but that is why I have to write about it. It shouldn't be over thought. My secularism wars with my Lutheran upbringing wars with my intermittent paganism and I have a knot as I relate to this thing that should really just be an "in the moment expression". (Thank you Miss Cortez.)

As I started thinking about these things and really turning them into more than the half-finished stuff of a blog draft, I began to think about what we learned about memoir in class last night. To write memoir, you really have to make your struggles and what you have learned available to others. You have to begin with memory (reflection), move on to processing these memories, and then connect the dots, braiding all the pieces together. This is not necessarily to mean that something deep and mighty must be delivered in the process, but there needs to be a real heartbeat to this material that makes it as much "large story" as a personal story.

The other bit, which seems obvious, but somehow wasn't, was how much I have to work to say enough. I know the stuff that happened, but no one else does. It's just like writing a novel.
If I am going to write about my struggles with femininity, I have to settle this firmly in a context of time and place--my immediate role models (the women actually in my life) as well as the imaginary role models. Some things will, of course, speak for themselves. I imagine that the hugeness of difference between the girl who showered in the dark and the woman who wants to dance for crowds is readily apparent.

So, I'm not writing a novel this month. I'm probably not even writing a memoir this month, but I do intend to write three (one for class) really strong essays and throw them at some publication or another...even Hamline's grad school mag.

Wish me luck!