I announced to my friends on Facebook that I am going to finish my memoir and submit it in a contest for a publishing contract. I registered for a New York City conference in October to get information about the process for submission and all the "how-to's". Most recently I received another email from the same publisher to submit my memoir by September 27th for a $5,000 advance and a different contract opportunity.
I just realized this morning I've been writing the wrong memoir! Now I have to start over. Can I get it done on time?
I'm sure I am not the only writer to ask, "Who would read a book about MY life? What makes my story unique?" Well, I certainly have lived a very interesting life, but I have not been able to come up with a tag to make marketing my memoir unique. In all my research about what memoirs are being published, there is always a life-defining moment the authors are relaying: overcoming abuse, disease or something else. The story I have been writing is all over the map; the entirety of my life. While I can certainly relay some very interesting moments, and very likely will some day, my first memoir requires a challenge I have met and grown from to attract a publisher.
I have been in complete denial about the most important, socially relevant part of it: I was an unwed mother in 1969-70! I just realized I have been discounting just how big a deal that is. This fact alone will make my memoir marketable and interesting, even though single parenting is now a pretty common-place life event, especially since Hollywood jumped on board. But, it also means I have to go back to "square one".
Wish me luck. I now have to wrestle the demons I have been denying all these years. My son was a Gift, it's "the squirrels in my head" that now have to come out. Oh boy.
Here is the song I sang to Chris during his infancy. It made me cry every time.
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