Vegas, baby!

Some free-wheeling free-writing in solidarity

Good morning from scenic Las Vegas! I am currently on the Wednesday morning write-in for the 100 Rejections Club. There’s something hard about writing while on vacation.

I’m here, trying to put in my time, but distracted by my surroundings. The New York-New York rollercoaster is outside my window, which my husband remembers not-so-fondly as that rollercoaster I made him go on after we got married. I can see the Excalibur where knights and video games await. Twenty floors below is the casino. I am here spending time with my dad, his new wife, and his late wife’s sister and her husband. Modern family indeed.

The memoir in a year workshop I’ve been participating in is coming to a close. We’re in the workshopping phase, sharing the first 50 pages of what we’ve written this past year. Writing our truth is such an intimate act. We share details about our most private selves in a private setting — at our desk, in our homes, straight from our heads into some written form—and then we launch it out into the world like a bath bomb, the fragrance of those stories lingering.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about how much is ours to share. Who’s story is it, anyway? During the course of writing my book I’ve discovered things that I’m not sure belong in the world, let alone my story. I’ve also been thinking about what parts of my story actually belong in this book, versus another future as-yet-unwritten book. How to sort and make a load. Bookmaking as laundry. As cleansing.

Family is at the core of my stories. Vacation is about turning off the critical part of the brain and just enjoying ourself sans planning. I’m going to sign off now because I have a date with myself to more stories.