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Young Writers Society


july 2021: alliyah's memoir project



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Wed Jun 23, 2021 3:00 pm
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alliyah says...



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~rivers can be bridges or gates sealed tight
in the same way roots are anchors or chains
bound to veins & after all this time building boats
& watering seeds one has to wonder who isn't letting go?~


Goals - 500 words a day / 15,000 words total: hopefully including 3 scenes + 3 related poems

> I also don't actually know if 500 words is too many / too few ~ so may adjust half-way through; we'll see! Last time I "attempted" nano I tried 250 words a day and failed miserably - but also that was poetry so was pretty challenging to meet that word count. Mainly I'd just be thrilled to have 3 unpolished scenes and 3 poems by the end of July. ... and if all else fails maybe I'll just do some river photography and call that poetry? to be determined.

Premise - In college I took a memoir writing / reading course, and I think about my writing for it very often. I feel like the memoir writing I did in college has honed some themes that have become prevalent in my writing (& especially my poetry) and enabled me to bring in some sense of symbolism and "greater meaning" from my life story. It should be said that memoir writing isn't just autobiography or diary writing ~ there's ideally a sense of real "story" with even plot, conflict, and resolution / meaning / recurring motifs / symbolism / characterization etc.

I've been pretty interested in creative semi-biographical historical writing (isn't that a mouthful?) & other forms of creative nonfiction recently in relation to my family-history and ancestry research, and I imagine that my writing for this project will be useful for that project as well ... whatever it turns into, which in addition to the chapbook component is becoming a mixed-media project in the worst and best ways. You can read more in my writers corner thread about that project .

Some of the "life story" themes I want to cover for this July memoir writing are surrounding moving, transit, family & spiritual revelation. And I think it'll be a perfect opportunity to spend some time thinking through my experiences of moving because I'll actually be at home for July for the first time since December 2019! Probably understandably, because most of the writing will be more for personal usage and perhaps future poetry-inspo, I don't anticipate posting any of it on YWS, but I'd like to do three poems on the same themes in addition to the memoir writing so maybe I'll post those! And will try to post some updates along the way too!

Outline - ("Scene" ideas I could cover)

> Moving 2004 (west-bound)
> Moving 2019 (east-bound)
> Moving 2020 (south-bound)
> Moving 2021 (north-bound; home-bound)
> Pilgrimage to Ancestral Homesites + Grave Searching
> Airplanes + Un-homecoming
> Un-naming + Forged Baptismal Records
> Planetary Convergence + Star Watching
> House-cleaning + Mourning
> River Musings + Drowning Thoughts
> Losing Family Pictures
> Housefire
> Coal Mining
> Being Stranded
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Sat Jun 26, 2021 5:35 pm
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Carlito says...



WELCOME POET WE'RE HAPPY TO HAVE YOU!!

I love a memoir and this idea sounds really cool!! I love the idea of incorporating some prose and some poetry and using it as a way to potentially fuel some future poetry (like the reverse of what I was trying to get out of NaPo!)

Looking forward to following along! You got this 💜💜
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Thu Jul 01, 2021 2:10 am
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Liminality says...



Memoir-writing! @_@ This sounds like a really cool project, @alliyah. I wish you the best of luck with it!
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Thu Jul 01, 2021 2:55 am
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alliyah says...



@Carlito & @Liminality thank you so much!! :) I'm excited to get started! :) Thanks for the well-wishes (& good luck in your own projects as well!)
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Thu Jul 01, 2021 7:48 am
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Omni says...



alliyah this is such a cool concept! I'm am so excited to see you dip your toes into the world of prose (we also welcome you to the world of rp XD) and what a unique way to do so. 500 words a day is impressive and achievable! I can't wait to see your progress on this.
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Thu Jul 08, 2021 1:49 am
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alliyah says...



Hey thank you @Vincian!

I shall document that I do have 250 words written so far! :D and a fair bit of planning / brainstorming on what aspects of a few scenes I'd like to capture. But the first week I was moving / getting settled back into home so I'm hoping I can catch back up now!
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Mon Jul 19, 2021 3:46 am
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alliyah says...



Progress is abysmal as far as word count, so I'm actually not going to share what number I'm up to right now! <.< I write prose at the same pace that I write poetry it turns out ~ but that's okay, it's kind of fun to take my time with this.

On the other-hand, I've been really wanting to try this type of collage-poetry hybrid thing, and it's still a fresh form for me, but I really like how things turned out and would consider this an abstract memoir of sorts I suppose as well. :)

Here's just a blurry image - but you can check out the individual ones in my art thread.

Image
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  








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