IWSG #3 ~ August 2012

July has been really great for my writing! I knew that if I promised in my last IWSG post to have progress to report to everyone, then I would hold myself accountable and actually start writing instead of just talking about writing!  And that's just what I did. :)

First of all, I went out and bought a notebook to write my book in. You might wonder why I didn't just start typing on my laptop. Well, I decided I want to be able to write anytime, anywhere. I love writing with a pen in a notebook and seeing everything I've written at once. To me, there's nothing like looking at a page in a notebook; the endless possibilities positively overwhelm me. I relish that feeling, whether the page is filled up with my words or even blank, doesn't matter. Besides, I look at enough screens during the day between TV, my Kindle, and my iPod. I do spend time on the computer everyday, too--reading and commenting on blogs, keeping up with friends and family on Facebook and Goodreads. :) I feel like cutting down on some screen time right now and will type it up once I finish handwriting it.

I want to explain more about what it is that I'm working on. I was twelve years old and nearing the end of seventh grade when we found out my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. Shortly after I turned fourteen and two weeks before my first day of high school as a freshman, my mom lost her battle. She had just turned forty.

Before all of this happened, my grandpa, her dad, was diagnosed with the same type of brain cancer when I was nine, and I was eleven when he lost his battle. My other grandpa, my dad's dad, died just two months later (not from any type of cancer). To sum it all up, I lost both of my grandpas and my mom within three years. That was a lot of grief for all of us to handle. This period of time is my focus, but as you can imagine, a lot of grief has spilled over into my adulthood affecting me still to this day and especially when I became a mother myself.         

It feels good just to get started. One day, I wrote thirteen pages and felt like hey, I'm going somewhere! The thing about writing my memoir, especially taking into account the subject matter is grief, is that it feels like going to counseling when I begin writing for the day. I don't want to face my emotions at first, but once I get into a groove, it's hard for me to stop writing. Afterwards, I feel a little lighter having faced some heavy emotional work.

By writing this book, I'm reliving some of the saddest parts of my life. From the moment I learned of my mom's diagnosis and the world as I knew it spun out of control, the words for this book began forming in my mind, biding their time to come out someday. And that someday is here at last! <3