My Family Orchard

This weekend I am throwing an engagement party for a very close friend and her fiancé. The party is going to have a “family past & present” theme. This has encouraged me to explore the deeply personal and yet expansive feeling of family. A family “tree” doesn’t truly describe our emotional family, just the ties we have through genetics, birth certificates, and marriage licenses. 

I like the image of a family ”orchard” instead. In my mind’s eye there is an orchard and anyone I wish to include can have a tree. My friend and her fiancé have a beautiful tree whose branches stretch out to touch the other trees. Our son and oldest daughter have begun their own trees, starting their own families. We look forward one day to branches on each of their trees containing grandchildren. One day those grandchildren will have their own trees… my orchard will eventually be very large.

In my mind’s eye, my personal tree contains my husband, our youngest daughter and myself. Eventually my daughter will start her own tree. Various friends and blood relations who are family of my heart have trees scattered throughout the virtual orchard. Through it all, the trees grow straight and tall, branching out to touch each other and remain a part of the whole.

It sounds like a very utopian view of family, I know. So sue me. It is my mind, not yours. Create your own view of family. I just hope it is expansive enough to include the people who are family in your heart, not solely through your genes.

Why Don't I Write?

I am beginning 2012 with big intentions: lose weight and write more. The first is going to be covered by a structured diet plan. The second is in need of a plan as well: this blog is intended to document and follow my plan’s progress. 

It seemed a good idea to begin my writing plan by musing on the reasons I haven’t been writing. Scratch that. I have been writing incessantly via email, text and Facebook. That is not the kind of writing I am talking about. I am talking about creative writing.

There are a lot of reasons not to write but when they are all sifted through and boiled down, it is really about causing pain to other people. Any fiction that is truly interesting to read has some serious truth in it. Characters are based on portions of real people, plots and scenes are inspired by true events. These people and events have been changed and twisted into something new to serve the story but people known to the author can still identify bits and pieces, assume the rest is the writer’s true memory or thoughts on actual events. Pain and confusion can result.

For the non-writer I should point out that I truly mean every single piece of decent fiction has some basis in reality. I can almost guarantee you that whoever wrote King Kong did have a real life inspiration for that giant ape. By the time it got to the screen I’m sure whoever or whatever inspired it had been changed until it was unrecognizable to any but the writer. The truth was still there, for all it had been disguised.

More amateurish writers, by this I mean me, aren’t as good at hiding the origins. Plus, I don’t write about giant apes or speedy spaceships – just little girls with big eyes and women with coffee addictions. It is pretty obvious to some who I am writing about, even if motives, actions and endings are changed in pursuit of the story.

I read a comment by a famous, now deceased, male author which basically said all is fair when you are the author: other people need to get over themselves. A comment by an almost equally famous, still living, female writer disagreed. She said that if a character based on a friend will cause pain or strife in her relationships, she will change the character and the story: a story idea is not worth a friendship. And I remember Anne Lamont’s words of wisdom which basically said you own your life and other people own theirs. I took from this that if someone disagreed with you, they could write their own version of events. She did give an example of a student writer who had turned an abusive grandmother into something disguised so that only the author really knew the inspiration.

So I begin 2012 with the same reservations about writing that I’ve always had. It appears that famous, successful authors have been able to make peace with the process. Perhaps one day I will make my own peace with it. In the meantime, I will put words to paper in an honest way. In order to write well I may have to bleed on the page ala Hemmingway but there is no law requiring me to share the stains if I choose not to.

Wish me luck.