I was up late last night and decided to read through some of the stories that I have written. Some became many and soon I noticed an underlying theme, as a character I always come out the victim of life or circumstance.
This theme is based on a belief inadvertently imposed upon my young mind somewhere between birth and age five. The belief is that females are the weaker gender. Though I don’t believe that to be true it seems as though a majority of my writing puts this belief across to the reader.
It is easy enough to do, our parents are handed beliefs at birth, as were their parents and so on. We are spoon-fed these, though deep down we may not believe them, yet in reality we might be portraying that we do.
Personally, I believe I have subconsciously done this as a way of keeping my place in the family immortalized as others see me, or are supposed to see me. This action is unfair to me as a human being, and to my readers. My writing loses its authenticity because it is not mine, it is me regurgitating someone else’s perception of me as a person. This would be the exact opposite of what memoir writing is all about.
My task now is to examine, I mean really tear down, every story and be sure that I am doing my life a good turn by writing in my own words and spending less time worrying about how others have perceived me.
I challenge you to do the same, to really notice your underlying theme, to be true to yourself, to respect yourself, and write the way it is, rather than the way it is supposed to be.
Beyond Your Memories 