Memoirs, Anne Lamott, and Querying an Article about Infertility

I’d like to write a memoir. But as with many things, it may never get done because I fear that I am not funny or interesting enough. Regardless, I have a memory book and I’m trying to record all of my memories. Especially those of my father, which are fading. I am bummed that many of my happy memories are gone replaced with such stupidness as the Korean lyrics to “Gangnam Style.”

I have many—and I’m talking 10 or more—journals or diaries, whatever you want to call them, that have recorded memories over the course of my lifetime since I was 10. Of course, I didn’t record all the major events. (I don’t know that I recorded when I found out my dad died or when I got married.) I just recorded all the mundane things about life.

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I’m reading books by Anne Lamott who is obviously a progressive, liberal Democrat. (She is a native Californian after all.) What that has to do with anything, I’m not sure but it comes through in her writing in Grace (Eventually). And I only wish that I had half the wit and talent in my whole body that Ms. Lamott has in her pinkie finger. I know she’ll tell me it’s work. I am reading her work on writing called Bird by Bird. Ms. Lamott has quite the way with words and metaphors that I can sit here forever and hope to come up with. But no, I’m more like James Patterson in my writing: just the bare bones “facts, ma’am.” I have a “voice”; I just don’t know what it is.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about writing an article on infertility from a Christian perspective for various websites. I’m three years into this infertility journey, certainly not as long as many people that I’ve encountered, but it’s long enough to understand the ins and outs of the process. I can talk about my experience, my husband’s experience, and our unique journey together. At this point, it’s a matter of getting myself together and overcoming that initial rejection that comes with the query process.