Category: Memoir

Daily Prompt Nov 17th

by Suzanne Horrocks Wellness, posted in Gratitude, Healthy Lifestyle, Memoir, Small Joys, Writing

What is your favorite place to go in your city?

Excellent question!

My favorite place to go in my small town (rural north east Missouri) is the Mississippi River front. There’s a huge parking lot, a boat ramp, and an area with shade trees and picnic tables. (Also easy parking there.) There’s even two gazebos, perfect for chatting, storytelling, socializing, etc.

We enjoy stopping by there to see the moon rise over the water, and watching birds and barge traffic.

It’s easy to see the river as a support system for nature, i.e. plants and animals. Especially trees. The driftwood is amazing!

It’s also easy to see the transportation route the river creates. There’s train tracks running along, and across, it. The barge traffic also showcases the trade route.

I love imagining the original people of the area using canoes or handmade rafts to visit and trade with family, friends, and community members.

The Mississippi River front park is my favorite place to go in my small town.

Down a rabbit hole again

by Suzanne Horrocks Wellness, posted in Growth & Expansion, Memoir, Writing
Hello. I am Suzanne Horrocks

I am finally writing a memoir!!

It’s about a widow (me) determined to get through the grief process with her mental health intact.

I haven’t written a book before and am finding it quite difficult. I see why it’s called a craft. It’s takes a lot of trial and error to “craft” a good sentence, paragraph, or chapter.

I finally created an outline that feels right. One of the chapters is about selling our house.

It’s the first chapter I have really started digging in to and DAMN it’s hard!!

I knew it was going to be therapeutic for me to write it. But trying to keep a reader in mind or to keep the story flowing takes a lot more work than what you see in a book.

I’m going into some rather deep rabbit holes. For one, because the hole opens and I dive right in. I do that because writing this memoir is as much for me as it is for the readers.

So anyway, the advice I have heard says 30,000 to 40,000 words is a good size. With ten chapters, that’s 4,000 words each. I have ten chapters in my outline. I’m going for 4,000 words each.

I hand wrote most of this chapter first.

Then I typed the notes in to a computer file. The word count was just over 2,000 and I have only written about packing up the house. So, yay!!!!

Now I’m beginning to write about the real estate agent and the whole process I went through. I plunged head first into a rabbit hole about judgement, self confidence, and creativity. One just lead seamlessly into the next.

I can see why writing a memoir is therapeutic!! I’m diving deep. Or am I procrastinating? Ohhhhh, another rabbit hole I can distract myself with.

Ok now. I’m going back to the chapter. Thank you for reading this.

A pretty picture for no real reason.