Some may say it's a different genre

Morning darklings,

Have you heard of the term speculative memoir? For some reason, the words together drove me to do research, read essays and opinions on what the term means, what it all looks like.

Some say it’s straightforward memoir, with just letting all those maybe moments be reality. Maybe that flicker out of the corner of my eye was a ghost turns into a ghost settled in the corner of my room. But others take it further. They use their internal monologues, how they see and experience the world, and make it real. For instance, imagining one is elsewhere to avoid a conversation becomes wandering through a castle while a disembodied voice echoes off stone walls. And further still, some believe parts of the story can be fictionalized to focus more on examined and unexamined truths (a phrase that confounds when referring to a memoir, where that feels like a large point of the draw), rather than the events of their life.

I discussed a few newsletters ago how I view the topic of memoirs. I’ve seen them as investigations into moments in one’s life. When stories are being told, with no digging, no analyzing, no realizing, I see them as essays or creative non-fiction or memoir-lite. It’s not to be dismissive, but they are fundamentally different things in my mind: the life examined and the life retold, I went to the store because I wanted milk and I went to the store because I told myself I wanted milk, but I just needed space from my oppressive and toxic living situation. Neither are wrong, one isn’t better than the other, but they are different. One often more time and space to realize, to write, to develop.

So when speculative memoirs enter the chat, my brain explodes. It seems unreal, like two genres that, if combined, should be still a memoir—a memoir with moments of exploration or dreams or whatever, but still a memoir. To change so much in order to make something speculative is strange to me, takes it away from being a true memoir. And I’m a person who loves words. We’ve been changing their meaning more often of late, and it’s A Lot for me. Maybe that is my… interesting brain.

By the definitions out there, my upcoming book might be considered a speculative memoir to some. Some parts of the story are fictionalized to focus on examined, fundamental truths, while others are just letting those maybe moments be reality, while the majority of it is the internal life experiences made real. Given the fictionalized story, I’m calling this magical realism.*

To start with, my parents are very much alive, which they are not for my main character. But the feelings of loss she experiences from that stemmed from the losses I experience regularly—from a new part of me not working as it should and a new baseline normal activity level to friendships dissolving because I’m disabled and new illnesses.

A lot of me is in this book. More so than most, really. But it is not a memoir,

I am not Joyce Morrow, just as I was not Elizabeth Dauphine or Kore Hockins or any other character I’ve written. But there is me in them. There is me in all of them. Most of them, it’s hard to detangle which moments are mine (if any), which traits are mine (or were at some point in my life), which people I knew, which opinions I hold (or held), which truths are mine, which feelings I’ve felt. That’s the point. I’m sprinkled in, I’m woven in, I’m a part of the fabric.But Joyce just has more me. Still, we are not the same. Her history is far from mine, and yet, there are moments that resemble moments from mine.

In a way, this book is a book of processing. Not just for me, but for the reader. To process grief and accept a new reality in a foreign body is complicated, hard, maddening, but it’s a necessary journey for so many of us. Eventually all of us, should we be blessed enough to make it old age. And now, you, dear darkling—should you choose to read it, will also go on that journey.

Though some may make a case for speculative memoir, I see too much of just Joyce there, too much of a character I stitched together from nothing and memories and thoughts and people I’ve known and people I’ve heard of and snatches of conversations and photos from Pinterest and probably some Hivemindedness and pure creativity, because creation is magic.

The idea of writing a memoir where I don’t hold back from my wandering self, where I let my reality as I truly experience it end up on the page alongside my history and the examination of moments and truths is compelling, though, to be sure. It’s not for now. It’s not for tomorrow. It’s for someday.

I’ll just give bits of myself to each character, as I always have until then. Some will be more me than others. Maybe, when my memoir comes out, someone will pick apart my books to point at the moments of me in them. Or maybe my memoir will collect internet dust. Or maybe it’ll remain unpublished on my computer. Who knows?

I’m working on living in today more. After all, I have too many projects to add another, let alone predict how it will be received.

*A NOTE: I went through a lot of emotional turmoil with the phrase magical realism. A while ago, I told you all I landed on the novella being fabulism. When I was looking up the term, it had more to do with fables and mythology than looking at realism through a magical lens, though. And that did not fit. I did a lot of research—a lot, a lot—and feel good about the declaration of magical realism. After all, it fits the book to a T.

one online event coming up

Want to see me chat about Joyce and other writerly things for a while? Watch my interview with A Bookish Moment on the 25th 1:30-2:00 PST / 4:30-5:00 PM EST

also

Speaking of Elizabeth Dauphine, I found a song that I think she might like: yeule — Pretty Bones. At the very least, she’d enjoy the extremely distressing video, filled with clawing and ripping fruit and rotting things. Sound interesting? Watch it on Youtube!

a lil board

Until next time, harness the Little darknesses and embrace the Little things.