I hate my writing pieces being workshopped. That means, being in a writing group or class where you prepare a writing piece and then everybody else makes comments on it. Negative and Positive.
But I've found that going through the process and working on the identified problems really improves my writing. My finished piece is always much better. The+ comments identify weaknesses (large and small) that, as the author, I cannot see.
I would really like to establish or join a writing group where we would do this on an ongoing basis. I recognize that it needs to happen.
Even though it's relatively miserable at the time.
I'm taking a short (5 session) class from my Memoir teacher of last year which was run on the workshopping model. I had been working on my 'Sleeping Sickness' piece and I volunteered to go first. Which happened last night, My feeling, as always, was that its reception was mediocre. But, remember my theme for my live's activities as I crest 60 years old. 'I'm all about the arts and I will let my lack of talent stop me!'
The main criticism was
What is the point of this story and why does it matter?
I hate that but I need to face it.
Some interesting facets of this piece...
I didn't know the 'the facts' about the fate of Ruth Anderson when I started the piece. All I had was my assumption from 20 years ago based on one whispered remark from Cousin Alice and a chapter I had read in a library book about epidemics. That's it, nothing else, no supporting information, nothing from family members. But I was just so sure that I knew the answer.
For those unfamiliar with the story. My mother-in-law had said many times that she had no mother, her mother died when she was very little. Subsequently I found out that her mother had died when she was 21, not a baby. But nobody would talk, a forbidden subject. From the remark and the library book, I concluded that Ruth had been institutionalized as the result of Post-encephalitic Parkinson's from an epidemic of encephalitis lethargica that swept through the world in the 1920s.
That was all I had and, since I was very busy with 4 kids and a job at the time, I didn't take it any farther. I also didn't discuss it with anybody except my husband at the time. Because it was NOT TALKED ABOUT! But this explanation satisfied me.
I started the piece from a prompt from my Inner Circle writing group, Whispers. I started out the piece of elderly Cousin Alice whispering to me "Sleeping sickness, terrible, terrible". And I went from there.
But, at that time, I didn't know if my guess was right. Since I have some time and resources, I decided to look into Ruth's fate further. Resulting in my trip to the State Archives in Olympia with Ilana about a month ago and receiving the mostly undreadable hospital records from Western State.
When I went down to Olympia, I was aware that I might find out that I was completely off target in my assumption if I found anything at all.
But to my astonishment, I found out that I was right on! We found Ruth's entry in the Big Book of the Hospital for the Insane and the cause of death and the coding was of Post Encephalytic Psychosis and Parkinsonism. I was so amazed that I had called it on such sketchy (really non-existent) information. The hospital records detailed the early onset and the extent of debilitating disturbing mental health symptoms.
I completed the piece with the new information.
So is that the story?
Or the effect on Lanaya?
I did not include another disturbing dimension in my piece. The idea that the some of the mental health issues might have been independent of the encephalitis. My mother in law was terrified that she would 'go insane' like her mother. Late in her life, Lanaya, developed mental health symptoms including delusional thinking and hearing voices. Maybe, Ruth was mentally ill anyway and Lanaya inherited the tendency? That she really did 'go insane' like her mother.
I was struck last night by the comments of a class member how sad and distressing that Ruth was institutionalized and shunned when 'it wasn't her fault' as the symptoms were assumed to be a fallout of the encephalitis. I thought, so it would be 'her fault' if she was mentally ill for some other reason? Especially as I have my suspicions that the encephalitis was only part of the story.
This is still a good piece and I think that it has some future.
I also recognize that the workshopping is crucial. I have several pieces I have written since class ended in May and I need to go through the process with them.
Picture of Ruth Ate Anderson around age 3 (1903?) from the photo albums. Don't you just love the puppies? Those could be Staffordshire Terriers (now known as pit bulls) which were very popular at that time. They kind of look like Teddy as a puppy. Of course, I won't admit that Teddy being part pit bull.
Were those the photographer's puppies or the Ate families. And how could you get 4 puppies to sit still let alone the little girl.
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