epilepsy dad

Tag: memoir

  • Spikes on the Seismograph

    Spikes on the Seismograph

    I got feedback from the editor a few weeks ago.

    The notes were better than I expected. The voice is working. He found no places where it breaks. He called it a strong draft and said he didn’t have a long list of major overhauls. For a first editorial assessment on a memoir I wrote alone over several years, that landed well.

    But one note stayed with me.

    The arc flattens in the back half. The first seventy or eighty pages have urgency and momentum. After the new normal is established, readers lose the driving question. He wanted to feel spikes on the seismograph. Major moments, framed with more intention, so readers stay invested.

    I knew exactly what he meant. I’ve been reading spikes on a graph for twelve years. Just not a seismograph.

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  • I Wrote a Thing

    I Wrote a Thing

    I typed the last word sometime in the spring. I closed the laptop and sat there for a minute.

    That was it. Twelve years. Fifty-nine chapters. Done.

    I didn’t know what to do next.

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