A Mekeo/Australian girl’s daily and remembered life

I’ve been collecting my life story blogs into a memoir. Today I was so excited  because that collection hit 75,000 words.

This is how I presently describe the book: exploring landscapes, dreamscapes, writing scapes, and the getting of wisdom from Tasmania to Queensland: a Mekeo/Australian girl’s daily and remembered life.

The book has shown me how much my blog has focused me into the daily task of writing and contributed to the creation of many works that I can now polish.

My major preoccupations have been growing up in Tasmania as a second generation migrant, the process of writing, gaining wisdom from life experiences, the making of identity, experiencing Queensland and moments of epiphany that sometimes appear like side tracks in life, but where understanding of the world become clearer.

Some of the stories in my collection include: how my Mum and Dad met, meeting an anthropologist studying my Mum’s village in Papua New Guinea, experiencing the night of Cyclone Yasi, being a community journalist charting the recovery process after a natural disaster, the experience of racism, belonging and acceptance, school, writing groups, how my family coped with my brother becoming brain damaged after being knocked off his bike, the loss of another brother who had many problems and died in his thirties, the joys and challenges of motherhood and the exploration of what makes identity in terms of – place, spirit, culture, religion, upbringing.

Music, art, photography, writing, creativity all weave their way through the many stories. It pays tribute to many inspiring friends and people met in my family’s life journey.

My present challenge is do I leave it as a collection of stories and poems that I connect with newly written stories or newly written passages in the stories already there, or do I now use it to inspire a memoir written in a more traditional way.

Now it’s time for me to read a lot of memoirs and think about what makes someone want to read a life story.

If you have any suggestions of great ones to read let me know.

I am really interested in  – What makes you read a memoir or a collection of related short stories?