"What do you think your passions are? Don't think. Make a list. Now write for ten minutes, keep the hand going, what are your obsessions? Go."
Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away

Really good food made from scratch, writing random things, nature (especially trees), coffee, photography, art, birds, dogs, words, train rides, the fiddle, Beth Orton's voice, Andrew Bird's silly words.

I have an obsessive habit of picking at my fingernails; anything jagged must be smoothed out. I have inherited the need to be on time, which has lead to an undesired result of always being early. I hate clutter; I have tossed out all of my belongings at least a half of a dozen times. Oh, and there is healthy food; I read labels for unwanted dyes and unnatural ingredients.

Read.

I just finished Lucky, a book can alter your way of thinking, and Alice Sebold has done this twice for me.

"What is the third thing? There is you and there is writing. But you can't write about writing. It's ingrown. You and writing must gaze out at a third thing.
What is your third thing?"
Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away

Strangers, it has always been strangers. Ironically, I spend most of my days alone now, but I write about strangers. The ones that crossed my path at that need moment when I was lonely or just looking for a character to write about. The nice guy I shared a cab with because it was freezing rain and no cabs were in sight. And there was the time when I was fourteen and an acquaintance picked my up will I was walking alone at too late of an our in my hometown. Maybe he was the why I started trusting the power of strangers.

Noise: Write about something noisy.

My nighttime ritual has recently changed to creating a silent environment in the city. I put in orange squishy earplugs, I turn on a small fan, make sure the noise and light insulated curtain is fully closed, and the final armor is a pillow over my head. I am ready to battle the snores, trains, sirens, and garbage trucks, all of the things I have slept through for the last twenty years, it is my dreams that are noisy: I am being chased, I'm driving cars that are streaming downhill too fast, I am struggling from murders and rapists.

"Tell me about a funny or odd thing that has happened in or around your car."
Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away

As a child, Brian's blanket was sucked out the car window on the interstate. His father refused to stop and retrieve the blanket that his brother recklessly used for a sunshade.

Skip the church and/or therapy, find your salvation through writing your memoir, or for that matter your fathers.

I asked my father these tough questions at our last memoir meeting. Ask your character to answer them.

1. How did I get my name? How did you get yours?
2. What do you remember most about your mother?
Your father?
3. If you had a time machine, what decision would go back to undo?
4. What are you most proud of?
5. What is the thing you always hid from your parents?
6. How did my coming into your life change your life?
7. Who’s had the biggest impact on your life?
8. What’s your earliest memory?
9. What event made you feel like you were suddenly an adult?
10. What do you know now that you didn’t then?
11. What didn’t I know then that you want to admit to me now?
12. What was your favorite age?
13. When [big life event] was going on, what did you tell your friends about it?
14. What has been your greatest worry?
15. What used to thrill you? What thrills you now?

Question from: Jennifer Traig, Part II The Autobiographer's Handbook

First or Third?
What point of view is your novel written from and why?

My novel started out in first person, then I changed it to third, felt I was too close to the character and she need to be developed further. After my five draft, I am switching back to first, truly writing an autobiographical novel. Memoir style just works in my head, now I have firm grasp of my main character, and her differences from my actual accounts of this time in my life, but I feel the reader will relate if I am speaking directly to them about these truly absurd two weeks.