Time and Memory

Time and Memory

Time is ephemeral, impossible to recapture.

When I decided to write my life story, The FBI Wife, I wasn’t exactly sure how many years of memories it would elicit. What to be included. What to be tossed from the memory bin. This process of sorting the memories provided me with an insight I’d not previously enjoyed. Some experiences that had originally appeared critical now seemed like a blip in the chain of events that formed twenty-one years of my life. Perhaps the most enlightening of these insights was that I learned all experiences count. It’s much like piecing a quilt. You select the fabric for your finished creation, cut it up into interesting pieces, design the overall abstraction and sew it all together. At any point in this process, the quilt can take on its own design features, much like the process of writing a long work. 

            No do-overs, no should’ves, no could’ves, no might’ves. In writing a memoir, you can’t decide a particular scene should have played out differently. For example, in my memoir I might have liked my husband to turn down the Colorado opportunity, but that would have been fictional. I’m currently writing a novel and love the freedom in designing scenes although sometimes the endless possibilities are distracting from where the story needs to lead.

            For those of you following me on this website, I invite a two-way conversation. For this entry, I’ll brief you on where my writing adventure is taking me. I can no longer afford the luxury of taking ten years to complete a work so I am currently working on a quasi sequel to The FBI Wife, a non fiction work that examines how the unexpected influences the direction of our lives. The other work is a fictional story of a young woman thrust into unwanted circumstances. I’m closing in on a first draft of this latter book. Then the hard work begins, to create something you would want to spend your time reading.

Sandra

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Sandra Windsor

Sandra published her first book, The FBI Wife: A Memoir in 2016. In 2017, it won the Colorado Authors League award for creative non-fiction and CIPA’s award for family relationships. In addition, her short story, “Forty-two Dodger Blue” was an award winner in Writer’s Digest’s short story contest in 2015. Fractured is her debut novel, a story once again centered around family relationships. She is currently working on a second novel and a sequel memoir to The FBI Wife. Recently retired from a long career in education and teaching writing, she and her husband reside in Denver, Colorado.