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Chapter 22. 'When You Dare to Write With Your Own Voice You Will Become Famous.' Tom. 1996.

Chapter 22. 'When You Dare to Write With Your Own Voice You Will Become Famous.' Tom. 1996.
@S.b.hughes. My book cover. Sexiest picture of me ever. When I no longer give a fuck.

To evolve our memoir’s introduction:

  • We are gonna ask a question day 1— 4.
  • 8-station mind-map it.
  • Note 8 discoveries.
  • Example. A bacteria-like uni-cell simple word or sentence.
  • Left hand uni-cell devours diagonal uni-cell.
  • Example. 1. Fallen angel devours 5. Split rectangle.
  • Becoming binary cells with mitochondria.
  • All feeding day 4's 12-word complex organism introduction.

Day 1

What am I introducing?

Mind—Map

Uni-cell Discoveries

  1. Big Bang
  2. Structure
  3. Heartbeat
  4. Walk-the-walk
  5. Sacred Space. Sacred Hour
  6. Life drawings of my soul
  7. Confession, absolution, forgiveness
  8. Armed with 12-words and 8-stations

Binary Cells

Left hand uni-cell devours diagonal uni-cell.

  1. Big Bang — 5. Sacred Space. Sacred Hour
  2. Structure — 6. Life drawings of my soul
  3. Heartbeat — 7. Confession, absolution, forgiveness
  4. Walk-the-walk — 8. Armed with 12-words and 8-stations

Day 2

What should my introduction say?

Mind-Map

Uni-cell Discoveries

  1. Roger Hiorns
  2. Peterborough Prison
  3. My oak table
  4. Girl on the train
  5. Aladdin
  6. Reno Memoirs
  7. Giacometti
  8. Anish Kapoor

Binary Cells

  1. Roger Hiorns — 5. Aladdin
  2. Peterborough Prison — 6. Reno Memoir
  3. My oak table — 7. Giacometti
  4. Girl on the train — 8. Anish Kapoor

Day 3

What is the main theme?

Mind-Map

Uni-cell Discoveries

  1. Birth to death
  2. 12-words are the prison keys
  3. 8-station mind-maps are revealed in MY MUM IS WHITE
  4. Structure
  5. Transformation
  6. Life takes hold
  7. Real ghosts stand up to be counted
  8. Things that have broken my heart. Things that have made my heart sing.

Binary Cells

  1. Birth to death — 5. Transformation
  2. 12-words are the prison keys — 6. Life takes hold
  3. 8-station mind-maps are revealed in MY MUM IS WHITE — 7. Real ghosts stand up to be counted
  4. Structure — 8. Things that have broken my heart. Things that have made my heart sing.

Day 4

Why am I ready to talk now?

Mind-Map

Uni-cell Discoveries

  1. When you dare to write with your own voice you will become famous
  2. Vocabulary
  3. Collins Dictionary
  4. Exiled
  5. Great Expectations 
  6. Miss Havisham
  7. Shield
  8. Rooted

Binary Cells

  1. When you dare to write with your own voice you will become famous — 5. Great Expectations. 
  2. Vocabulary. — 6. Miss Havisham
  3. Collins Dictionary — 7. Shield
  4. Exiled — 8. Rooted

Title: ‘When You Dare to Write with Your Own Voice You Will Become Famous.’ Tom. 1996.

Object: Shield

12 associations

  1. Ghosts
  2. Hurt
  3. Pain
  4. Predatory
  5. Closed lipped
  6. Allow
  7. Gaslight
  8. Kid’s party
  9. Speaking out
  10. Language
  11. Roots
  12. Soil

Use object, all 12 words, and title, in 20 minutes.

Chapter 0. Introduction

‘When you dare to write with your own voice you will be famous.’ Tom. 1996.

I am not fucking educated. Not beyond O-levels. I have A* English Lit and English Language O-levels though. Don’t know what happened to the language bit. I never know where a fucking comma goes. And speech marks are real fucking hard. But I am still really good at the literature bit. Motivation. Metaphor. Characterisation. And to cut a long story short I’ve created 2 tools to dig the fuckers out. 12-words. And 8-stations.

I am not interested in teaching them. I don’t think they are teachable. Till I start to write my fucking memoir. Can’t stop swearing. I may have … No, what I have fucking got is my own voice.

  • I have my own voice.
  • I have a Moss Side voice.
  • I have a mixed-race voice.
  • I have a criminal voice.
  • I have a clever-as-fuck voice.
  • I have an I-have-been-exiled voice.
  • I have an I-swim-away-from-shore-and-almost-drown voice.
  • I built a boat, a ship, make some maps, using 12-words and 8-stations, arrive on my own island voice.

I love it here. Spend hours. Spent hours perfecting my tools. Using my tools to build my wonderful career against all odds. Against all odds. I have a story to tell you. And I’ve tried for 3 years to find the right platform. I couldn’t write this introduction until I had written the story. Until I arrive on this new shore.

I am an explorer. I am a cartographer. I am. Well, just, I am. I exhume ghosts. Spew up hurt. Feel the fucking pain. I literally cry when I’m writing. I’m predatory. I’ve been preyed upon. And something I don’t understand, I don’t understand it in me either, how we keep tight lipped about this. How we shield our perpetrator’s shame. Embody it as our shame. Allow it to live in us. I am at a kid’s party and the guy on the stage is saying, the balloon fucker is saying inappropriate things and either all the mothers are deaf, or all the mothers can’t believe it, but he is definitely getting off on it. It isn’t wide enough to pin to the ground. It is subverted enough to gaslight the entire party into silence. The women cross the arena he has made, with their blouses see through, or their husband’s happy, all this weird stuff. Not one thing about the kids. And I know if I shout out, it will be me who gets stoned to death. So, I keep my lips closed. I learn my lesson in silence. There is this weird dominance going on. It’s also in language. I’m your psychiatrist but I’ll keep it off the table that I’m just another human and I’m actually fucking nuts or why else would I be a psychiatrist. How dare you think you can be that to another human being. How dare you hold that over their head. Wow, I sound insane. I’ve had psychotherapy. Group psychotherapy. It is indeed useful to show me certain tools. At the end of the 12 sessions after being a model pupil I am exiled from that too. Because. I do know why. Because I question. No, I don’t actually question anything. I refuse to conform. No, I conform really well. I love being a star pupil. I’m not mad enough. I’m not controllable enough. I say the wrong things. ‘The emperor is wearing no clothes.’ They even send me a letter to my home. ‘We did not appreciate you saying the emperor is not wearing any clothes.’ Well, fuck me, he isn’t. He is bare arsed. I fell for it for 12-weeks. But that poor soul is loving being fucked up. And you are loving her being fucked up or how else are you gonna pay your fucking mortgage.

Tom shows me the underneath of society in this way. I meet him in the Reno. 1976. After a tragedy. This is the story of the journey rooted in the soil of that tragedy. And all the blood that feeds the sunflower of my own voice. The voice I love.

‘When you dare to write with your own voice you will be famous.’ Tom. 1996.

And I promise if you do what I ask without question, you will be holding your memoir, when you finish reading mine. In your own voice. Which you’ll love.

Writing your memoir will take one hour a day, 6 days a week, for 23 weeks. I task you now to find that hour. And the sacred space in which to spend it. Enter it physically in your diary. Read one chapter a week. Each week complete your homework.

‘We need our sciences to learn how the universe works, to know what we don’t yet know and to comprehend it. We need our arts to learn how the heart works, to feel what we are unwilling or unable to feel and hold it without apprehension. We need both — knowledge and feeling, intelligent comprehension and emotional intelligence — to be capable of empathy, as well as self-compassion.’ Maria Popova. The Marginalian. 17.05.26. Today.  

I use, we will use, both science and art to write our story. Guided by the laws of physics, through the portal of 12-words and 8-stations we will luxuriate in our subconscious for one hour a day, 6 days a week, for 23 weeks to unearth who we are. You are. I am.  

MY MUM IS WHITE


My memoir. Teaches you how to write your memoir.
1 hour a day. 6 days a week. For 23 weeks. I promise.

  1. Using our techniques:
  • 12-words.
  • 8-stations
  1. We will evolve our structure:
  • Chapters 1 – 8. Repeat 12-words — wax-on wax-off — to evolve our universe.
  • Chapter 9. Gather and examine our universe of gas and dust.
  • Chapter 10. How to make an 8-station mind-map.
  • Chapter 11 — 13. Repeat 8-station mind-maps to evolve our first, second, and third-generation stars. 12-words evolves the star our planet will orbit.
  • Chapter 14 — 17.  8-station mind-map the gas and dust surrounding our star. 12-word accreting it into pebbles. Then bigger pebbles. Then boulders.  
  • Chapter 18. Our boulders accrete into the planet of our inner world.
  • Chapter 19 — 21. Life takes hold.
  • Chapter 22. Our introduction.
  1. These physical laws unleash:

Volcanic activity. Blood from broken hearts. Creating our first atmosphere. Life takes hold. First individual bacteria-like uni-cells.

  1. Bacteria-like uni-cells devours bacteria-like uni-cells evolving complex organisms in the subconscious of our reader where our memoir will dwell.

Homework

Evolve your introduction:

Day 1. Tuesday. What am I introducing?

  • 8-station mind-map it.
  • Note 8 uni-cell discoveries.
  • Left hand uni-cell devours diagonal uni-cell.

Day 2. Wednesday. What should my introduction say?

  • 8-station mind-map it.
  • Note 8 uni-cell discoveries.
  • Left hand uni-cell devours diagonal uni-cell.

Day 3. Thursday. What is the main theme?

  • 8-station mind-map it.
  • Note 8 uni-cell discoveries.
  • Left hand uni-cell devours diagonal uni-cell.

Day 4. Friday Why I am ready to talk now?

  • 8-station mind-map it.
  • Note 8 uni-cell discoveries.
  • Left hand uni-cell devours diagonal uni-cell.
  • What title do you hear?
  • What object do you see?
  • 12-words you associate with your object.
  • 20 minutes to write the narrative introduction to your memoir.

Day 5. Saturday. Day off.

Day 6. Sunday. Type and log your introduction.

We fucking did it! We are complete.

Published by:

Linda Brogan