The Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education

Today my expectation is to complete several chapters of my Memoir which cover my time in Fairhope Alabama at the Organic School.  Much of the writing in my memoir covers memory and how memory changes, and how memories are different with different people of the same event.  An example is a friend can remember an event involving me which I have forgotten.  So is their memory of me any less valid then my memory of me?  My memoir includes the point of view of  my parents, my brother and sisters, fellow students and teachers. In places I come across as a bad kid, and in other places as a conniving kid, and in other places as a fun loving kid devoted to nature and girls and the scent of gardenias. The last two weeks I have produced about 15,000 words.  Not bad, don't you think? I don't know how to save this page and then how to exit my blog>

RUPERT SCHMITT MEMOIR

RUPERT SCHMITT MEMOIR

I have spent parts of many days over many years writing my memoir.  Some people have asked me, Who will want to read a memoir about somebody who  is not a celebrity?
I have a confession.  Most of my favorite memoirs have been written by people who are just people.  They are not movie stars, senators, congresspeople, or criminals.  Some are written by well known authors.
A few favorites.
The Liar's Club by Mary Karr. Much is written in present tense. Tells of a hard childhood.
The Road from Corain by Jill Ker Connway.  Tells of drought in Australia.
An American Childhood by Annie Dillard.  Is an exquisite exploration of the development of her senses.
Speak Memory by Vladimir Nabokov.  This covers many years in Russia, Paris and Berlin.
Family by Ian frazier. This book covers 200 years of middle class life.  Obviously Frazier had to do lots of research and travel.
Report to Greco by Nikos Kazantzakis.  Includes events that I will never forget including when as a child his dead has him kiss the feet of a dead Greek man so that the boy will never forget.

There are some useful books on how to write memoir. Unfortunately most of them do not include advice on doing research.  My memoir does not fit into a small box.  In the writing I have crossed the country from my current residence in the western U.S. and have talked with people and have done documentary research in Wisconsiin, Alabama, North Carolina and California.  I am also using many oral interviews.  It includes an examination of the family stained glass business in the nineteen thirties.  The memoir is also in two volumes. The first publication will emphasize my life. The second volume will emphasize the lives of everybody else emphasizing creative people.  The first volume focusing on my life starts out with a kid getting kicked out of school by nuns.  Obviously he is a bad apple.  I can't imagine why anyone  would want to read a book by a bad apple.

I am in the midst of writing a memoir of my early years.  I begin naturally, before I was born.  My memory is a little hazy of those years but fortunately I have letters giving a pretty good account of everything that was happening only excluding what was happening with me.  Was a cute baby or an ugly baby.  I have a photograph of me when I was two years old. It appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, and I was crying, apparently I had just fallen over.  One big change from that time to now is I have a hard time crying.  I seem too often to me to be too  damn serious.  My first words as a writer don't make much sense.  mostly a wavy line.  More later.