In this category (Books and Posts from Denis Ledoux), I share excerpts from books—published and unpublished—I have written over the many years I have immersed myself in memoir writing.
There continues, after all these years, to be something about the genre that I find creative and satisfying—whether I am writing my own books or ghostwriting for others. (I have several dozens of these co-authored tomes on my shelves by now! It goes to show that, if you show up every day for 30 years to write, before you know it, you have a long list of titles!)
The books and posts from Denis Ledoux
The many stories in this category fall into several subsections and are drawn from the following books:
- Here to Stay [an unpublished history of my seventeenth-century Canadian ancestors],
- We Were Not Spoiled [co-written with my mother whose story it is]. The book covers the early life (to age 30) of a representative Franco-Mainer in the middle of the last century. People have said, “You have written the story of my mother!”
- In Another Century [my as-yet unpublished account of seminary high-school experience]. My education and life during these years in the seminary resemble the nineteenth century more than they did the twentieth century in which I was living,
- Marie Bilodeau [these are family stories that are composed from my memory of my grandmother and from some research], and
- My Eye Fell Into the Soup [drawn from both a journal of Martha Blowen, my dear companion in life and in work, before she succumbed to cancer and from my concurrent journals].
In conclusion
I hope you enjoy these stories under the title of Books and Posts from Denis Ledoux. They are dear to me, and I hope they will prove interesting to you also.
Turning a Journal into a Memoir
Steps for turning a journal into a memoir
I have been slowly revising my latest book My Eye Fell Into the Soup. This book is the first of a two-book set depicting the two years that Martha and I lived with her cancer illness. I have described some of the writing process elsewhere.
There was a time when writing / organizing / revising this so-personal manuscript was difficult, very difficult, but that is no longer the case. When I was first working on My Eye Fell Into the Soup, I would take it up for a few days and then put it down for weeks.
Revision is not as emotionally draining as creation
Now 8 years after Martha’s death, I am doing in-depth revision and it has proven to be very technical. The feeling part is long past. There’s something about checking the clarity of antecedents to pronouns, about making sure that characters that are so familiar to me are sufficiently explained, about going to an internet dictionary to ascertain that my word choice is indeed the best choice that takes feeling out of the process.
Turning journals into memoirs: are revisions permitted?
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Breast Cancer Diary—How “My Eye Fell Into the Soup” was Launched
Martha’s breast cancer diary was published as My Eye Fell Into the Soup and is a cancer journal/memoir of Martha Blowen’s experience with cancer.
A Cancer Diagnosis
Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time. (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.) The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, after […]
Will We Find Cancer There, Too?
DL: Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time. (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.) The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, […]
Coping With Chemo—Again
Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time. (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.) The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, after […]
The Family Gathers Around Martha
Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time. (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.) The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, after […]
Our First Evening Coping with Cancer
Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time. (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.) The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, after […]
The Pleura Is Full of Fluid
Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time. (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.) The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, after […]
Draining the Cancer from the Pleura
Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time. (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.) The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, after […]