I am often amazed when people ask about rewrites to what they have written. Â It seems if they change the too much they feel what they wrote in the first place was not true. I often state you are not writing on stone tablets and you can change it . They look stunned. And even in shock when I say just because you wrote it, it does not need to be in your book or story. Hear me clearly, write everything and then delete what you do not want others to see or read and edit and write what you want to keep and share.
Today on the Huffington Post was an article where Ruth Reichl changed the name of book that was published a few years ago. The book was even part of my book club book assignments, and I enjoyed reading even it I felt the title was a bit strong but it is a line that I have asked my sister to let me know if I am becoming my mother.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/21/ruth-reichl-memoir-title_n_546128.html
âThe paperback edition of Ruth Reichl’s 2009 memoir, “Not Becoming My Mother,” has been adjusted to “more effectively reach the intended audience of mothers and daughters.” It will now be called, “For You Mom, Finally.”
The reason for the change? With Mother’s Day around the corner, “For You Mom, Finally” makes a much more palatable — warm, even! — gift selection, but Joe Yonan at the Washington Post has the scoop from Reich herself:
She never liked the first title, thinking it didn’t represent the tone of the book, but the sales and marketing people had insisted on it. She got her way with the paperback edition. The new title captures her feeling that after what she had written about her mother in previous books, she owed her this one: a truer exploration of a brilliant-but-bored woman who felt trapped by family life at the expense of career and personal fulfillment and who was determined that her daughter have anything but that life.â
If you read the book you will see that there lots of questions to ask your own mother about her life. These are stories that most baby boomers mothers did not discuss with their children and make great stories for your own life story since you can compare your life and hers.
