"Why call it a memoir. Why can't it be a novel?"  

Honestly, I understand my father's point of view.  Just a few months ago an ex of mine released a cd worldwide  in which he featured several songs about me and our breakup.  While all the songs weren't hate-filled they weren't exactly singing my praises either. And so I found myself thinkng, "Hopefully, no one will buy it," as I clicked purchase on itunes.  (Don't tell me you wouldn't be curious!)  It's flattering really. I'd be lying if I'd said I didn't enjoy the cd, that it wasn't on my 25 most played playlist, and my goto walking music.  Well turns out I'm just one of millions of people who bought and enjoy this cd.  That's right, millions of people now know intimate details about my breakup.  At first, the idea of this infuriated me. To think of all the people singing along to my heartbreak, to lyrics that are grossly one-sided. And yet, wasn't I guilty of the same thing? He wrote a cd but I wrote a book. Isn't that why we write, and moreover write memoirs? We want to tell a story from a certain perspective, how we see it.

There's always a chance, when sharing your point of view, that you won't be well received. Case and point, my estranged mother upon reading my synopsis wrote me, "Bipolar! I am not bipolar! If I have any regrets in my life, its that I didn't beat you as a child." (Fodder for my next book).  Understanding this, I knew I had to take care while writing A beautiful Mess . The purpose of the book was to help me heal breaking up with my estranged mom, not to create more friction in my family.  Having already lost one family member, I certainly didn't want to lose more. Luckily, unlike my mother, most of my family is rational.  

It's not that my father doesn't support my aspirations, but rather, is afraid to learn what I said about him and our family.  The things I talk about in the book are not things we talk about in my family.  In fact, my father never even said the words above to me, he said them to my brother who then relayed them to me.  To this day, my book remains a subject, one of many, that we don't broach.

With the help of a few more supporters at pubslush.com, my book is set to publish this summer. Part of me dreads what my father will say and hopes he doesn't read it.  Then there's the other part of me, which wants desperately for him to read it, because the book would finally provide a means for much overdue conversations. These conversations aren't only important in my family but in others as well. In reading my book, I hope others will find a piece of their story embedded in mine.  Perhaps it's this part that drives me to publish my book as a memoir instead of a novel, not in spite of what my family will say but because of what my family will say.