I don’t remember deciding to write a memoir. Famous, accomplished people write memoirs; I am neither. It seems to me the memoir just slipped in while I was actually involved with something else. Several years ago I went to Italy with a group from Arizona State University to study Renaissance art in Florence. I was…
You Asked
What made you think there would be readers for your memoir? And why write it so many years after the fact?
Well, of course, I wondered about readers. Would there be any, or should I consider a limited edition of two books only—one for each daughter? But I remembered a maxim from my retailing background, Know your competition. I walked the stacks at the library, looked at shelves in the bookstore and Googled for books about Spain in general…
What kind of research did you do or need, and how did you remember so many details?
I double checked dates. For example, I knew that Franco had died on November 20, 1975, but I couldn’t name the day. When research showed it had been on a Thursday, a school day for my daughters, I felt a flush of details that I would not have remembered otherwise. It turned out the details…
What was the hardest part of this story to write?
In a nutshell, I couldn’t find the through-line. In fact, I didn’t even know the definition of a through-line. According to Writers’ Digest, the through-line creates the forward momentum that makes the story absorbing and the protagonist spring to life. “You’re just writing a bunch of anecdotes,” a writing instructor told me. “Nobody’s going to read a bunch…
I’ve read that Francisco Franco was a Fascist dictator. What did you think about that?
The truth is I rarely thought about it at all. The Civil War responsible for bringing Franco to power had ended twenty-five years earlier. What I saw and experienced was a country at peace with a growing economy and a positive relationship with the United States. At the same time, my own country was in…
What do you think about the recent Spanish trend to rid the country of Franco era monuments and street names?
The monument removal and street name changes in Spain seem like a recent trend only because of current articles in the US press. Actually, the argument around this issue has been ongoing for decades. A Washington Post article on Google dates from l980. Now, forty years after Franco’s death the argument continues, although every time…
How long did it take you write your memoir?
First of all–if you are writing a memoir, don’t be discouraged by my answer. I’m embarrassed to say it took 10 years. If you are disciplined and make a plan, if you devote yourself to your project regularly, it won’t take 10 years. And if you find that sometimes illusive through-line early in the process,…