Sorting Photos and Revising Fiction
For the past few days I've been sorting through years and years of photos. Until I had twins I was fairly good about putting the photos in albums (you know those handy little albums with the sticky and magnetic pages that NOW they tell us leak acid and will ruin the precious photos). But I must say those pages really do stick. Twenty years later I'm having to use dental floss to pry the photos from the adhesive.
Some of our loose photos are duplicates because don't you know I always had the best intentions of sending pictures to people. I even have a lot of cute field trip pictures of other people's children. Since I can't even remember these children's first names, I'm thinking there is no reason to hope that I will get actually get these pictures to their parents. We also have school papers, pictures people sent to us, and all kinds of memorabilia.
Which brings me to my question. Does one keep Christmas card photos of friends throughout the years? Does one keep every school and dance recital picture of nieces and nephews and children of friends? Does one keep every single report card the children receive? I've had a camera since I was twelve, which makes for a lot of pictures. Cameras have improved a lot since then. Do I keep the blurry and dark pictures of my cousins? The blurry and indistinguishable oddly colored mountain and beach shots? Do I keep the NICU hospital shots of my children, even though my kids cringe when they see them, and I still cry?
So how is sorting photos like revising fiction? Blurry scenes, don't use them. Scenes that are basically duplicates and don't show anything new, toss. Scenes that have little to do with your main characters, well there's no need to keep them either. And how do we group our photos and our scenes - in absolute chronological order? Or in some other order, that makes more sense to the story? And those emotional and hard time scenes, those absolutely stay in. Trouble is what makes for good fiction.
Sorting photos, and revising both take so many decisions, and so much time. They both tend to be overwhelming projects. As for my photos, I'm tossing some Christmas cards from friends, keeping the nieces and nephews, and putting a lot in a maybe stack. I will definitely keep those hospital ones. They are part of our own family story.
7 comments:
Great post Lauri and I love the metaphor to revising fiction, I've been doing a lot of sorting myself in the last few days, closets, photos, papers. Clears the way for other good things to come into our lives.
You have inspired me to write a blog on this very topic. Seems like you jumped into my mind and saw that I was struggling with this too.
Thanks, Writing Nag. I do like to look at clearing that way.
Angie, I can't wait to see what you write on this topic.
We keep everything, which is of course its own problem. What we're having trouble with is which pictures to print off the computer to put in albums. We haven't put anything in an album since early 2005. it's on my list. :)
Good luck on that list Janet, it is hard with little people around.
Hi Lauri, this entry was very touching to say the very least. It really hit a chord in my heartstrings. Our last daughter, my precious Grace was also in the NICU. I didn't know that happened to your twins, though I have a vague memory of your mom telling me you had a hard time. About keeping the pictures. My daughter is a bit macabre. She loves looking at the pictures, and though each time I remember the events of those days, I shudder, they do remind me of what a strong and determined child I birthed!
Teresa, It is hard to have a baby in the NICU. We'll have to trade stories someday. It's interesting that your daughter likes to look at them. My twins hate seeing the tubes and IV's.
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