Hard Times Writing About the Past

Much of my writing often pulls from my crazy life. However, I’m working on a project where I’m writing a story based on a lived experience, and it’s tough! There are so many emotions coming up and new revelations from friends about that time of my life.  When you write about this sort of thing, emotions can run high even years after the event occurred. When you talk about it with friends, you learn new things and those new things aren’t always pleasant. 

In this case, the new things can even be damaging to your current mental health. As many folks know, I worked in fashion in Denver for a few years, and I created the new Denver Fashion Week that is now operated by 303 Magazine after it passed through a few other hands. I’ve been writing about my experiences at New Culture Magazine and Denver Fashion Week in a new novel I’m calling, The Versace Man.  This is the project I started when I started writing full time in 2014, and it has been on the back burner since then, mostly because I couldn’t find a working storyline that reflected this time of my life, and  I  needed time to get some distance from it before I could really write about it. I have the distance now, and through creating the project, I’m still discovering things about myself and about that situation. Some of those things are incredibly positive, while others continue to cause distress. That’s the trouble about writing from life: sometimes everything isn’t clear for years after it happens. 

This is one of the reasons I have not written any memoirs. That being said, my travel series is slowly becoming a memoir series of all my travels and much about my life. However, much of what I am writing about has happened several years ago. When I was taking notes on last year’s 6-month trip, I struggled. Why? Because my brain and body are still processing everything that happened. It might be quite some time before I can really write about last year. Indeed, one of my struggles is that I haven’t had the time to really process everything that has happened. 

Even in the case of the pandemic, we don’t see much about people’s experiences from the pandemic because the pandemic isn’t over yet. When normal life returns later this year (fingers crossed), only then will we be able to fully grok what happened to us and begin to process the months of isolation, the losses of major life events, and the strain it has created in families and social connections. It takes time to reflect on the past. It takes time to integrate everything that has gone on fully, and sometimes it can take a while. 

In all my writing about the past, whether it be The Versace Man or the travel series project, I find myself in a reflective place. Often, the words about these events just won’t come. I often find it easier these days to write about things outside of myself. I’d much rather write about the comings and goings of national politics and policy or try to help explain the world around us. I resisted writing much about my life for this very reason. I didn’t find it that interesting. However, many people encouraged me to do it for years, and so when I created The Cameron Journal, and I wanted to write more about myself, I was faced with a conundrum, where to start? I’m glad to be sharing my travel stories. I know that most people have not had the chance to travel as much as I have in my life. I hope I can transport you to these locations like a magic carpet ride. When I was young, I dreamed about exotic locations and living an exotic life. To some degree, my highschool self would be very impressed. I have the international friends that I always wanted. I’ve gotten to go to places and see things that most other people can’t even think of but wish they had. For some reason, it isn’t easy to put down on paper. 

I write this little column as solace for writers and a peek behind the curtain for the less literary readers. It is not always an easy thing to dredge up the past and put it down for consumption, even when you’ve made a whole career of doing just that. I’m having a hard time right now in many ways but this has presented new challenges for me that I did not anticipate. I am looking forward to working through them and telling more stories from my life. I am looking forward to writing the projects that I want to write. It is a journey of self-discovery and I get to take all my readers along with me on this journey. So watch this space!