Write What you Know - Steal Your Family's Stories

People often tell me, "You should write about your family."

That usually stops me. My family seems kind of boring. It's hard to write what you consider "ho hum".

I needed to flesh out a character, so I decided to look a little closer at my family today and see if I could find a few interesting nuggets. I don't know if my dad's possum counts.

The Possum

Dad started feeding a baby possum. It was fuzzy and white and about eight inches long. And although I could see why my dad thought it was cute, it did kind of resembled a large rat, with a pink nose, giant teeth and hairless splayed claws that were so creepy you couldn't look at them without having nightmares for a week.

My dad was looking forward to a time when he could pet the shy little guy and it would crawl into his lap like one of the cats. My Mom was upset for exactly that reason. Dad had been feeding it cat food and now when she fed her cats, the possum and cats all came running. (I should mention that my parents live on a farm and feed their cats outside. Thank god for small favors.)

When you came a visit, you got to listen to the possum saga. My dad would show us pictures of it like it was one of the kids. Mom talked about my dad needing better hobbies that didn't include disgusting rodents.

I was enjoying the whole thing. I was also secretly rooting for dad because I'd been feeding possums at my place. They are cute in their own ugly way. They also seem to be at the bottom of the food chain. It's hard not to root for them when the raccoons and skunks treat them like second class citizens.

Not long ago, dad informed us that Possum had died. Of course, it took him a while to accept his passing. For several days he hoped he was "playing possum" and would suddenly jump back to life. Unfortunately, he wasn't playing dead, he was experiencing real thing.

My mom is silently rejoicing. My dad's a little blue. He is also keeping his eye out for another possum.

Write What You Know

I'm not sure if this is interesting. It's hard to be objective when it's your own family's stories. But David Sedaris uses his family stories, and they're pretty good. And it's definitely easier to take your family's stories and weave them into my own than to come up with them from scratch.

So I guess there's probably something to the expression, write what you know.