While writing my childhood memoirs, I totally lose track of the time. When my head comes up from the keyboard, I am disoriented, momentarily even forgetting which house I am in.  You see I travel back in time, and find my youthful self in my classroom, bedroom or backyard. As soon as I am there, so many related memories come flooding back. In fact, at times I can’t type fast enough to get all of those memories down.

Early in the week, I asked one of my friends about some details of our early childhood classroom. ‘Oh I can’t remember that,’ she said. I then read her some of the memoir I’d been writing about that time.  Several days later she spoke to me again, ‘It was funny Em, after you read to me it made me start thinking about that time, and now so many memories have come back!’

Many years ago, I worked as an EEG technician, running electroencephalograms to detect brain injury and evidence of seizures.  My position was in a clinic at the local psychiatric hospital, where I saw both inpatients and outpatients. Many of the inpatients were convinced I was going to give ECT, Electroconvulsive Treatment, something that the hospital had retained as part of its battery of ‘fixes’ for severe depression. The fact that I was dressed like a technician, and there was a bed for patients to lie down, also didn’t help. The names EEG and ECT looked and sounded similar to some patients and I suppose me placing wires all over the patient’s head did nothing to quell their fears, no matter how many times I tried to calmly explain that my test was painless.

One day after arriving in the clinic, a highly anxious elderly patient became gradually convinced that he recognised me. 'I know you, you performed a tonsillectomy on me in 1936!' he finally shouted, his frail body suddenly developing muscles of steel. He lunged, holding me by the throat until the two stunned orderlies accompanying him were able to loosen his grip. It was obvious something about the setting and experience had stimulated that distant memory in him.

So while immersing in and then emerging from my writing this week, I’ve been pondering this. I have thought about pockets of memory and what evokes them. I’ve even decided that helping others access their precious memories may be the most important role of a memoir writer.  A reader once told me, 'You know sharing your stories has just brought to mind, so many of mine!'

Throughout the week, and during most of the above activities, my mind kept straying back to a podcast I listened to at Ella’s suggestion; “Getting Noticed in a Noisy World with Your First Book,” with Michael Hyatt (As below).

There is just so much to organise yourself when you are a self-publishing author.  I have been thinking that I really need a PA because my daily tasks before getting to the writing part are just so time consuming.
 Here is a taste of my daily world:

• Check emails and write responses. This is the most time consuming part as emails vary so much from day to day. They may encompass responding to topics such as writing about a reader's own memories of Alaska, answering questions about some aspect of my stories, answering enquiries about upcoming talks, book orders, responding to questions about their own writing, or simply replying to a complimentary email about a reader's enjoyment of my writing.
  
• Prepare books from internet sales; signing, addressing and placing book marks and business cards inside. Put packages by front door for posting.
• Respond to or ask questions about development of my website, an ongoing and evolving process.
• Check the number of books, postage bags, bookmarks, business cards remaining and reorder as needed.
• Talk with my printer about further print runs and where to send them.
• Decide on an outfit, “Which quspuk this time?” for an upcoming talk.
• Prepare book bags, artefacts and spare books for an upcoming talk.
• Charm Kotz in the hopes he will accompany me to said talk.
• Worry about getting talks into the North Island, “How can I do that?”
• Check calendar for upcoming appointments.
• Make any necessary bookings for upcoming talks.
• Try to write 500 words of my new writing project.
• Write blog.

Having thought about all this, I am realizing that Kotz is a actually a very good PA for me and I am lucky. He provides ongoing positive encouragement, even when I am exhausted. He gives me reminders – ”What’s happening this week, honey?” He is my box and luggage-toter, as well as my postie.  His ears are always flapping to hear any piece of writing I may be doing.
 
So I am grateful for my very own PA; even if he does continue to puff on his beloved cigars when I read to him, leaving me wondering if it is the cigars or the writing that lowers his lids in definite pleasure.