Ask the Author: Gerda Saunders
Answered Questions (2)
Gerda Saunders
I think that I will not be able to write a book again--my focus has become worse over the past 5 years of writing; also, I am less able to keep the whole arc of a narrative together than I was right after retirement. Accordingly, I am writing only my blog at the moment. I think I might still have one or two essays in me, but time will tell. Writing takes me endless time; every day I ask myself what my priority is for the day. If I have a day with little or no family interaction, I often choose writing. Given that I know that the time left in which I will still be rational is limited, I feel that my relationships with my husband Peter, my two adult children and their families, and my close friends takes top priority over writing goals.
Gerda Saunders
I was diagnosed with early-onset dementia just before my 61st birthday in 2010. After retiring in 2011, I was not capable of resuming writing projects that I'd been working on for years. I took about 6 months to decompress from work. Meanwhile, I started jotting down my experience with memory loss and spatial orientation in a journal the Gender Studies faculty had given me as a retirement gift. Once I felt ready to write again after my extended unwinding, I felt that my earlier projects of two novels-in-progress was too difficult to get my head around, because I had a hard time keeping the two story structures in my head (even if working from summaries on paper.) Instead, I started using my journal notes--I dubbed them Dementia Field Notes--to write and essay. I completed more essays. And so the book grew organically to suit my needs of self-reflection in order to process the fact that I have dementia. After having an essay derived from several "chapters" published in The Georgia Review and republished in Slate, I realized that readers found my writing helpful. I knew I had to complete the book.
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