Space Camp: Fudging the Timeline

Here's the thing: writing a memoir is different from reporting an accurate timeline of events like you would for a police report.

Yes, a memoir or autobiography is about someone's unique, real life that actually happened... and it's also a story. Stories have guidelines that help keep the reader interested and understanding of what's happening, let alone entertained. Real life doesn't always unfold with a linear story structure, so when you're translating your experiences into a self-contained book, sometimes you gotta massage the facts.

In real life, the patient had her little anxiety-relieving shimmy-and-shake in the corner during our lunch break, around 12:45pm, before our next class started at 1pm. Then, much later in our final class of the day at 2:30pm, our instructor told us very briefly about the TIPP Skills (which is what the earlier patient had been practicing when she did her corner dance).

For the sake of building a stronger narrative, I moved these real events around.

Now, in my revised chapter, I have the instructor not just list the TIPP Skills passingly, but dive in-depth and really explain them for the benefit of the reader. The lecture he shares in my book is really an amalgamation of various lessons I sat through in different programs (outside of Space Camp!) and articles I researched online.

It's not literally what happened in real life, but this fudging of the timeline creates a more coherent reading experience. We are introduced to a concept first and then afterwards see the concept in use. Bing-bang! Cause and effect!

One thing I'm going to change is replacing the black background I used for the TIPP Skills lecture :-/ My intent was for it to look like the the lesson being written on the blackboard, but instead it looks like this lesson is being shared in the dark pit of depression that I've drawn several times earlier.

When these pages get reworked, I'll swap in a lighter color so it's more friendly for the reader to absorb the TIPP information. This book isn't just about recounting my experience, I want readers to come away with some of the knowledge I learned in the program.

I mean, not that this memoir is a substitution for getting intense mental healthcare! But I just don't think people should have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars (and take time off of work and navigate the American healthcare system) to learn about the TIPP Skills, y'know? Speaking of which, here they are: