My name is Darlene Marie Fields. Some people may remember me as Darla Piper, a not so famous actress from the sixties. I had one major role, but I don’t want to go on about that today. I had this idea to write my memoir. I recently read Sophia Loren’s memoir called Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: My Life, and I was inspired to dust off my old dream of writing my own life story. But I get stuck. I’ve read plenty of books about writing and I keep a diary, but I just don’t know where to start. I saw a book online yesterday called Write Your Memoir in 30 Days. I don’t remember the author. You can look it up on amazon, if you want. I don’t know maybe you’ve always wanted to write about yourself, too.
I found the book through some blog that I was browsing, I think the blog writer called herself, “grandma” something. How quaint. I am not a grandmother, and never will be. I did not have any children. I guess that might be a story starter right there, but mostly I’ve wanted to capture that summer in Florida, when I had my shining moment in the galaxy of Hollywood stars. Of course, I was no Sophia Loren, and certainly not any Marilyn Monroe, but I had my moment in stardom, albeit, only a starlet in galaxy far, far away. (No not that movie.) My movie, or I should say, our movie was about a creature from a lagoon, but not the Black Lagoon. Our producer wanted to do something different, better, bigger than that movie.
Every one in Hollywood always wanted to do something bigger and better and NEW! I wasn’t going to start here, but I might as well, because you can google Darla Piper, or look me up on IMDB and it’s the only thing you’ll ever find me associated with in the film industry. I didn’t make it big. I didn’t become an actress/director/producer. But I loved being the leading lady in The Lady from the Dark Lagoon. I always thought the title should be The Dark Lady from the Lagoon, but no one was interested in my opinion at the time. I was just the newfound talent that the director wanted in his debut movie.
By wanted, I mean he wanted me around to be his “companion”. Oh, he wanted me alright. And I let him have me, because that’s the only way I believed that I could make it in the industry. Beautiful girl plus influential director equals sleeping together. Even though I think that’s what my readers want to know about, I don’t really want to write about all those gory details. I still can’t decide what my memoir should even include.
So I started this blog to try out my story on unsuspecting readers. Heck, I don’t even know if I will have any readers. But all the creativity coaches and Julia Cameron followers agree, just write 500 words a day, or three pages a morning, and you will have something to account for your work. So, here you go . . . my first 500 plus word blog post.
Cereal Bowl Series 