I found a story about a woman, Jill Price, whose memories don't fade. She's been tested by various researchers and they've concluded she has accurate recall of daily events back from the time she was 12. (She kept a daily journal all those years.)
She describes the memories as a split screen, and says that a dozen or so times a day, a memory will be triggered by a smell, a song, a sight, and she reexperiences that memory.
From the USA Today Article-
The constant onslaught of memories is both a curse and a blessing, Price says. Especially under stress, the good memories give her great comfort. "I have this warm, safe feeling, and I can get through anything." The dark side is that she recalls every bad decision, every insult and excruciating embarrassment. "Over the years, it has eaten me up."
Peaceful sleep is rare because memories assault her, she says. "It has kind of paralyzed my life."My MC, Lara, deals with the good and the bad of having a perfect memory. Can you imagine living this way? I thought I was making this stuff up.
Funny, I thought the same thing when I gave one of my characters the same affliction. The first case I heard about was a Russian man who used to show off his memory in public performances until he was too crippled by it. Thanks for the link; I haven't seen that article.
ReplyDeleteGreat minds think alike? Isn't it nice to find out you got it right?
Here's a blurb about my character, Leah: http://bit.ly/9QiVik
I thought you handled the onslaught of memory Lara deals with very well, Kelly. I definitely felt her disorientation.
ReplyDeleteHow are your revisions coming?
Wow. I never heard of that, thanks for sharing. Maybe this will help you define your character a bit more, knowing it is real? :) I wish you the best!
ReplyDeleteI've heard of that before, but I think it would be a very interesting character in a book. It's funny how sometimes we read things or see things that we thought for sure we had made up! Especially if I see an aspect of my WIP or something.
ReplyDeleteAbout a year after I started writing my current WIP, I found out that my main character had the same name as Maggie Steifvater's in one of her Faerie books- Nuala. I thought for sure I had made it up. I happened to be researching her because I was going to an author chat (before Shiver totally exploded) and saw the character's name in the summary for that book. I totally freaked. But then, after my husband had to pick me up off the floor, I realized that there are lots of books out there with the same character names. Just to make myself feel better I googled the name, and found several different books with that same name. Whew.
Anyway, sounds like a great concept!
Ben- Nooo! It was supposed to be an original idea! A new one that no one had ever thought of before! lol
ReplyDeleteKrista- Thanks! And the edits are coming slowly, slowly. Life has exploded a bit right now, but I hope to finish reconciling your comments and my paper edit in the next week and a half. Or so.
JW- Thanks. It felt good to read this, because a lot of this woman's reactions were similar to how I'd written it.
Abby- *Laughing*- I have that reaction quite a bit. Anytime an author throws in sinkholes, I panic. Thanks, and good luck to you, too.
Thanks for the comments, guys.