New to writing not 100% sure on what genre this would be

[Suseto]

I've always wanted to write this, but wasn't 100% sure on which direction to go for sure until recently. Anyway here it is and thank you in advance for any criticism.

My name Is Jamie Kent. As a child, I had more "difficult" moments as my parents would say, then most children my age. They would argue about what to do to help me after I had those “difficult” days consecutively. Before I knew it I had started to blame myself for those “difficult” days. My parents saw it and despite their encouragement, I knew there was something I had to do. Being a junior in high school and turning 17 three weeks ago, I did something impulsive, reckless, and selfish. I ran away from home. I left school while I was supposed to be eating lunch, went home packed my suitcase and left. I drove south east until I ran into a small town called Parsons, which was in the south eastern part of Kansas. That was the last entry my mother had in her diary and it was dated September 4th, 1958.
To this day, I try to read passages in my mother’s journal to remind myself, why I am here, and what I have to be grateful for. “Today is just another day," I said out loud to myself as if someone else could actually respond. Looking down at my wife, I said, “Have a great day, don’t forget our daughter’s doctor appointment at 3:15 this afternoon.” My wife and I have been married for just about 12 years this April. We have a daughter, who has to have frequent check-ups due to an underlying medical condition, which was passed from my wife and me to her.
Before I get into detail about her life, let me tell you about mine. I was born on February 16, 1960. My mother Jamie and my father, whom to this day I still don’t know anything about, I’m assuming met in Parsons around the time she arrived here in 1958. I do not have the details of their relationship, so I am unable to elaborate on it any further. I am aware that around the second week after I was born my mother was admitted to the hospital, suffering from delusions and a fever. Despite ridding her of the fever she still was having delusions. They had a psychiatrist come to help with the diagnosis and still had no answer. I am unaware to how much time passed, but one day she had an episode, and her attending physician suggested her to be transferred to a psych ward. The doctor put her on a 72 hour psych hold and suggested she remained in the facility until the delusions had passed. The following morning my mother was found dead in her room with self-inflicted cuts to her wrists.
Now let us fast forward to 1964, when my mother’s closest relative passed away, whom had become my caretaker. Her name was Lesley and was an aunt to my deceased mother and didn’t want me to go to foster care. Despite her best efforts, she passed away of kidney disease 4 years after my mother’s suicide. This of course meant, I would be awarded to the state or placed into the custody of the local child services office, in hopes to find a foster parent or parents. While I do not remember the first encounter with my case worker, I do remember several instances after. I had several families, even a single mother, come to try and adopt me, but for reasons that made no sense to me at the time, none wouldn’t adopt me. The names of the couples and the mother have escaped me all these years later, but I do recall wondering why I was staying in so many different homes like I had done something wrong.


Once again, thank you for any and all criticism. Also any information on perhaps, a genre I could attach to this type of story.

[williamadams]

either fiction or memoir ?

somewhat hard to follow
but i did not put effort into trying to understand it

[Suseto]

In order to further understand what is going on currently, I later on backtrack to the main character or Phillip's childhood. I couldn't lead with this because I believed without understanding his mother's death the story would have a whole in it. Thank you for your criticism.

[pls]

Non-fiction. And it would be much easier to read if you inserted spaces between the paragraphs.

[Alice Clay]

I'm sorry. I was bored by the 2nd sentence. By the end I didn't care what the "difficulties" were. Maybe if you showed a dramatic "difficulty" while it was happening, with dialogue and everything, and then came in with your name.... and if you have to reply to explain something in response to a post, then that's not a good thing. I will submit at some point and hope you will all be brutally honest. I feel the most productive criticism is just that..criticism. Unless you would find a particular arrangement of words to be pleasing.

[robjvargas]

This isn't anything... yet. Part synopsis, part proposal, and very little actual story. Right now, all I see is an idea, and an incomplete one at that. Genre is the least of your worries right now.

Write it. Write the story first. You don't have to worry about the genre until you're ready to sell/publish it. Unless you're aiming for a particular genre, you don't have to worry about this right now. Right now, Job #1 is writing.

Write it.