You’ve got to be inspired by Graceann Deters’ recent post on our site titled “Defying Aging by Writing Your Memoir.” Graceann attributes the process of writing, publishing and promoting her memoir, Divine Betrayal,
The list of benefits sounds great, but most writers I know who have attempted memoir report that writing in this genre actually defies aging in a very different way: namely by taking years off their lives as they grapple with the central question: “How much do I really tell?”
Omega Institute’s Memoir Festival (Rheinbeck, New York, July 10-12) will gather together a number of top memoirists to address this timely topic. From their catalogue:
“How much can I, should I, tell? Professional and beginning writers alike wrestle with this question when they sit down to write their memoirs, be they magazine pieces or book-length manuscripts. Omega has gathered a distinguished group of expert guides–Abigail Thomas, Nick Flynn, Malachy McCourt, Laura Shaine Cunningham, Fred Poole, Marta Szabo, Martha Frankel and others–to address this dilemma, and to help us establish a clear path on the search for the story of our life, our most valuable material as writers.”
A friend who works for AARP gifted me with a nify little book of theirs by one of the Festival’s expert guides, Abigail Thomas. In Thinking About Memoir,
Thomas gets right to the heart of the writer’s dilemma on page one of chapter one:
“‘I can’t write personal stuff, you say, my family will be upset.’ You have to put those worries aside. You need to feel free to write about the uncomfortable truths, and unless your motive for writing is revenge, you may find that these moments of discomfort are mostly your own.”
I don’t think Abigail knows my family, as emotions tended to run pretty high as I was growing into adulthood. In fact, even fiction would have cut too close to the bone as various relatives (my sensitive mother, in particular) worked hard to find shadowy elements of themselves even in my farthest-fetched flights of fancy.
Early on, I fled to the relative safety of self-help non-fiction, finding the degrees of separation I needed to explore the truth of my encounters with life, personal growth and the world from my stance as an expert on related subjects, complete with doctorate. I didn’t always succeed at keeping my personal story out of my books, but I worked hard at it. Nevertheless, when something of myself snuck in, I shivered beneath the threat of exposure.
Having survived 15 encounters with publication, I finally feel mature enough to stand tall in the pillar of fire called memoir. After all, even someone who grew into adulthood with a sensitive mother reading every one of her words deserves the right to tell the stories of her own life in her own way.
Memoir: not for the faint of heart. But yes, one way or the other, it may take years off your life.
I have a “no holds” attitude to writing my memoirs. I’m doing it to get my nightmares out in the open. Why hide them? Hiding doesn’t help anyone, least of all yourself, when it comes to “your” story.
PLEASE, the JUICY STUFF is what sells! I’m wishing I had included MORE of the juice to “Blessings In The Mire” my first memoir! As it is, I would feel less threatened to stand naked among strangers and read from my personal diary! Go for it!
I’m sure you’re right! Thanks for all the encouragement.
I’m waiting until my parents are gone, and then telling everything in my memoir! I don’t want to be critical of them while they’re still alive, or to traumatize them with things and lifestyles that I’ve led along the way…
I tell my students, your truth is different from someone else’s take on the same situation. So tell it all, with that disclaimer, and you will be fine. People still complain but what can you do?
I am thinking about doing the same thing, writing a book about my life. I am not sure where to start. I write all the time, even in the middle of the night. I always keep a notebook, or some form of paper and a few pens near by, to keep track of my ideas or some exciting experience I have encountered that particular day.
It isn’t very long after I… Read More meet new people, that they say, “you should write a book.” They are shocked because, my knowledge, experiences and education, do not match my economic status.
I want to write about, what it is like to be educated and poor. It is one of the most painful experiences an individual can live. There is a constant butting of heard with those who think one should be stupid, if you are poor. Society do not seem to know, what to do or how to treat, the educated poor.
wow! what a fascinating topic. Don’t worry about “where to start”. just start with a good story from somewhere in the middle. grab em with the hook and then work around it! Go for it girl. I would Love to read your story.
I wrote a book in 2008 and I self-published it. It is both educational and a type of memoir. I told the absolute truth as I saw it at that time, and I had to chuckle when I read some of your comments: I got my sisters to say “Yes, I could use their real names and not a pseudonym.” hehehehe They KNEW I was going to be telling some truths. I did not, however, slam them in the book.
My book is entitled “My Cats Have Seen Me Naked: How I Achieved Self-Love and Self-Acceptance While Obese.” My website http://www.TheWorldofWithin.com is a place where other women who struggle with self acceptance and bodily size can heal.
The Pillar of Fire as you put it Carol, is an incredible learning experience. I grew immeasureably and I’m so grateful for the experience.
Warmly,
Pat
There is a history of physical, emotional and sexual abuse in my childhood and adolesence, most never discussed within the family, and I’ve kept it buried my entire life. My parents are gone, my oldest brother is gone, and my two younger brothers are several years younger and didn’t deal with what I did. My daughter wants me to write my life story. She gave me a book with 201 questions called The Book of Myself. I ran into landmines almost at once and told her there was some ugly stuff in my past–did she want to know the whole truth? She said to tell what I wanted to tell, so I’m telling. I have decided there will be two formats, the abbreviated version I’ll handwrite in the bound book, and the lengthy truth as compiled on Microsoft Word. I have no intention of publishing anything at this point beyond returning the book back to my daughter, but I will get this ugliness out into black and white reality. I’ve read Thomas’ Thinking About Memoir and other similar books about telling one’s story. I’m still hesitant about letting anyone actually read it in my lifetime, though.
I really hear you–and all those who have responded to me with your stories and encouragement. I will tell you that putting down the truth in black and white has been thoroughly cathartic. After I told the WHOLE truth, I did find ways to disguise some of the people and incidents so that while I didn’t originally think I would ever share this with others, I now will. Good look to us all! We deserve the right to own the story of our own lives, don’t we!!!
This is very funny to me right now. Painfully funny. I just wrote a book with a doctor about how a very personal women’s health condition (sexual and pelvic pain) affects relationships. And I shared a lot about my own life in it. And my husband’s! But that is actually not the problem. (My husband was completely open and encouraging!)
My father and brother wanted a copy of the book. I was not very comfortable with that, given the subject matter. But it was two years of my life and they knew how hard I worked on it. I sent it with the caveat that they couldn’t read it.
The irony? Both were upset that they weren’t named in the acknowledgements because I wrote about “The three most important people in my life…” (my husband, son, and best friend) I think, had I just changed one word so it read “Three OF the most important people in my life…” all would have been ok. Amazing, isn’t it? Now, I feel guilty.
I even thought about contacting the publisher to have the next run changed. But the fact is, as a friend said, would it really have been appropriate to include them in a book of this kind?
Still, I’m just pointing out that with family, sometimes, you just can’t win. So whether you write about them or leave them out, it may still lead to angst.
On another point, I begged my husband to read the book before it went to publication as I wrote about very intimate issues. He insisted he didn’t care, but, I know how deeply personal the writing became. When he did sit down and scan through the manscript (he searched for his name), the only complaint he had was that I attributed a quote to him that he insists he never said.
I think I’m lucky that he felt this way because I couldn’t have written the book had I not been free to write the truth.
Thanks for the encouragement about my memoir, Divine Betrayal. I struggled, too, with “how much to tell.” In the end, I told the TRUTH, though many family members were unhappy and some even called me “sick” for revealing what had happened. But I had to tell my story–I hope it will help other women who have been betrayed in a relationship or in any other way.
Here are my thoughts about whether or not to reveal names and tell the truth. http://ow.ly/h30X
“My family is very private. They believe in keeping family secrets. Many of them, after reading my memoir, felt that it was unnecessary and even wrong for me to divulge secrets that had been kept for so long.”
I found this article on a googled search. I got chills reading it. It is something I currently grapple with. I am finding the process (memoir writing and the grappling) empowering. I recently wrote a piece on my blog entitled “Conversing with Gremlins” that partly addresses the subject at hand.
One of my ‘gremlins” posed the question:
Gremlin: “What about people that were involved in the situations and read your stuff? What if it hurts them, brings up bad memories or emotions? Do you really want to cause that pain?”
My answer: This is one of the hardest for me; it really is. I don’t want to cause pain. But am I the one causing it? Or is it that our society doesn’t honor the grieving process, but rather wants to ‘be strong’ and go on with life as normal….when in the background is buried pain and hurt that hasn’t been dealt with. Life is a series of losses. Losses are a bridge to more life.
Thank you so much for sharing. I’ve bookmarked your page to come back to and read later and to read some of the links.
Warm regards,
Carol Welch
Here is the blog Conversing with Gremlins.
Relatives and published writing is a no win situation. I did a weekly newspaper lifestyles column for many years–total freedom on topics. i often mentioned family members. Luckily they rarely read it. Most of the time I cleared even the most innocuous comments ahead of time with the individual. Not a year passed without one or the other claiming “I never said that!” My mention of loved ones was so light-hearted, i cannot imagine how awful things would go if I wrote a memoir.
Here’s an issue that I grapple with–my life was interesting to me because of the people I knew… not so much what “I” did. I am a lifelong learner/observer. When I think about my own life, it is rarely about “me”, it’s always about others. It’s how I lived my life. My memories are amazing–really fascinating. But the sheer weight of all those Others… reading my version of “their lives” freezes me into paralysis.
Julie Metz, author of the bestselling memoir Perfection, recently shared her thoughts on this subject in this post: How much to tell in a memoir. Here’s an excerpt: “The best memoirs I’ve read were brave ones that really tried to tell an honest story… I decided that I had to write my book in an honest and frank way or it wasn’t going to be very much use at all.”
This is from a blog post I wrote for http://www.womensmemoirs.com. I thought it fit in this conversation….
WRITING MEMOIR, AND “SIXTYFIVE ROSES”
I had to write my way out. I wrote on big yellow pads, the backs of old envelopes, and cocktail napkins. I wrote around the edges of magazine pages as I waited in line for the bus. I wrote in small notebooks that I carried with me everywhere, buying and beginning new ones when I’d forgotten to bring the old. I wrote in my head at the supermarket, and scribbled sentences on the backs of register slips. I left a pad and a pen by my bed because I wrote in my sleep. I piled the bits and pieces on my desk, typed them into the computer, printed out the days work. Next morning I’d sit with the hard copy, read it out loud, listened for the speed bumps and the phrases that rang false. I edited the pages with a pen, crossed out and rewrote, typed them back into the computer, and went on.
It took me twenty years. I wrote like crazy for periods of time, then would stop for several months because I had to leave the past and come back to live fully in the present. I had to digest my own experience. Sometimes I went to therapy to discuss what I had discovered through my writing. I exploded my own myths. I went to as many writing workshops as I could. I made it a project to read every National Book Award nominated memoir each year that I was writing, so I could be assured I was reading – and learning – at a high level. I read every book on the craft of writing that was on the shelf. I researched the history of my home town, books on siblings, and University studies on siblings of disabled children. Then I wrote again. Through the years, I went through several drafts: the pity party draft, the agenda draft (where I vented my anger on everyone), the faux literary draft, etc. etc. With each draft, I changed as a woman and developed as a writer, so that I found I needed another draft, convinced I could write the next one a higher level. I drove my friends and supporters mad.
There were days when I would write a few sentences, lay down on the floor and cry for an hour, then get back up and continue to write. At first I was concerned what my family would think, how they would feel, but as I went on I wrote more and more for me and for the story, because it was necessary that I did so. I did not write for publication until the very last draft. If you are worried about what others are going to think, you can’t write the story the way it needs to be written, and there’s no point in doing it. I wrote to find out what the story was, and to serve it. I wrote to heal myself, to make sense of the chaos I felt, to excavate the truth, not just as I remembered it but also as I discovered it to be in the process.
To write an effective memoir, you have to be willing to go to the well and damn the torpedoes, if you’ll excuse the cliches. I had a quote by Virginia Woolf above my desk the whole time: “If you don’t tell the truth about yourself, you can’t tell it about anyone else.” My goal was to reach as much truth as I could within myself, peeling through the layers of what I had previously thought was truth, finding deeper truths I didn’t know existed. This effort alone is tremendously worthwhile for you as a woman and a writer, even if in the end you have a work that you feel you can’t publish while others are still living. You will have given yourself a Masters course on your life, and your writing. Perhaps if need to, you can then take the bones of the story and create fiction out of it that will have a shape and a depth it would not have had if you hadn’t done this work. This is exactly what I’m doing with my next book, a work of fiction that will be autobiographically based.
For a long time, I tried to tell my sister’s story. This was impossible. I finally learned I had to tell my own story, and that my sister’s story would be revealed in the process. This taught me to value my own story, and therefore myself. I learned that in memoir one must master both a narrative voice and a reflective voice. Reflection is a huge part of memoir. I took my husband’s advice and wrote everything, because an important factor in writing memoir is what you choose to put in, and what you choose to leave out of the final, crafted draft, and you can’t know that until you’ve written it. These decisions cannot come ahead of time.
There is no need to rush a memoir, in the writing, or towards publication. What you put out there will be out there forever, so you want to make very sure you’ve said what you wanted to say with the best craft and compassion possible. To write a successful memoir, you have to have found distance and perspective. Sometimes this comes through the writing itself. You must endeavour to write with love, forgiveness, and understanding, or at least write your way towards that. Consider that your memoir will have a gift in it for your readers, so that they can leave your story changed in some positive way. Although my life experience was painful, I wanted to make it a light for others, not just a dark confessional. Remember also that memoir is not autobiography. It is not the facts of an entire life, only a window into a life – it focuses on a specific place, time, or relationship, and as I said before, it requires reflection. It uses the elements of imagery and metaphor. It is a life not merely reported on, but distilled, like a good poem.
Writing a memoir takes guts, patience, emotion and craft. It take discipline and resilience. Sometimes you will sit at your desk despairing, asking the empty room “Why would anyone else care about this?” The question, however, is why do YOU care? Have passionate thoughts about the consequences of your own life. Take responsibility for your own experience. Make peace with the facts, tell the story for the story’s sake, without a hidden plea for help or sympathy. Decide where the integrity – the honest heart of the story – rests, while at the same time giving respect to events as you remember them. Then write your ass off.
Heather Summerhayes Cariou
http://www.sixtyfiverosesthebook.com
Having worked with students who are writing their memoirs for over ten years, I have heard so many variations on the continuum of concerns about writing their, often painful, truths. I tell them to write the first draft for themselves, to find out what they know, think, and feel, to see the story out of their head and onto the page, which helps with objectivity and healing. I took my own advice when I wrote Don’t Call Me Mother–about three generations of mothers who had abandoned their daughters, but even then I left out parts of “the truth” because I hoped for an amicable relationship with some family members. Each person has to make the decision about how much to share when it comes time for that last draft or publication. For some people, they risk losing their family if they put it all out there–this is often the case for those who are suffering from trauma and abuse.
In my new book coming out in January The Power of Memoir–How to Write Your Healing Story I try to help writers structure the way they write, reveal and share to help them write what they need to, and also to take good care of themselves in ways they need to. All the research in the field of writing and healing shows that writing the truth, and getting the “dark” stories out of us is healing, but one can also be healed by writing the positive stories of our lives. New research suggests that writing one thing you are grateful for each day changes your brain! Memoir writing, journaling, and truth telling are powerful ways to heal the past and create a vibrant future. Keep writing!
Linda Joy Myers, President of the National Association of Memoir Writers
http://www.namw.org
Hi Linda,
Great advice. Sounds like a cool association! Will check it out.
Carol