What is Memoir?
Beginning a memoir project is like being an explorer of unexcavated territory. You are an anthropologist, a psychologist and a skydiver all at once without leaving your writing table as you take an indepth look at an event (or series of events) that shaped your life. It is not an entire life as autobiography is and the journey itself is your challenge, a way to stretch yourself and grow as a writer.
A memoir is a story that is true. It can consist of looking back at a single summer, or the span of a lifetime. It is some aspect of life, some theme about which you want to reflect so it becomes a process of unearthing memories and then turning them over and over like a stone embedded with fossils. The more we look the more we see.
There are two basic ingredients in a strong memoir. The first is honesty. The memoirist makes a commitment to tell the emotional truth. Sometimes when the writing is not coming easily, it may be because we’re avoiding what needs to be written. It’s not about baring secrets – it’s simply telling the emotional truth about what you’ve chosen to write about. You must, as Hemingway suggested, “know what you really felt, rather than what you were supposed to feel, or had been taught to feel.”
The second ingredient of a powerful memoir is a reflective quality; that sense of looking back on experiences, exploring patterns and organizing and finding meaning. Some things that we choose to write about may not be inherently all that interesting but it is what you […]
Writing About Traumatic Events
How many times have you heard people say in the aftermath of a traumatic event: “I just can’t talk about it right now.” They are mute, as if the right words have not yet been invented to pinpoint their feelings. Some eventually find expressive relief by writing poems, essays, memoirs, keeping a journal or even describing what happened on Facebook. Those who are visually oriented may speak through the creation of a painting or other art project. There are no rules or even guidelines for self-expression at the boundary of trauma but many who have been through the experience say that describing it to another person does help.
Finding the words
Our body tells us when we’re ready to unpack and codify feelings, to put words or other artistic expression around painful experiences. For some, even recollection of the experience can stay tucked away for years and emerge years later, perhaps when another life-changing event dredges up old memories. A Vietnam War veteran once shared with me that he didn’t speak about the war he experienced until years later when his son was about to be deployed to Desert Storm in the early 1990s: “It hit me like a ton of bricks – my son might be about to experience the same horrors that I had witnessed. I had to start talking, sharing my own experience, after twenty years of silence.”
Owning the story
Sometimes the burden of owning the story is so great that there is a need to fictionalize and tell it as if it happened to someone else. It can take months or years to become comfortable with the telling. Whatever the starting point, be kind to […]
The Vietnam War – Fifty Years Later
May 17, 2019, marks the 50th anniversary of the death Captain David R. Crocker, Jr. in Vietnam. We were married on June 9, 1966, the day after his graduation from West Point.
Each year, remembering his death on this date reverberates through whatever I’m doing. This “anniversary” is the only aspect of the experience of his loss that feels anchored in time. Each year I note the weather, then and now, and who I am, presently. I remember that in 1969 it was finally becoming spring-like and trees were blossoming, although it had been chilly in the northeast like this year. By Memorial Day, when his funeral was held, we were jettisoned into summer with temperatures in the 90s. My great-uncle wore a black suit and passed out from the heat when we gathered in the cemetery. I would have liked to have shared my secret then with Uncle Ephraim that Dave wasn’t really being buried that morning. Perhaps he wouldn’t have collapsed from sadness and the sun. Only our letters and other memorabilia were in the coffin. Dave’s sister and I would take his ashes to the Eiger in Switzerland later that summer. It was my attempt to control uncontrollable events.
I remember the commencement of disbelief and grief back then as I reabsorb the chain of events from long ago; the notification, the decisions, the identification of the body, the acceptance that it had really happened. Each year since, at this time, […]
Wanted: Words That Describe Experience
How many times have you heard people say in the aftermath of a traumatic event: “I just can’t talk about it right now.” They experience a muteness, as if the right words have not yet been invented to pinpoint their feelings. Some eventually find expressive relief by writing poems, essays, memoirs, keeping a journal or even describing what happened on Facebook. For those who are visually oriented, they may speak through the creation of a painting or other art project. There are no rules or even guidelines for self-expression at the boundary of trauma but many who have been through the experience say that describing it -somehow- to another person does help.
The Process of Healing
Our body tells us when we’re ready to unpack and codify feelings, to put words or other artistic expression around painful experiences. For some, even the recollection of the experience can stay tucked away for years and emerge later, perhaps when another life-changing event bumps up against old memories. A Vietnam War veteran once shared with me that he didn’t speak about the war he experienced until years later when his son was about to be deployed to Desert Storm in the early 1990s:
“It hit me like a ton of bricks – my son might be about to experience the same horrors that I had witnessed. I had to start talking, sharing my own experience, after twenty years of silence.”
Owning the Story
Sometimes the burden of owning […]
Sparking the Writer’s Imagination
Let’s agree on one thing: the writer’s imagination is impossible to describe. But, for some of us, life without writing is also impossible. Is there a secret behind the sparking of imagination? Except for making ourselves sit down and start writing, it’s difficult to say what makes those words jump onto the page. It helps to believe that our writing matters, especially to us. Anne Lamott described in Bird by Bird that writing matters because of the spirit. “Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed our soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
It’s important to write. Storytelling is important – in words or paintings. Expressing the imagination on the page (or on canvas) restores our soul. But, there is also the mystery of why we stop ourselves from self-expression and how to get the process rolling again and pour yourself into the work. If you are in the area of Mystic, CT on September 25 or October 7, 2017, join me at the Mystic Museum of Art for […]
If You Want to Write a Book: Part II – The Inspiration of Anne Frank
When Otto Frank read his daughter’s diary for the first time after her death in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, he discovered something new about Anne. “Every parent should realize that it is not possible to entirely know your children,” he described in an interview in 1979.
This is a surprising observation, considering that the Frank family, along with four other people, lived together 24-hours per day, for more than two years when they hid from the Nazis during World War II. Not only were they each other’s only companions, they lived in a tiny attic space about the size of a one-car garage above Otto Frank’s factory. Workers making pectin (a substance used for making jelly) continued to work on the floors beneath them requiring the fugitives above to be completely silent during work hours. Only a select few who worked below knew about the secreted inhabitants.
Anne was thirteen when she, her older sister, and her parents went into hiding from the Nazis who occupied Amsterdam, but she already aspired to be a writer. Initially, the red-plaid fabric covered diary she kept while hidden was the continuation of a writing routine. She started recording her thoughts and observations on her thirteenth birthday in June 1942, unaware that within one month she would climb three, steep flights of stairs to a space where she would enter isolation with her family from the rest of Amsterdam for more than two years.
When Anne began her diary she wrote, “Writing in a diary is a really strange […]
If you want to write – a book! Part I
“Wanted: someone willing to sit for hours in front of a blank page and come up with words and sentences which will hopefully become riveting fiction, compelling memoir or beautiful poetry. Financial compensation: potentially zero. Benefits: an excuse to avoid working, housecleaning, laundry, and exercise. “
During a recent promotional event for the People of Yellowstone book at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, many visitors asked me if I knew when Old Faithful would erupt, but some stopped by our display table to peruse the book and ask questions about writing. Several said that they would like to write a book, too. Some imagined they would write fiction, but most wanted to write about their own life.
“How do you begin a memoir?” they asked. “What’s the difference between an autobiography and a memoir?”
Why do people think they want to write a book? I asked myself.
I’m not sure if I can answer this for others, but I do know that writing is a wonderful and mysterious heroic journey during which it’s possible to make amazing discoveries about our self and the world.
“Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves,” says Carol Pearson, author of The Hero Within. I think we can say the same thing about initiating a writing project. It’s a heroic feat. But how does it begin?
Most of us wouldn’t consider entering into hand-to-hand combat or a tennis tournament without some training, but to accomplish a piece of writing – a short story, essay, or even a book – it is possible to hone your skills on the job. The first requirement is to put words […]
Truth Be Told
“Do you swear to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” We’ve heard this intimidating oath on every television show with a courtroom scene. Fortunately, writers of memoir and personal essay don’t have to make this declaration – at least under oath. Or, if they did, it would be with the caveat that, “This is my truth. This is the way it was for me, so help me Goddess of Imagination.”
It turns out that “truth” has many levels of being, depending on what one is writing about. For most of us, our truth is what we think we remember. Other people might recall the same event differently, but if what you are writing is a memoir about your life, then even other witnesses, like your brother or sister, might remember details differently than your recollection. This is an important concept to keep in mind when writing your story because, if you are swayed to consider some other rendition, based on what someone else claims is the almighty truth, you may not get to the essence of what you are after.
Intention matters. As Sondra Perl and Mimi Schwartz describe in Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction, “If our intent is to capture the messy, real world we live in, we fulfill the first obligation of creative nonfiction. Intent helps us resist the urge to change facts, just to make a better story. It stops us from telling deliberate lies, even as we let our imagination fill in details we only vaguely remember.”
In my memoir, Those Who Remain: Remembrance and Reunion After War, describing my experience of […]
What is Your Writing Practice?
Writing takes time and courage. But, is there a sure-fire approach that will maximize productivity? I’m not sure. Unfortunately, I don’t have an organized practice – or even a routine that I can easily describe. Deadlines are always a great inspiration and get me to the desk more frequently than anything else. I know I’m not a morning writer. That’s when I prefer to read. I build up to writing during the day and hopefully start in the afternoon.
It’s easier for me to see what distracts me from writing. Today, I’m feeling dispossessed, as if I can’t settle down and feel at home in the world. I’ve spent most of the day roaming around my house, picking up random books, wondering if I should give some of them to the library book sale. If I can sit down and start typing, I know that I might get through this odd feeling of having elusive, abstract, uncomfortable ideas. I might begin to understand and tease apart my sense of absence and become present. As David Whyte says in Consolations, “we become visible and real when we give our gift and stop waiting for the gift to be given to us. We wake into our lives again…”
Whyte also says that most of us feel besieged: by events, by people, and even by our own imagined creative possibilities. He suggests starting the day with a “don’t do” list rather than a “to do” list so that you have the highest likelihood of getting to your writing.
Life happens – birth, death, an accident, a financial setback – and may take you far away from […]
