Happy anniversary! 🎉 We’ve been together for a month.
In sitting down to write this post, a prayer of devotion whispers around the edges of my consciousness:
Memoir. Oh memoir. How do I know thee? How can I understand thee? And how can I write thee in a way that honors experience, that allows my chin to remain lifted in dignity, that shines a light on the darkness within?
😬 Feeling slightly silly putting that out there. Devotion seems to have gone out of style these days, but perhaps Flight School will bring it back? We’ll see.
I pick up from the March 10 post where I am on the train going home after hearing the magic word, memoir…
Even as my thirty-three-year-old self worried terribly about what Mr. Steady would say to my wanting to write a book…ahem…a memoir, and even though I still had nary a clue about how to get the job done, a past shrink-wrapped within three reductionist headlines—Mother died. Father died. Brother killed himself—unfurled to reveal the rolling Sierra Nevada mountains of my childhood, the bitter, musty twist of sage-infused air, the itchy softness of the mint leaves that grew in patches in our backyard.
A life.
I had lived a life. A beautiful, terrible, painful, and confusing one. But a life nonetheless. It was a gift. And a curse. But…it was mine. MINE!
As that word “memoir” pinged around in my brain, with all its promise and potential and vastness, I felt myself re-enter the raw longings of a girl who wanted her mother to be well even as her life spilled like water through her fingers, who wished her father would listen to her actual words and ask questions rather than dismiss or punish, and who worried for a brother haunted by a furious self-loathing that was so obviously leading to a disastrous outcome. I suppose a part of me also toyed with the belief that I might somehow change the outcomes of that girl’s past—my past. Time travel with my twist. Maybe. Maybe. Just maybe…
Memoir Audaciously Re-Defined:
Using the tools found in literature, to include but not limited to: scene (moments in time), exposition (summary, flashback, movements of mind, context), concrete description, structure, plot, character development, inner and outer arc, antagonistic forces, and setting, the writer takes on the memory of an entire life (not optimal unless she is writing a series), or a section of a life that had a particular impact on her. For example, an event that altered her worldview, had her make a significant change in her life direction or reframed her way of being for the better (unless the memoir is a tragedy, and then shows an undoing as a result of short-sightedness or ego tendencies). Using the tools mentioned above, the memoir writer renders a novel-like story that the reader can learn from, most often by relating to the overall themes brought forth through the use of description and metaphor, or by insights provided. Like the best of literature, a memoir can and should be effortful to read, and thought-provoking for the reader, challenging beliefs and offering alternatives to mainstream notions. ~ Me
(Can I do that? Really? Guess what…I just did!)
“You want to write what?” Steve had asked when I sat him down, brought him a beer, and set a copy of Girl Interrupted on the ottoman between us. A solid example would be helpful for this man-of-the-earth. The beer? Well, that would loosen him up.
“A memoir, like this,” I said and motioned toward the book.
By now, I had done my research and knew a bit more (Not quite as much as the above definition because that would take years to shape), but I had learned that a memoir, also being called creative non-fiction was basically like a novel. You use the same tools in the telling of the story, but a reader doesn’t expect quite as much as they might in a novel. Meaning, that it is enough for the memoir writer to ponder the past, to ask questions, and to seek truth while not necessarily achieving said truth.
“Memoir gives a writer room for exploration of truth,” I was now saying to Steve who took a long pull of the beer, then set aside the bottle and picked up Girl Interrupted.
“You need a good story, something of interest,” I continued, “something with a punch, which I’m sure you’ll agree I have with the death of my family.”
We were in the lovely living room we had painted a warm tone of honey cream. Underfoot, a space rug of purples and olive greens. Over there is the fireplace. And over there a picture window draped with sheers. Steve is on the sofa. Me in an armchair.
I was talking too much though and stopped.
Steve turned through a few of the pages and read a few lines.
It seemed I had swallowed a bird, for all the flapping going on in my chest. It felt vital he get on board.
In an earlier post, my introduction example (gosh that feels like a long time ago), I wrote that this was my second marriage and that I wanted it to work. But even more than that, I loved this guy and respected him, too. Over our two years of marriage, he had spearheaded a complex renovation with courage and tenacity, and frugality. Steve taught me, by example, the power of recycling as he painstakingly restored light fixtures, radiators, and a twisted screen door that seemed beyond repair.
Sitting there with my visionary plan to trot into my past and write—what was it again? A memoir?—I suddenly felt so stupid. And yet I wanted it so badly it almost hurt.
Steve turned Girl Interrupted over in his calloused paw of a hand and studied the back cover. He wasn’t a reader unless it was the want-ads in The Oregonian or a glance at the USA Today headlines, and he didn’t go in for literature of any kind.
“I don’t get it,” he finally said, tossing the book back on the ottoman. “Is this like my Aunt Lois, who wrote that family history and bound it up for everyone last Christmas?”
Girl Interrupted looked rather pathetic now, or perhaps that was my own deflated dreams that seemed…stupid? Silly? Insubstantial?
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to write a family history. I want to write about my parents and how they died but I want to do it like she did…artfully.”
But again…he wasn’t a reader. Artful writing meant nothing to him. And I had so much to learn. Maybe later. Maybe in the next life…or the one after…I was thinking because Steve, with those blue eyes and that ash brown hair tossed rakishly back from a wide forehead, was my true north. If I couldn’t make sense of my dream to him, well, I couldn’t make sense of it to anyone. Right?
Think Jennifer, I was telling myself, speak the language he’ll understand. But this was a guy who spent his days either standing at an auction block—which was what he did to make money as a professional auctioneer—or tottering about in the garage restoring yet another minute part of the house or working on one of the vintage cars we owned. Old Volvos and BMWs. Steve was a guy who worked in the material world, the real world, where things could be touched, bought or sold, shown off.
“I’ll sell it,” I said, “I’ll write a book, sell it, and earn an advance.”
“An advance?”
“It’s like a down payment and then the publisher helps you sell it.”
The confused blankness had slipped from his features, and Steve was squinting now because he knew I was bullshitting about getting published. He wasn’t a fool.
“Isn’t that kind of hard?” he asked.
Yes, I wanted to say with a near-maniacal laugh. It’s impossible. Only a handful of people can do it and half of those will lose their minds. Ever heard of Sylvia Plath? Virginia Woolf? Hemingway? Dead. Dead. Dead.
“No. It’s probably super easy,” I said with the bravado of an optimist. I had promoted writers and helped a few get book deals after all. “I’ve written news stories. Produced entire newscasts. And I’ve won awards for both. Writing a book can’t be that different. I’ll write it. I’ll sell it. You’ll see. It’ll be great.”
Before Steve could ask another question, I rushed forward with my plan which was to convert all my studies at the college from Conflict Resolution to Creative Writing. What made this easier was the fact that…get ready for it: I was pregnant with our first child, which Steve and I had just learned about a few days prior. Not only was he the needle pointing north on my compass, but he was also the father of my future child. Since getting the news—and celebrating our conceptional success in a world where many of our friends struggled with infertility and miscarriages—we had been talking about what to do once the baby was born. Since Steve traveled several days a week, the obvious conclusion would be that I stay home.
“So, while I’m hanging out and taking care of the baby, I’ll write. I mean, come on, how hard can it be?”
Steve's eyes shifted to Kaysen’s book on the ottoman and then to me again. He was doing the math.
“So, you want to be a writer? You want to publish a book?”
“Well. I’m not sure. I think so. I mean, the baby is going to be a big change for me, for us. I can try. I can give it my best shot.”
“But you just said you could sell it.”
I blinked. Did I say that? Really?
“I can. I will.”
He nodded at this and then shook his head slightly as if fitting the new plan into his brain. “Why not?” he finally said and finished off the last of his beer. “What’s for dinner anyway?” he asked, getting up and crossing into the kitchen where he opened the fridge.
“I’m not sure,” I said, sitting there stunned. We had married and purchased and renovated an old house while at the same time, I had excavated the specifics of my past, written a news report style dossier, and done a smattering of therapy (at least enough to feel that I would be a relatively good mother). Now, a baby would arrive in nine months, and I was going to write and publish a book. Ahem. A memoir.
Gulp.
My God, I thought. What have I done?
(Go directly to the next post in the Blackbird journey now).
I’ve written eight posts now and a pattern has emerged (as I suspected it might). I’m writing a memoir about writing a memoir, and I’m teaching what I learned along the way. And I stop to provide you with assignments designed to help bring the form to your process (even if it is well underway) as I go.
Cool.
Very cool.
And as I come to this realization, a deer has just shown up to eat a bit of fresh grass outside my window. All the deer have been gone for several weeks now and today, just now, presto. Look at it stand there, audacious in its way.
Anyway, I also want to point out that I am showing craft at work in the form of scene, exposition, description, and establishing what’s at stake…as well as getting closer to the narrator (while also aligning with Steve’s POV) and dropping in key bits of information.
I’ll be unpacking all of these terms more fully in the “flying lessons” to come, but for now, we are still on the ground doing our prep work.
Now, it’s your turn.
“Announcing Your Memoir” Homework Assignment:
Think about the first person you talked to about writing a book. Ahem, a memoir (or a series of essays):
What was the day like?
What was your reaction once you said it out loud to this person or people?
What did it feel like in your body?
Where were you?
Where were they?
What was going on in your life?
What was that person’s reaction?
How did that reaction make you feel?
Did you have to sell it to that person? Or did they completely get it right away?
I’ll look forward to your comments and shares.
~ Jennifer 🍎
Love your prayer of devotion at the beginning :). May I quote you on it?
I've known I've wanted to write a book since I was seven, so I don't think there was a clear moment (I wrote a couple [very bad] memoirs in my teens and 20s.) And I'm single, so I didn't have to sell it to anyone. Even with the book I AM writing, it just kind of unfolded... I don't think it was really even a decision. But while I don't have much to add comment wise, I love learning some of the backstory of your own process!