ARE YOU WRITING SOMETHING? Oh, come on. You can tell me. Everyone else is writing about their lives. You can, too. But which story? And how to tell it? I teach memoir, and while my class is off for the summer, I’ll continue posting memoir tips here on TSP, hoping you can find the time to get to your story and that I can be of some help. My theory is that anyone who survived childhood has enough material for several books. So let’s get to it. Here’s an exercise; read along and let’s see if it gets you going.
The way I see it, we had long, lovely trips during we learned a lot. There was that cruise on The Queen of Bermuda when we were maybe 7 and 9. The ship had a saltwater swimming pool. High tea was served at 3. A solid wood library was below decks in which the books were kept on their shelves with elastic cording in front of each subject row.
Those are the details, but where’s the story here? Nowhere, as far as I can see.
So let’s try this:
When I was 13 there were two trips: The Easter vacation (as it once was called) to Puerto Rico, during which time President Eisenhower died of congestive heart failure. I remember reading Ike’s obit with my father. The second trip that year was to meet relatives I never knew we had. They lived in Colorado, which is where I observed hailstones the size of golf balls, Pike’s Peak, and the curious marriage of my mother’s cousin. I took notes on them all.
In between Puerto Rico and Colorado, both my mother and Margaret had gotten Vidal Sassoon haircuts. Angular, severe and precise, these cuts both delineated their separate jawlines and distinguished them from me in yet another way. We three were de-identifying then, and we were all glad to shrug off a piece of the other, I think, on the path to becoming our own women.
There is a difference between the two italicized paragraphs above, and that difference points out a basic rule of memoir, which is this: Just because something happened doesn’t make it interesting. You might think that everything you do is fascinating, and good for you, but to make it work on the page for someone else it must illuminate something, illustrating something universal, telling a tale that at the very least provokes us to think.
Look back at the first paragraph. There are lots of details: A ship’s name, a saltwater swimming pool, tea, books, shelving. They are decoration, nothing more, driving no story forward, ultimately giving it light and color, sound and taste. Same thing with paragraph two, at least until you get to the haircuts, and the subject of de-identification comes in. Then we are on to something that may or may not interest someone else.
What we are “on” to here is the mission of She Said, She Said-those differences established because we grew up in the same household. In my previous memoir writing posts I’ve discussed small aspects of how to write memoir. This is a big one. This is about territory.
What essay or book are you writing? What was your assignment? On TSP, for me, it is to illustrate those separate aspects of the same families. And unless you are a very famous person who has lived a very interesting life, you too must make a large decision about your memoir to narrow it down from a mere retelling of your life’s facts. Only those very public few whose lives have been littered with close encounters with other famous moments and people can sell books in which they merely chronologically relate their lives, their autobiographies. For the rest of us, we must choose a narrower field of vision-parenting, recovery, our dogs, being the winner of the Becky Crocker cooking award, losing a sister, being a sister, living green–to name but a few.
What is your essay, book or story about? You must ask yourself this question and be ready to narrow your field to one topic only. My assignment being very clearly set in my mind, I can then search my memory for only those things that will bring to life how it is we live separate lives under the same cover of family.
What are your ambitions when you sit down to tell your tale? Let’s talk about them here and see if we can’t get you writing that story you’ve been meaning to write.
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Oh, I love these posts about writing & memoirs.
Out of curiousity, because it is something I have been struggling with, do you write on any sort of schedule? How do you make yourself stick to it? I suppose deadlines help.
Hi, Danielle. Mind if I (the older sister who also writes) butt in?
I sold a book last fall, due late this year, and the part I have been struggling with most in writing it is the schedule: giving it its own time in each hectic week.
I tried the “every morning from X-X o’clock, no matter what” format that so many great writing teachers advocate, but I am finding that my rhythm is actually not that at all, but more about devoting a day at a time, not a few hours.
In fact, I have done my best work in the weeks and months when I devoted at least two days in a row and part of the day before or after those each week, so a two and a half day chunk.
I need to really unwind, and ponder, and explore…and sometimes in those 3-hour sessions each morning I was just getting started, and I had booked something else afterward. I am blessed to have the luxury right now of scheduling this way, in whole days, juggling other stuff into other days; I know it’s not feasible for everyone.
On many of the full days, nothing much happens right away, but I don’t feel such pressure to hurry up and get something down. That’s why I like it better.
Marion has a whole other system, that she calls, “The Grid.” She is a master scheduler. I know she will tell you how. In fact, it’s a great idea for a whole other post. Thank you for bringing it up…I am glad to have someone to “talk” about it with. :)
Marion, thanks as always for pointing out the right questions – and nudging us to find the answers. As a sometime blogger I know very little about telling a big story, but I have found this: whatever you think your story says, the reader will find meaning of their own. This frustrated me until I found it was a good sign, a sign of life for readers to connecting their own dots. I’ve since realized that the better you know your own story, the stronger the reaction.
That said, I’m full of words but not getting any down. Thank you, Marion & Margaret, for helping others get it done.
Margaret, thanks for answering! I could probably talk about writing for days and days – I’m so intrigued by the way other people go about it. I tend to write in bursts of inspiration, which can be kind of frustrating.
I’m still getting used to my new work schedule, but I’m hoping that working less hours will allow me to focus more time on writing. Fingers crossed!
(Marion, I’m definitely interested in hearing about this Grid.)
Hi, Marilyn: Full of words but not getting any down is a constant struggle for all writers, as is that rite of passage when your comfort level allows you to accept that your readers will bring their own experiences to the page. I suspect that each writer, in fact, could provide us with an individualized list of those rites of passage required to pass through toward some sense of comfort in this life we’ve chosen. But back to being full of words. This is where a schedule–in my case, a Grid–becomes your very best friend (see below, as well as Margaret’s comment her on The Grid). I’m going to write about The Grid next week as a post, so stay tuned.
Hi, Danielle. So glad you are enjoying the memoir writing posts. Schedules are a must. I am not a cosmic writer one single bit, and though I’ll gladly take any help that comes from unseen forces, I’ve been at this long enough to know that writing begins with discipline, and that discipline is wonderfully aided by a regular schedule, even if it’s only a short period every day. Deadlines are great, which is why a dedicated writing group of people who are invested in your success is a wonderful thing to find and to nurture. But all of it comes down to the discipline of sitting in the hard chair and writing. This is such a great question, however, that I’ll riff on it in my next post. Some of those practical things. Hmmm. I had overlooked them to date in my memoir writing tips. I’ll take them on. Thanks for the prod.
Ah, The Grid. I think we’ll have to put it up on the screen for all to see. The Grid is either my Achille’s heel, my Sword of Damocles or my Super Girl stretch tights. I think it’s the latter. I have my life mapped out on a grid, on which I assign slots of time for all the things I do. Simple – or as complicated – as that. Except that everyone–and yes, I do mean everyone–teases me about it. I think I feel a post coming on.
I find I have to schedule everything or else it doesn’t get done, so the Grid sounds wonderful to me.
Here’s a detail that still causes me to ponder:
My mother-in-law’s final few days were spent in St. Mary’s hospital in Troy. We (me, my husband, his brother & his brother’s wife) were keeping a vigil. All four of us stayed at the hospital until late on a Saturday night and then went home to sleep because things weren’t changing. When my husband and I came back Sunday morning, she had been moved to hospice. We went into her room and a doctor came in to talk to us. I remember that my mother-in-law had an oxygen mask on and the doctor said she thought we should remove the oxygen mask because it probably wasn’t very “comfortable.” She removed the mask and a minute later my mother-in-law died.
My husband and I sat in the room just oberving his mother’s body and my recollection is that it was an incredibly peaceful moment. A half hour or so passed and my brother-in-law arrived. We told him she had passed and he came into the room to see her. After a minute or two, he said he had to leave the room because being near a dead body was too upsetting.
I believe he was entitled to respond to the situation in his own way and I have tried hard not to be judgmental about that, but it seemed consistent in that he was always overwhelmed about the continual crises that made up the final years of my in-law’s lives.
Hi, Sandy. What a breathtaking scene this is, and one that so many of us can identify as our own, as well. Thank you for sharing it. It’s very generous of you to do so. This is a great example of how the large moment–in this case, the death of your mother-in-law–is not the central theme here, but how each of us respond becomes what catches our eye. My theory is that good writing takes up life’s small moments, and this exemplifies that beautifully. While this is staged at the ultimate in life’s experiences–which along with birth are the only two things we can absolutely guarantee we’ll all do–that’s not what this is about, is it?