My journey to memoir has led me to self-discovery and healing. It has made me look at my life and understand the choices that have led me to the woman I am today. At 67, I look back at the young woman who made many self-defeating life decisions. In writing my story, I have learned to embrace my flaws and setbacks and forgive myself for the path I chose. For it is through this path that I ultimately found the joy and contentment I am experiencing today.
EVER FAITHFUL TO HIS LEADhelped me answer my own burning question:
How does a young woman from a loving, stable family make so many wise choices about career, yet so many poor choices about love that she ends up escaping with her children in the middle of the day from a second abusive marriage?
Here’s my journey to memoir….
Writing a memoir is really hard work. It’s like having a homework assignment every day of your life.
It means showing up and getting in a writing zone where the words flow, or not. It means fighting your inner critic , facing rejection.
It means allowing yourself to be vulnerable and genuine, revisiting painful memories and gleaning the life lessons.
One word, one thought at a time. Like a huge jigsaw puzzle. You pour the pieces on the table, then begin sorting them Into a recognizable pattern.
But a memoir is not a string of vignettes–delightful and compelling as these stories may be. It’s a story with a takeaway. All those pieces of the puzzle need to be shaped into a narrative arc, with a theme, plot points, scenes, dialogue, sensory detail, dramatic tension, conflict and eventually resolution.
A story of transformation that will benefit the reader and connect them with their own transformation.
When I sent my manuscript to a developmental editor, her response was , “you have more than one memoir here.” I had poured my heart and soul into those pages and now I had to rethink the whole process.
I had to be the one to find my own story and once I found it, I had to claim it and honor it as the story I needed and wanted to tell.That took another few months to process. I set the manuscript aside and went off on my own to pout, grieve, stew, until one day a friend I hadn’t seen in years visited. She asked me to read the chapter she was in and when I finished, she said, “It reads like a novel” .
This, of course, was music to my memoirist’s ears. And I never looked back. I claimed my story and began the next arduous leg of my journey, rewriting, shaping, editing through professional editors and beta readers.
After a year of digging deeper, I reached the polishing stage. My publisher offered a final proofread…
After five years of writing and rewriting, Ever Faithful to His Lead is getting ready for its debut. It is a story of hope, resilience and courage. My greatest wish is that it will touch the heart of those who need it the most–women who find themselves in the grip of an abusive relationship and are searching for their inner strength and freedom.
Please join me I spreading this message through my Pubslush campaign for Ever Faithful to His Leadwhich went live on May 12 for 30 days.
” I am large. I contained multitudes.”Walt Whitman
I am honored to feature Memoir Author, Professional Speaker and Teacher Sue William Silverman in this WOW! Woman on WritingBook Tour for her latest memoir,The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew.I have been a fan of Sue’s work since I started getting serious about writing my own memoir five years ago. Her memoir writing resource book, Fearless Confessionsas well as her award-winning memoirs,Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You and Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addictionhave guided many of us who are searching for voice and story in our own journey to memoir.
Confessions of a Memoirist: My Serial Personalities
As a woman, I live one life. As a writer of memoir, however, I live several. With each book, I observe myself as if through a different lens of a camera, each revealing its own story. In my new memoir, The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew, I’m a Pat Boone groupie. But before Pat Boone….
Sue with Pat Boone
Personality #1
After I wrote my first book, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, I thought, that’s it. I’ve written the story of my life: the loss, fear, and confusion I felt growing up with a scary father. I believed this was my entire story. One memoir per person.
Except, after the book was published, I thought: What about the sexual addiction with which I struggled for years, a result of the child abuse?
Personality #2
Only by writing Love Sick did I discover the meaning of my addict life – the double life I lived. In public, I appeared a “normal” married woman; no one knew that, in secret, I had one affair after another.
After these two memoirs I thought – finally – I had revealed all my secrets, written everything possible about myself.
But wait: There’s more to me than being an incest survivor/sex addict, thank goodness!
Personalities #3, 4, 5, etc.
As a middle-aged baby boomer I came to realize there are many different strands to my life. This realization formed during the writing of the new book, which began – fortuitously, ironically – when I just happened to see a photograph of Pat Boone in my local newspaper. He was scheduled to perform a concert near my home in West Michigan. This encounter, which, I feel, was fated to happen, began the long journey of writing this book.
First, for background: Pat Boone was a 1960s pop-music idol. As a teenager living in New Jersey, I had a crush on him and once attended “The Pat Boone Chevy Show,” broadcast from Manhattan.
Now, as an adult, I planned to barge backstage after the concert in Michigan in order to tell Pat Boone what he’s meant to me all these years.
In The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew, I depict how my childhood crush went far beyond just liking his music. Three separate encounters with Pat Boone frame my quest to belong to the dominant culture. With his wholesome, squeaky-clean image, he represented everything my Jewish father was not. I wanted the overtly Christian Pat Boone to adopt me, to be my father.
Beyond my father, I also wanted to flee my Russian Jewish heritage and fit into the WASPy suburb in which I lived. I wanted to look like one of Pat Boone’s four daughters – resemble all my Christian high-school friends. This, then, is another aspect of myself, another personality: one seeking a sense of belonging.
I portray this search for identity in various other ways throughout the book. For example, I also write about an obsession with a homeless tramp in the West Indies – someone who, like Pat Boone, might likewise be a savior. In another chapter, I’m a teenage Jersey girl, attending a predominantly Christian high school, in love with a boy who resembles Pat Boone. In yet another section, set in Israel, I’m a kibbutznik enamored with a paratrooper and his cute red paratrooper’s cap. Another “me” vacations in Yugoslavia with an anti-Semitic boyfriend. Elsewhere I play the role of wife – albeit one having an existential crisis when I move, with a husband who doesn’t really love me, to Galveston, Texas.
As I wrote each of these sections, and others, I was, in fact, exploring various aspects of myself, all held together by this life-long crisis of spirituality, of belonging. In that quest, I kept trying on different identities, seeking one that fit.
What Next?
Now that the Pat Boone book is published, I’ve begun yet another memoir. I don’t have a title yet, but in it I meditate upon that part of me that’s a quasi-hypochondriac fueled by an irrational (is it?) fear of dying. We’ll see where it goes!
And after that I’ll write…. Who knows?
Why so many memoirs? At its essence, I believe a memoir can contain only one major theme. For example, there was no way I could have squeezed incest and sex addiction into one book, let alone Pat Boone!
Among these three books, I move from a confused, lost girl, to an edgy sex addict, to a much more ironic Jewish liberal Democrat with a crush on a man, Pat Boone, who’s a member of the conservative Tea Party. Each book has a different theme, a different energy, different metaphors, different voices, different tones, different words.
Sure, I myself am one person; yet, as a memoir writer, I tease various strands of myself apart in order to examine each as fully and consciously as possible.
After all, whether we explore them through writing or not, don’t we all have many different selves?
What are some of yours?
***
The Pat Boone Fan Club
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Publication Date: March 1, 2014
Paperback: 248 pages Synopsis:
Gentile reader, and you, Jews, come too. Follow Sue William Silverman, a one-woman cultural mash-up, on her exploration of identity among the mishmash of American idols and ideals that confuse most of us—or should. Pat Boone is our first stop. Now a Tea Party darling, Boone once shone as a squeaky-clean pop music icon of normality, an antidote for Silverman’s own confusing and dangerous home, where being a Jew in a Christian school wasn’t easy, and being the daughter of the Anti-Boone was unspeakable. And yet somehow Silverman found her way, a “gefilte fish swimming upstream,” and found her voice, which in this searching, bracing, hilarious, and moving book tries to make sense of that most troubling American condition: belonging, but to what?
Picking apricots on a kibbutz, tramping cross-country in a loathed Volkswagen camper, appearing in a made-for-television version of her own life: Silverman is a bobby-soxer, a baby boomer, a hippy, a lefty, and a rebel with something to say to those of us—most of us—still wondering what to make of ourselves.
***
Sue William Silverman, author bio:
Sue William Silverman’s new memoir is The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew. Her two other memoirs are Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction, which is also a Lifetime TV movie, and Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You,which won the Association of Writers and Writing Programs award in creative nonfiction. Her craft book is Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir. As a professional speaker, Sue has appeared on The View, Anderson Cooper 360, and more. She teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
How about you? How would you answer Sue’s question about your “different selves”?
All commenters names will be entered into a drawing and the lucky winner whose name will be selected randomly will receive a copy of Sue’s memoir, The Pat Boone Fan Club.
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
“The nicest part is being able to write down all my thoughts and feelings, otherwise I might suffocate.” Anne Frank from The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition.
It all started with the pink diary I received for my eleventh birthday. It had a key so I could lock away all my deepest secrets, like what boy I had a crush on in the sixth grade or all the fun I had at the girl scout camping trip even though those half-cooked hot dogs made me yearn for home.
I could write whatever I was thinking and feeling and nobody would ever know.
Now I am writing a memoir and the whole world will know what I am thinking and feeling. I can’t help but ponder how the transition- from guarding my thoughts with a lock and key to sharing my inner and outer story so openly- happened.
For me, it happened through journaling…
I have journaled for years and never realized that all those times I had poured out my feelings onto the pages of my journal , I was planting the seeds for my memoir.
I still have the blue cloth, three-ring notebook that I created for my senior English teacher, Miss Philips back in 1964. The page dividers have pictures depicting the sections: hopes, beliefs, thoughts, ideas with varied colored plastic tabs where the white labels were inserted.
At the time, it seemed like a silly project. What did Miss Philips know? I can still see her, pencil-thin frame, always dressed in some dark-colored–grey, navy blue or black–dowdy dress or suit. Standing so straight by her desk, she never smiled or wore makeup. Her brown hair was pulled back in a tight bun and her wire-rimmed glasses dangled at the end of her nose.
What in the world would I ever do with that silly notebook?
My First Journal
I packed the journal when I went to nursing school and every once in a while, I’d pull it out to glance through the sections. Sometimes, I’d even jot a few thoughts down. For the most part, it lay dormant.
But, as I began my career and started out on my path to contribute to society as an adult, the pages started beckoning me.
It turned out that I did plenty with Miss Philips’s notebook and if I had the chance, I would thank her for the gift of that handmade journal which provided me with a framework to fill in my life story. What started out as an assumption in my adolescent mind that my out-of-touch teacher was wasting my time became a slowly evolving admiration for a teacher who made a lasting difference in my life…
She planted a seed that has bloomed over and over again as I have worked my way through my life challenges.
Without realizing it at the time, I was planting the seeds for my life story.
I have journaled through the heartaches of relationship failures, the searing pain of divorce, the loneliness and exhaustion of being a single parent, the terror of dealing with an alcoholic son, the heart wrenching losses of my maternal grandmother, Nan and my best friend, Judy, my own diagnosis of cancer and the illness and death of my beloved father.
The seed journal has spawned many spiral notebooks and decorative journals to accommodate my evolving thoughts and feelings; to capture my moments of need, longing, passion, creativity, my life…the moments that will matter in my memoir.
The journal tells its own story.
*The pages sit blank and patient just waiting to receive my words. As the words fall on the page, the emotions get sorted out. There is something about labeling a feeling that helps to put it into perspective.
*The feelings that grip and gouge on the inside take on a different shape on the outside.
*Knowledge is power and when one becomes clear with one’s own feelings, there is a sense of empowerment.
*When I journaled my way through my father’s 11-day illness and death, I found clarity and solace in my own words.In sharing my deepest, heartfelt grief, I received support and love in return.
Journaling has become my pathway to healing and hope and has helped me to recall, relive and reflect upon the moments and times of my life that will make up my memoir.
Thank you Miss Philips for helping me plant the seeds that have yielded a garden of stories for my memoir.
Look what is growing in my garden Photo Credit: Nana
***
Here is a brief journal entry written in response to a writing prompt at a conference. It that has become a part of my first memoir, now in it’s final edits, Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse:
” The lime green satin dress with the rhinestone design on the bodice slips over my gentle curves as I guide it over my head and wiggle it into place. I pull my stockings up each leg and attach them at the top with metal clasps on the girdle I don’t want to wear. But, it makes me feel grown up. I am twelve years old and getting ready for the cotillion at the end of Madame Helina’s ballroom dancing class. I pull my long,brown hair back into ponytail and slide into my patent leather flats, ready for a practice session into the dancing world of my approaching adolescence.”
To write a memoir, you need to mine memories and get in touch the significant events in your life that have shaped you into the person you are today. It is a voyage of self-discovery. Journaling can help plant the seeds for the story you need to tell. It can become a pathway to healing and hope and help you to recall, relive and reflect upon the moments and times of your life that become your story.
What you will learn
Journaling as a creative process
The physical and psychological benefits of writing and journaling
Specific techniques for stimulating creativity
Methods for organizing a journaling routine
How to identify vignettes that can be turned into a larger story
How to identify possible themes of a memoir through your own writing
How it works-From Kathy
We’ll get together for four 60-minute telephone sessions. During each session, I’ll offer a lesson on journaling. Then each of you will have an opportunity to share your own journaling experiences and writing. By exploring your own journal entries, we will build a trusting, mutually supportive atmosphere. Between each session, you will write a brief assignment—a response from a writing prompt- and email them to all the class. Because we will be able to read your pieces on our own, you won’t need to read them aloud. We can use class time to work through issues and offer feedback. At every step during and between classes, I will offer guidance to help you discover the heart of your own story. By the end of the sessions, it is my hope that the vignettes you have gathered through writing prompts may become the seeds for your memoir.
How about you? Does journaling help you find your story?
I’d love to hear from you . Please leave your comments below~
Next Week :
Monday, 4/28/14:
Sue William Silverman will be featured in a WOW!Women on Writing Book Tour and Giveaway for her new memoir, The Pat Boone Fan Club with a review and guest post on “Confessions of a Memoirist: My Serial Personalities.”
“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” William Shakespeare
Photo Credit: dreamstimefree
One of the greatest aspects of being a writer today is that we have so many routes to publication. But sometimes the very thing that makes the process exciting also creates dilemmas. It pays to do your research.
There are pros and cons to each route. Here is an excellent article on factors to consider when deciding to go with a small press: Vanity Press in Small Press Clothing.
Preditors and Editors is another valuable resource for writers and authors seeking agents, editors and publishers.
My Decision-making Process:
I tend to suffer from an ailment which I will label “paralysis of analysis.” The only two times in my life I did not honor this well-practiced modus operandi was when I decided to get married. But I digress and that’s the subject of my first memoir Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse. I took an uncalculated leap of faith and ended up falling into an abyss I had to climb out of.
Any other big decision—having a child, choosing a college, deciding on a career change, retiring from my nursing career, etc– had me writing out lists of pros and cons, talking endlessly to family and friends about the decision and losing sleep.
But (and it’s what comes after the but that counts), this process has served a valuable purpose. When I do finally reach a decision, there is no question. There is a sense of rightness and finality. There is no turning back.
I have struggled with my decision on the best route to publication for my memoir.
To be honest, my favorite route is Indie publishing for the independence, efficiency and sense of satisfaction in having creative control over my work. I feel strongly that anyone who self-publishes has to work twice as hard to maintain the same level of excellence as the author of a traditionally published book. If writers maintain a commitment to excellence by creating their own team of professionals—editors, cover designers, formatters, etc- there should be no difference between an Indie published book and a traditionally published book.
We are entrepreneurial authors in charge of our works.
And, no matter which route to publication we choose, there is no easy way. It’s all hard work, both the writing and the marketing.
As authors, we take the responsibility for learning our craft and promoting our book.
Like any other major decision in life, I had to factor in individual issues such as chronic illness, age, family life, time. I’ve been more aware of the passing of time lately. I don’t mean that in a morbid, negative way. Rather a life affirming way, where my time with my family and friends is precious. I don’t want to lose sight of what matters the most in my life. Writing is a passion for me but I am aware of how it keeps me from being present to my family and friends.
After months of deliberation, I have made a final decision based upon what I feel is best for me, for now. I have taken the time to get to know a small publisher whom I have grown to trust and value for his sound advice and for his experience in the publishing world. I have found a partner to assist me in the process of launching my “baby” into the world and I couldn’t feel more satisfied.
His name is Paul Burt and he is the Founder/President of Pen and Publish, Inc. Pen and Publish was established in 2005 to work with schools and nonprofits to professionally publish student collections. They have added adult titles and collaborative/traditional-hybrid imprints Transformation Media Books (body/mind/spirit) and Open Book Press.
They also provide publishing services for small presses and individual authors.
Paul reached out to me on social media. He found me when I left a comment on Dan Blank’s WriterUnboxed post ,then he visited my site and left a comment on my post. So goes the power of making meaningful connections via social media.
It pays to show up!
So why did I choose Pen and Publish out of all the options available?
Communication: It takes time to establish trust, especially in this current publishing environment where companies prey on vulnerable new authors. We both would be taking a risk so we had to spend some time getting to know each other. After several hours on the phone, and many emails back and forth, we forged a partnership. In the end, we were willing to take the risk on each other. Paul answered my emails promptly which was one of my criterion. Several other publishers were not as responsive.
Collaboration: Paul has taken the time to guide me in edits and marketing activities while leaving the decisions—title, book cover, marketing, crowdfunding– up to me. I feel like I have the best of both worlds, an experienced publisher to guide me and creative control over my work in progress. We are working together on a Pubslush pre-marketing campaign to help spread the value of the book. TBA
We are working on making this a win-win-win situation for him as the publisher, me as the author and, ultimately, for the reader.
Credibility: In his LinkedIn profile ,Paul describes himself as a “social entrepreneur with a focus on win-win-win results.” He has fifteen years of book publishing experience as well as prior experience in nonprofit fundraising, printing industry sales and sales supervision. My conversations with Paul bore out these descriptions. I could have listed these attributes without reading his profile.
A Few Key Features of an Author Friendly Contract that factored into my decision:
*Gatekeeping services: access to editing, book cover designers, marketing plans.
*Quickly increasing royalty percentages linked to book sales.
*Print and Digital distribution with access to international markets and wider distribution channels.
*Upfront Costs: no fee to publish.
*Accessibility to publisher for ongoing questions/support.
*Copyright ownershipmaintained by author.
*Provision to cancel without cause.
Here are the lessons I’d like to share that may help you in your own publishing decisions:
1. Be clear on your publishing objectives: mainstream, POD, digital version only,etc.
2. Study available options. The market is saturated with how-to books. Here is a post with a list of resources that helped me.
3. Take time to be clear on your own needs related to finances, personal, time,etc.
4. Be realistic about the pros and cons of each route as it relates to your needs.
5. There is no one right way.
6.Honor your needs and make a decision that fits in with those needs.
7. Move forward in faith and hope, knowing you have been true to yourself and your prospective readers.
Find the best way for YOU to get your book into the hands of your readers.
We all have to find our own way through the maze of options. Best wishes on your journey to publication!
Photo Credit: dreamstimefree
I’d love to hear your comments and am happy to respond to any questions. Paul has also agreed to be available for comments. Please leave your comments below~
Announcement:
Congratulations to Clara Bowman-Jahn for being the winner of Saloma Miller Furlong’s memoir, Bonnet Strings!
This week:
Thursday, 4/24/14:“Journaling as Seed for Memoir: A Memoir Moment”
“The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.” Richard Moss, MD
The field of Narrative Medicine has emerged gradually over time.
Dr Rita Charon, professor of medicine and executive director of Columbia University’s Narrative Medicine program defines narrative medicine as “medicine practiced with narrative competence to recognize, absorb, tell and be moved by the stories of illness.”
Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness by Dr Rita Charon
When I attended nursing school in 1964-67, we studied ‘interpersonal relationships and therapeutic communication.” It was a given that the nurse’s role was to consider the individual person in caring for the patient while the physician’s role was to concentrate on diagnosing and treating disease. We called it the nursing model and medical model. Together we would work as a team to deliver safe and compassionate care to our patients.
Listening to the stories of illness is at the heart of any compassionate, caring relationship. As Dr Charon cites in this article from the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA),
“words nurse the wounds medicine cannot describe.”
It comes as a welcomed relief to me to see that the field of Narrative Medicine encourages a holistic approach for all healthcare providers.
I have been privileged to have served as a health care provider both as a registered nurse for forty-four years and as a family nurse practitioner for the last fifteen of those years.
Here is a story of a time I listened to a patient. It was 1974 and I was a staff RN in a busy emergency department of a 400-bed hospital:
Sacred Ground
“50 year-old male with crushing chest pain of three-hour duration. No known heart history. His wife is on her way,” the paramedic reported while whisking the ambulance stretcher past me on the way to the trauma room.
As I helped pull the man onto the exam table, his wide eyes and ashen color left no doubt about the urgency of his condition. We buzzed around him like a swarm of bees. While hooking him up to the monitor, starting an IV (intravenous), rattling off questions, I looked over at him and noticed his eyes searching. He clutched his chest and looked so scared.
“Mr Michaels, we’re giving you some medication in your veins to help the pain,” I said as I leaned in closer to his stretcher.
“Where’s Rachel? I need to see Rachel. Please go get her,” he pleaded, his salt and pepper hair now drenched with sweat. He had a look of terror in his eyes.
Sensing the desperation in his plea, I signaled to a co-worker to take my place and briefly left the room while the frenzied attempt to save his life continued.
A thin, scared young girl with long straight light brown hair and big brown eyes slowly inched her way around the corner when I called out for Rachel.
“Rachel, your dad wants to talk with you,” I said. When I bent down to put my hand on her shoulder, I wanted to wrap my arms around her frail, frightened body.
“Is my Daddy going to be OK?” she asked as she looked up at me and fiddled with the button on her dress. I sensed she knew he wasn’t.
“We’re doing everything we can, Rachel. Come with me,” I said as I took her hand and led her to the room.
I guided her to the head of her father’s bed through the maze of IV tubing, monitor wires, medical orders and staff rushing by.
Mr Michaels reached out his arm and pulled her head next to his, kissing her forehead.
“Take good care of your mother, Rachel. Daddy loves you very much.” He said.
I love you too, Daddy.” She said and began sobbing.
He nodded, signaling me it was time to leave.
After ushering Rachel to the waiting room to the care of another nurse, I returned to the room. He was being resuscitated. As soon as I left the room with Rachel, he had gone into full cardiac arrest. After all attempts were deemed futile , he was pronounced dead.
Precious moments and sacred ground.
I’m so glad I listened.”
I hope you will enjoy this YouTube video of a TED talk by Dr. Sayantani Das Gupta, professor in the Medical Humanities program at Columbia University. She talks about “Narrative Humility and the importance of reading and interpreting our patients’ stories.”
How about you? Have you experienced the healing aspect of storytelling and being listened to?
I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week:
Monday, 3/31/14: ” Finding My Way From Memoir to Fiction by Author Doreen Cox”
” The heart is the toughest part of the body. Tenderness is in the hands.” Carolyn Forche, The Country Between Us.
Potter working with clay Photo credit: dreamstimefree
I just returned from a women’s weekend retreat where I participated in a session on working with clay. The purpose of the session was to experience the transformative power of molding something out of a mound of clay so as to get in touch with the artist within.I started rolling the lump of brown clay into a ball feeling the soft clay against my palms and fingers. As soft music played in the background, Sister Sue spoke in soothing, measured phrases about getting in touch with our own creative energies and all our God-given gifts that need to come forth.
During the process,I became very aware of my hands and how they were vital tools in allowing me to shape the clay—first into a heart, then a butterfly, then a closed shell with curved edges until it ultimately opened up into a sunflower-shaped bowl. It was a little rough around the edges but it was beautiful. I pressed my thumbprints into the center in the shape of a heart, reminding me that I can open up and even if I am a little rough around the edges, I still have a heart.
Imperfection has its own beauty.
That led to a flood of memories about my hands…
Here I am with my dad, overlooking Keuka Lake in Penn Yan,NY (1950):
A four-year old little girl stands on a hill next to a man in the black and white photo. Her small, soft hands reach up to hold the large, safe hand of her father, her hero .
Dad and I in 1950 at Watkins Glen, NY
A seven-year-old and her baby brother Tom nestle in the safe grooves next to their father. He gently drapes his arms around them, their hands side by side(1953):
Reading Again, 1953
During my Freshman year in high school (1961), my hands were photographed for the yearbook, The North Star.
The day Wayne and I were married in October,2001:
Wedding Day, 2001
August, 2010:
Now the little girl has grown. She is sixty-four and her aging, wrinkled hand wraps, fingers intertwined, the same hand of her eighty-seven year old father whose hands are frail and spindly with skin as thin as parchment paper. She puts her other hand over their intertwined hands as they slowly walk in unison down the stairs of the lake house to sit on a beach swing and watch the boats go by or watch a mother duck lead her eight baby ducklings across the water.
The day I held my dying father ‘s hands, November 25, 2010:
I have been sitting at my father’s bedside for the past week, rubbing his swollen arm and telling him how much I love him. His skin is pink and soft and feels warm against my hand. I hold his hand and stroke his fingers. His nails are smooth and trimmed as they always have been. The wrinkles are ironed out by the swelling.
These are the hands that guided me through tenth grade geometry,through setting up a personal budget;the hands that held mine as we walked down the aisle and danced the Father-Daughter dance at my wedding. Now they drape motionless atop the pillows under his arms.
It is Thanksgiving Day and my father is dying, slowly fading away as he continues to breathe in and out in a peaceful, steady rhythm.
These hands that guided and soothed and provided are now still and worn. These soft child hands that reached up and were held are now wrinkled and reaching out to guide and nurture.
These hands that have begged for healing,have joined a family in prayer,have held crying babies, have rubbed a dying friend’s shoulder,have soothed a patient’s pain;these hands that have received a father’s love– these are my hands.
How about you? What stories would your hands tell?
I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week:
Monday, 3/3/14: ” Guide for Memoir Writers: Twitter Hashtags to Market Your Book & How to Use Them by Ann Smarty”
It is my pleasure to introduce Ken Myers to you and feature him in this guest post. Ken describes himself as an executive in the care industry–childcare, senior care, pet care–a poet, a Christian as well as a husband, father and entrepreneur. He contacted me to do a guest post and I initially told him I didn’t think his message matched by brand. But when he told me he was working on his own memoir, it was BINGO! I like what he has to say about this universal concern all memoir writers have. I hope you will enjoy it and will share your thoughts.
Welcome, Ken!
Ken Myers, Entrepreneur
Be Gentle and Kind When Writing Memoir
Writing about real people is difficult. Not only is it hard to be accurate, as you can’t fully understand their thinking and motivations, but you have to deal with the backlash of misunderstandings if the person is still alive or if their loved ones are still around. For this reason, it is imperative that you are gentle and kind when writing about real people. That does not mean you can’t be honest or truthful, simply that you should be circumspect and wise in your writing and portrayal of others.
Here are some tips to make your memoir writing gentle and kind:
1. Know that you will end up offending someone – This first point is a hard one to take, but it is very true. Whenever you write about real people, someone will be offended. Try not to take these things to heart or let their anger dampen your own enthusiasm. While it is important to think about the impact your writing will have on the lives of others, you should not keep yourself from writing out of the fear that you will upset someone. Even writers of fiction upset people over portrayals they feel are not true or accurate. Do not take these attacks personally, and try to keep from letting their offense taint your writing. Your goal should be honesty and truthfulness, not to avoid offending anyone.
2. Deal with your anger before you publish – Many people turn to memoir writing after a tragedy or difficult circumstance in their life. With these tragedies and difficulties also comes pain and anger. Anger can make your writing deliberately offensive or hurtful towards someone or something. While it is good to let it out, make sure you have dealt with your anger before you publish your memoirs. Writing it down in the initial draft is fine. Just be sure that you have dealt with your anger in a healthy, productive way by the time the memoir is complete. A memoir is not an opportunity for revenge; it is a chance to share your life with others.
3. Edit with the help of others – With this same goal in mind, make sure you have a third party to edit your work. Actually, it is best to have at least two editors go over your work after it is complete. The first should be a third party that has nothing to do with the situation – someone who can maintain objectivity and an open mind and is able to cut out the fluff and sharpen up the story. The second should be someone close to the situation, like you, who can offer insight on how your writing will be taken. Do not pick someone who is volatile or easily upset. Try to choose an editor who can give you feedback without becoming overly emotional. By getting both points of view you can more accurately tell what the reaction to your memoir will be and also make sure you were clear and stayed on point.
4. Make sure the writing is clearly from your perspective – It is up to you to write your memoir from a first person or third person perspective. However, it should always be clear to your readers that the things you write about are from your perspective alone. Do not try to give motivations or mental voices to the people around you. Instead, say things like “I thought they were thinking ____” or “To me, it felt like they thought ____.” That way it is clear that everything is skewed by your perspective. This also makes it easier to defend your writing later if someone comments on it. We all see things differently, and what could be obvious to one person is not always obvious to another. Memoir writing is very subjective,so revel in that subjectivity and make it clear you are writing from your own perspective.
5. Be prepared for people to accuse you of not saying anything earlier –One difficult thing to combat is the accusation that “You didn’t say anything earlier”, meaning, of course, that now you are lying. While it is hard to hear those accusations, you need to remind yourself that you are a different person now. Even just writing down an experience can give you insight that you may not have had before. Just because you now understand or see something you did not previously see does not mean you cannot bring it up because too much time has passed. Be confident in your writing and the honesty of your statements and it will be easier to respond in a kind way: “No, I did not. I was not able to at the time/did not see it that way then/did not feel comfortable or safe bringing it up then.”
6. Have good mental boundaries in place before you publish – Speaking of having confidence, you need to have good mental boundaries in place and a script to work off of when you do have confrontations with others. Maybe there are some things you refuse to go into further detail about. Maybe there are people you left out of your memoirs for a reason. Maybe there are changes you made to further the story or to avoid hurting someone. Those are your choices. Just be sure you are ready to back those choices up. It is much better to be prepared then to have to scramble for an explanation when you are in a bind.
7. Leave out hurtful details that do not add to the story –Memoirs are about sharing your story, but it’s also important to be mindful not to overshare and hurt others. If a certain hurtful fact or point does not move the story along or is not a key step in your journey, leave it out. Something that could be harmful or embarrassing to someone else should always be treated with the utmost caution and thoughtfulness before sharing it. Your memoir is not a gossip rag or a way to get revenge on those that hurt you. Try to keep the Golden Rule in mind: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If you wouldn’t want someone telling something like that about you, then you better think twice before telling it about them.
8. Make the story about you, not anyone else –The biggest defense you have in a memoir is that it is YOUR personal story. As long as you keep it all about you, what can anyone say? Being honest and open is also a great way to avoid scandal and backlash. How can someone threaten you or attack you when you have already revealed everything to the world? Make sure you keep your focus on sharing your story and not on sharing what others have done to you or what you think about other people’s stories. Yes, you can draw connections and include other people and the impact they had on you, but make sure your story stays about you first and foremost.
Writing memoir can be an uplifting and great way to share your struggles in life.
However, it can also invite in a lot of conflict and strife. Keep all that at a minimum by staying gentle, kind, and honest in your writing.
***
Thank you Ken for highlighting the importance of telling our stories with integrity and honesty without intentionally disparaging others who are key to our stories. This is a common obstacle memoir writers face and your points are thought-provoking and insightful.
Authors Bio:
Ken Myers is a father, husband, and entrepreneur. He has combined his passion for helping families find in-home care with his experience to build a business. He is working on his own memoir. Learn more about him by visiting at his website: http://www.kenneymyers.com/#about-me and on Twitter @KenneyMyers
How about you? How do you handle writing your truth when you know it may offend others? For those who are published memoirists, what repercussions have you had to face?
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week, Monday, 2/24/14: “Reflections on Hands: A Memoir Moment.”
Author’s Note:This post was adapted from a previous post from January, 2011.
“When a loved one becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.” Author Unknown
Photo Credit: Creative Commons
Single significant events can implant in our psyche and leave a lasting mark. Don’t we all remember where we were and how we felt the day JFK was shot? Or for those who have given birth, the minute details of labor and delivery?
Every year, whenever January 28 comes around, I immediately flash back to that date in 1986.
On January 28,1986, the world watched in horror as the Challenger space shuttle exploded 73 seconds after lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Anyone over the age of thirty-five will remember what they were doing on that day. School children everywhere tuned in that morning to watch the launch of the first schoolteacher and ordinary citizen bound for space, Christa McAuliffe. While this high-tech catastrophe was unfolding on live TV, life was unfolding in living rooms, kitchens and offices around the world; moments in time when life events would forever be connected with the Challenger explosion.
For my mother, Kathryn, it was the moment she asked her mother, my Nan, for forgiveness. She and Nan seemed to have a tentative relationship at times. From my point of view, Nan was a wonderful, loving grandmother, but there were times I would sense from my mother that there was friction between Nan and her children. I never really knew why. Nan had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in November 1985 at the age of 83. She was living with my mother’s sister, my Aunt Rose and my mother was visiting to help care for her. My mother recently shared the following story of that day in January,1986 with me:
“Mama and I were sitting in the living room of my sister Rose’s home watching TV. Mama was in the floral upholstered rocking chair in the corner and I was on the blue Broyhill couch across from her. A Special Report on the Launch of the Challenger Space Shuttle interrupted the Maury Povich show. I looked over at Mama. She looked so frail and thin. Her eyes were sunken in and her skin had turned yellow.
I have to go back home soon and I may not see her alive again, I thought to myself.
In the background, the seven astronauts, one of them a young school teacher from New Hampshire, flashed across the screen, smiling and waving before boarding the Challenger.
I got up from the couch and knelt before Mama as she sat still and quiet in the chair. Holding out my hand, I put her tiny, wrinkled hand in mine and, sobbing, said,
“Mama, will you please forgive me for all the times I may have hurt you or was mean to you?”
Looking surprised, she said,
“Kathryn, you have nothing to apologize for. You have never hurt me.”
I felt her small, weak hand rubbing my shoulder as I sobbed uncontrollably ,my head bobbing in her lap.
We remained in that position for awhile. With my head resting on her lap, I watched the smoke from the space shuttle furl up in the sky out of the corner of my eye. I sat straight up and we both glared in shock at the scene.
The moment of the Challenger explosion was the moment Mama forgave me. “
This memory is precious to me because I realized that my mother allowed me to have a special, loving relationship with my Nan even though she was not able to experience that same special relationship with her, until the end. When Nan died on May 28, 1986, my mother had the peace of forgiveness in her heart.
So on January 28, the anniversary of the Challenger Explosion, I pay tribute to the seven astronauts who sacrificed their lives. I also pay tribute to my Nan who showered me with love my entire life and who showed compassion, love and forgiveness to my mother when she needed it the most,and to my mother for allowing me to have a lifetime of precious memories with my Nan, through her love.
These memories are a treasure.
What memories do you have that you pay tribute to? Do you have memories triggered by historical events?
I‘d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Announcement: Congratulations, Jayne Martin! Your name was selected in a random drawing of commenters to receive Bridget Whelan’s book, Back to Creative Writing School.
Next Week: Monday 2/03/14: Therapeutic Musician Robin Gaiser will share “How Music Led Me to Memoir Writing.”
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Rev. Martin Luther King , Jr.
Bestselling Author, Memoir Teacher and Clinical Psychologist Maureen Murdock returns for Part 2 of the spoken word piece she did for SPARKS theater in Pacific Palisades, CA. She describes a heartwrenching visit with her son Matt in prison. Here is Part 1 if you missed it.
Welcome back, Maureen!
Memoir Author and Teacher Maureen Murdock
“Hooked on Hope, Part 2: A Mother’s Story About Bipolar Disorder and Prison.”
I am a therapist. What I do is help other people give voice to their lives to heal. When people come to my office it’s safe for them to have their feelings, to cry, to rant, to rage. My office is a sanctuary. But when I visit my son in prison, I have to go against my every instinct as a therapist and mother—encouraging him to express his feelings would only put him in danger.
Safety is a big issue for me. I have struggled with and failed to keep my son safe. When he had his first mental health emergency in his second year in college I tried to get him the help he needed, to stabilize him, to keep him contained. But it was not enough.
When bipolar illness is paired with substance abuse it’s a recipe for disaster.My son has made some bad decisions that have had huge consequences.
The night Matt was arrested for knowingly buying a stolen laptop while he was on probation, my first thought was well, now he’s safe in County Jail. I know where he is. This was before he was sentenced to 4 years and transferred to San Quentin.
I want you to understand— that in spite of all of his struggles, my son is a talented artist. He has had gallery shows in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Our shared love of art is a way we connect in the purest, uncomplicated way. Making art is the way he makes sense of and connects with the outside world.
Over the past year, he did a series of silkscreen prints in the art studio inmates use when a volunteer teacher comes into prison. A recent assignment was to create a print about human rights in the prison system.
Matt’s artwork: Towers Linoprint
His silkscreen illustrating Solitary Confinement, Mental Illness and the 8th Amendment was chosen to be part of an art show in San Francisco. His statement under the print read: “In prison, it’s not possible to do artwork which is not political. The very act is one of resistance.. Solitary Confinement is a clear constitutional violation, an insidious exercise of cruel and unusual punishment.”
Matt’s artwork: Solitary Confinement
Matt was proud to be in the show; it meant he still had a presence in the art world. His dream after prison is to curate a show with art from prisoners he admires.
He had been saving stamps for six months to send home his additional prints and the prints of other inmates he had bought. Stamps are the only currency in prison. They are bartered for CDs, junk food and inmate art. He had constructed a large make-shift envelope for the prints and waited to send it home until he knew the guard on watch who would inspect it. Officer Lee examined the contents and taped the envelope closed.
It arrived at my house sealed shut but empty.
One of the other guards must have confiscated the art. Six months worth of scrimping and saving and creating only to be stolen by someone who can–with impunity.
It is conceivable that the art was taken to be examined for gang-related imagery. It is also known that inmate art is stolen by guards for sale on e-Bay. The journal in which he had written an essay on the injustice of solitary confinement had also been taken.
Matt was devastated.
I wish I could tell him that everything will be okay. That he just has to hang on for 3 more months.
But I don’t feel like things will be okay.
I feel powerless to change his circumstances. All I can do is ask you to keep an open mind about those you might not understand. There’s always a hidden narrative.
***
Maureen, the sense of injustice is palpable. Anyone, especially a mother with a child in prison, will be touched by your words. I admire your courage in getting your story out there so that we all can know the realities of prison life. I am joining you in being “hooked on hope” that Matt will move forward from this harrowing experience with purpose and strength. And yes, may we all be more understanding of the “hidden narratives” when we face that which we may not understand.
Author’s Biography and Contact Information(from Amazon):
Maureen Murdock is the best-selling author of The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness, a ground-breaking work which revealed a broader understanding of the female psyche on both a personal and cultural level and was Murdock’s response to Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces. When Murdock showed Campbell her book, he said, “Women don’t need to make the journey.” Murdock’s readers around the world have shown that he’s wrong! A Jungian psychotherapist and creative writing teacher, Murdock is also the author of Fathers Daughters: Breaking the Ties that Bind, The Heroine’s Journey Workbook, Spinning Inward: Using Guided Imagery with Children, and Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory, a seminal work about memoir and what’s involved in writing a memoir. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages and she lectures internationally.
The Emergence of a Bipolar Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective by Maureen Murdock informs the reader about the early signs of bipolar disorder in an adolescent or young adult from a mother who has been through this journey with her son. The book describes what’s involved in a mental health crisis, the trauma of a first hospitalization and facts and figures about bipolar disorder, the fastest growing brain illness in children today. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, four million children and adolescents in America suffer from a serious mental disorder. Through early diagnosis and treatment these young people can live productive lives.
As a mother and a psychotherapist, it was difficult for me to find adequate resources when my son was first diagnosed so I offer tools to navigate these turbulent waters. Included are suggestions about Mental Health First Aid, personal recommendations for links to TED Talks by two young people talking about living with bipolar disorder and community resources a family can access for support before, during, and after a mental health crisis. Like the award-winning movie “Silver Linings Playbook,” The Emergence of Bipolar Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective gives the reader a glimpse into the challenges a family experiences when a child is struck with a mood disorder.
The Emergence of Bipolar Disorder:A Mother’s Perspective
How about you? How do you handle life circumstances when they don’t turn out the way you want them to? How do you help a child whose choices have led to consequences and injustices that are difficult for you as a parent to deal with?
Maureen has graciously offered to give away a copy of her Kindle short to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
We’d love to hear from you. Please share your comments below~
Next Week, Monday, 1/13/14:” All Dressed Up and So Many Places to Go–Publication Decision Time.”
“There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.” John Stuart Mill
I am thrilled to kick the New Year off with a guest post by Maureen Murdock about hope while dealing with an imprisoned son who has also been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder. Maureen is a clinical psychologist as well as a leading figure in the memoir community and the author of several memoir writing books. Her current memoir, Hooked on Hope is pending publication. Her recently published Kindle short, The Emergence of Bipolar Disorder addresses why she chose to write about mental illness in the family.
I had the pleasure of meeting Maureen when I attended her memoir writing workshop at the International Women Writers Guild (IWWG) Annual Convention this summer at Drew University in Madison, NJ.
This is Part 1 of an excerpt from a spoken word piece Maureen did for SPARK theater in Pacific Palisades, CA.
Welcome , Maureen!
Memoir Author and Teacher Maureen Murdock
Hooked on Hope: A Mother’s Story About Bipolar Disorder and Prison
Ten years ago I taught a week-long memoir course at Skidmore College. One of the writers, a middle-aged woman from Queens, wrote about being the mother of a son in prison.
“People don’t realize,” she wrote, “When a child is in prison, his mother is there too. I see the fear and disgust in people’s eyes when I say my son is in prison. I imagine they’re thinking, ‘she must have been a terrible mother for her son to be incarcerated.’”
I was deeply moved by her statement about being imprisoned too. I had never thought about that. Up until then, like many people, I thought prison was primarily populated by low-level drug dealers, thieves, and murderers, mostly black. I grew up in New Jersey and the only white people I knew who went to prison were Italian mobsters. This well-dressed white woman was the first woman I had met who was the mother of a convicted felon.
Six years later I am too.
Every other month I drive 6 hours to visit my son, Matt, at San Quentin. Female visitors are forbidden to wear underwire bras so I make sure I have my sports bra on. I put my car key, ID, and single dollar bills for the vending machines in the clear plastic purse I am permitted to bring into prison. The contents will be inspected. Nothing else can be brought into or out of prison.
After being searched and passed through the metal detector I go through a series of metal gates–surrounded by barbed wire. I hand my identification to the officer who sits in a platform on high—like some olive green khaki god– looking down at me. I take a seat and wait as the guard calls for my son. After he is strip searched, Matt is given a pass to enter the Visitors room. He walks toward me with a big grin, hands his ID to the platformed guard, and gives me a big bear hug.
It feels good to embrace his thin muscular body. I look into his eyes. Yes, he’s still there. They haven’t beaten him down–yet.
We sit across each other in plastic chairs eighteen inches from the next inmate and his visitor. Any attempt to find out how my son is really doing will be overheard. He tells me he just received a letter from the gallery owner who offered him an internship upon his release from prison next February. At the time of his offer a year ago the gallery owner told me, “Nobody should be judged by his last mistake.”
I thought what a humane person, what a good egg. The gallery is not far from my home in Santa Barbara so it meant my son would have a safe place to live with me and my partner, a roof over his head, a job, a new start. I could relax a bit about what he was going to do upon release.
But, Matt said, “He changed his mind. He rescinded his offer. He wrote that it was too risky to have me ‘handle’ millions of dollars of artwork.”
The gallery owner knew that my son was qualified—that he had done installation work at the Corcoran Gallery in Santa Monica– so rescinding his offer didn’t have anything to do with skill. It had to do with stigmatization.
Losing that job meant that upon release Matt would be paroled to San Francisco where he was arrested, with nothing but a clear plastic bag for his clothes and $200.
I wanted to reach out to my son and hold him and tell him it would be okay. That something else would come along. But I had to sit on my hands and look at him as he put his head down, his hair covering his eyes so that neither I, nor the people sitting next to us on either side could see his tears. . .
to be continued, 01/09/14 with Part 2. . .
***
Maureen, this story leaves me spellbound. I could feel your mother’s love and anguish. Thank you for your bravery in sharing such a deeply personal and heart-wrenching story. I join you in hoping that getting your story out there will help to increase awareness and create changes in our judicial system.
Author’s Bio and Contact Information (from Amazon):
Maureen Murdock is the best-selling author of The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness, a ground-breaking work which revealed a broader understanding of the female psyche on both a personal and cultural level and was Murdock’s response to Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces. When Murdock showed Campbell her book, he said, “Women don’t need to make the journey.” Murdock’s readers around the world have shown that he’s wrong! A Jungian psychotherapist and creative writing teacher, Murdock is also the author of Fathers Daughters: Breaking the Ties that Bind, The Heroine’s Journey Workbook, Spinning Inward: Using Guided Imagery with Children, and Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory, a seminal work about memoir and what’s involved in writing a memoir. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages and she lectures internationally.
The Emergence of a Bipolar Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective by Maureen Murdock informs the reader about the early signs of bipolar disorder in an adolescent or young adult from a mother who has been through this journey with her son. The book describes what’s involved in a mental health crisis, the trauma of a first hospitalization and facts and figures about bipolar disorder, the fastest growing brain illness in children today. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, four million children and adolescents in America suffer from a serious mental disorder. Through early diagnosis and treatment these young people can live productive lives.
As a mother and a psychotherapist, it was difficult for me to find adequate resources when my son was first diagnosed so I offer tools to navigate these turbulent waters. Included are suggestions about Mental Health First Aid, personal recommendations for links to TED Talks by two young people talking about living with bipolar disorder and community resources a family can access for support before, during, and after a mental health crisis. Like the award-winning movie “Silver Linings Playbook,” The Emergence of Bipolar Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective gives the reader a glimpse into the challenges a family experiences when a child is struck with a mood disorder.
The Emergence of Bipolar Disorder:A Mother’s Perspective
