” All discomfort comes from suppressing your true identity.” Byrant H. McGill
I’m very pleased to feature Memoir Author Paige Strickland in this guest post about finding the story that would become her memoir. Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity has recently been launched as an e-book through Amazon and The Apple iBookstore.
My memoir came about from many different directions, the primary being my mother’s thousands of slides packed away in a closet. One time I went to stay with her for a month, while she was recovering from surgery, and my kids and I set up the old projector and screen. We sorted the slide trays in chronological order, and began clicking away. I set up my digital camcorder and recorded nearly every photo, (minus the thumb-shots and blurs). It was fun to share the old stories about family, pets, vacations and holidays, and laugh together at bad 1970s fashion. During those evenings of reminiscing, the idea hit me to write down my thoughts.
A few years later, when my children were older, and I had free time all summer, I began to write. It started out as a family history for my kids to know who was who on the family tree, and how my adoptive and birth relatives tied together, but the more I wrote, the more I realized I had something more.
I had a child development account, a coming of age tale, a love story, and also a father-daughter relationship themeas my dad’s gregarious and often dominant personality emerged in the memoir, just as it did when he was living.
Once I had a timeline for my story, I began to fill in events. Working by day in education always beings back memories for me of when I was a student, so if I thought of ideas during the workday, I made post-it notes, lists on my phone and snapped quick photos as reminders. Then when I had free time to write, I could work from the memos I’d created. I rarely sat down and thought, “Uh…what do I do now?” since I usually had a backlog of nuggets to go back and work in and items to add as I plowed forward.
In some ways, ideas came for my story as I grew up listening to and absorbing the family lore my grandmothers would narrate and from looking through their old black and white photos in big albums with large, black pages. It wasn’t a biological history, but it was the one I had, and they were happy to share it all with me. More ideas came after my children began to ask questions. They’ve never known a time prior to my reunion with my sisters on my birth mother’s side, but they were with me to meet my birth father’s family and were old enough to know what was going on, but still not sure how everyone was “family”.
Old album by Paige Strickland
During my adoption search process, I kept a three-ring binder filled with photos and copies of documents I found while lurking through libraries and courthouses. I had every piece of correspondence, articles, lists and facts I’d accumulated plus addresses. While writing I referred back to the information I’d gathered to keep my story line accurate.
A cousin on my birth mother’s side, who lives in my town, is also an aspiring writer. (Well, OK she IS a writer!), and she and her husband held monthly writing group meetings for a number of years. I began to go to her get-togethers to spend time getting to know her but also to share excerpts and receive feedback from group members. I found it very encouraging and it helped me to grow as a writer. (My cousin, one half sister and I grew up in the same era, only 15-20 minutes apart and writing!)
By the time I concluded my first draft, even before professional editing, I found that I had a book with a broad and marketable appeal to members of the adoption triangle, especially adoptees born during the “Baby-Scoop Era”, teachers, therapists, social workers, older teens and young adults.
My adoption story addresses many issues about trust, finding identity, grief and fear,as I relate stories about growing up adopted in an era when the concept was more taboo and less understood. The process of gathering ideas and compiling everything in memoir form was a huge, time-consuming task, but one I felt compelled to accomplish and enjoyed doing.
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Thank you Paige for sharing your determined and persistent journey to memoir. You show the importance of research–photos, stories passed down, organizing documents from libraries and courthouses–in doing justice to our stories. And perhaps the most important, to start writing stories down and to keep writing. Persistence pays off.
Author Bio and Contact Information:
Paige Strickland has worked in education since 1983, and is an adoptee who searched for and successfully found her birth family. She has written a memoir, Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity, released Fall of 2013. It will be available at the Apple store plus Amazon. She is married with two daughters and a son-in-law.
Author’s Note: I am honored to be presenting this previous post as part of Denis Ledoux’s The Memoir Network’s Blog Carnival in preparation for “November is Lifewriting Month” (NILM):
“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptorto discover it.” Michelangelo
Photo Credit: Rock uploaded from istockphoto
As I look at my pile of stories waiting to be shaped into a memoir, I find myself pondering the task.
I’ve come to the conclusion that memoir writers are really like sculptors.
* We start with an amorphous pile of vignettes like a sculptor starts with a slab of marble.
* We spend endless hours looking at the pile before us and envisioning what its final shape will be.
* We study our craft ahead of time so we know where to start, what tools to use and how to keep going.
* We keep digging and carving into our pile until it begins to take shape.
A sculptor starts with a slab of marble and a vision. We start with a collection of stories, generated by various methods. Here are a few I have learned and used:
2. Mind mapping – a hand-sketched or software-generated diagram of ideas and events.
3.” Place I’ve Lived” exercise(Jerry Waxler) – compilation of “scene pops” from describing all the homes you have lived in.
4. “The Tree of Me” Exercise (Sharon Lippincott) a drawing of concentric circles rippling from the core of you, resembling the rings of a tree. Each ring represents a significant date and events. From this visual, threads and patterns can be identified. As you can see from mine, it can get convoluted and cluttered:
My “Tree of Me” drawing
My “Tree of Me” drawing
5. Patchwork Quilt- think of your story as a patchwork quilt with each square representing a scene in the story. You start out by collecting the squares until you are ready to sew them into a pattern.
There is debate in writing circles about approaches to story structure called Planner or Pantser.
Do you work from an outline (planner) or do you “fly by the seat of your pants” (pantser)?
For the purposes of defining story structure, I am a planner.
When I reached the point of readiness to pull my stories together into a first draft, I had a general sense of my story, I wanted to leave myself open to new discoveries as I sifted, sorted, rearranged the pieces and envisioned where my story would take me. I’d heard that one shouldn’t even worry about the beginning or end until the rewrite, the next step after the first draft.
Dave Hood, Author of Find Your Creative Muse blog describes narrative structure in creative nonfiction as “the sequence of events and the way in which a writer tells the story,” citing a variety of frameworks that can be used.
Linda Joy Myers points out that “a memoir is a story, created and constructed with skill and focus” and requires a “story structure and narrative arc that includes three acts of dramatic structure.” She goes on to reinforce the importance of identifying “your main meaning of your story, what the book is about in one sentence (pitch) and what will the reader gain from reading your story.” Show the transformation.
Rachelle Gardner brings up the importance of writing “real-world stories with a plot, scenes with action and dialogue rather than chronicling a series of devastating emotional events. Make sure your book has a protagonist with a choice to face (a conflict), obstacles to overcome, a desired outcome and consequences (the stakes) if the goal is not reached.”
Memoirist Meghan Ward emphasizes the importance of having a strong story arc early on as you write.
Like a sculptor needs carving tools to shape a creation, I needed a plan to fit my story into, keeping the above goals in mind about story and theme:
Annie Lamott spread her papers in a trail on the floor and rearranged them until they made sense to her as described in her writing instruction book, Bird by Bird.
Stephen King described his office space as covered in post-it notes with ideas and phrases in his memoir, On Writing.
David Price advises that “you won’t see what the story is actually about until you’re at the end” in his book, The Pixar Touchand cites the following framework for storytelling:
“Once upon a time there was…Every day… One day…Because of that…Because of that…Until finally…”
Joseph Campbell believes we are all on a mythic journey, a “Hero’s Journey.” His framework recognizes a triggering event that propels the hero into action through” the dark night of the soul” where many obstacles must be overcome until resolution /transformation is achieved. Enjoy this YouTube video.
Author and Writing Coach Mary Carroll Moore uses the W Storyboard Structure which provides the framework for plotting out the story in the shape of a W, using three acts, starting with the triggering event going to the first turning point, building to aclimax, second turning point then moving forward toward resolution/realization/transformation. She reviews it in more detail here.
Storyboardingis the method I had chosen to start sculpting my story. I began by writing vignette summaries on colored post-it notes and placing them on a trifold poster board for Acts One, Two and Three, incorporating key points from Mary Carroll’s W Storyboard Structure and Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey framework.
Mapping out my story on a storyboard using” W Story Structure” by Mary Carroll Moore
“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to other eyes as mine sees it.” Michelangelo
Photo Credit: “Michelangelo’s Pieta” by Allie Caulfield uploaded from Flickr Creative Commons
Like the master sculptor, Michelangelo, we all need tools to “hew away the rough walls” that would imprison the “lovely apparition” of the story we need to tell.
How about you? Have you envisioned your masterpiece?
What methods have you used to discover your story? What methods appeal to you?
I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Announcement: Congratulations, Louise Mathewson! Your name was selected in a random drawing of commenters to receive Shirley Showalter’s memoir, Blush.
This Week:
Wednesday, October 9: ” How I Found My Memoir Searching for My Roots”, a guest post by Paige Strickland.
Friday, October 11: “Memoir Writing Tips by Denis Ledoux: Describing Characters in a Memoir Can be Easy Enough.”
“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.” William Shakespeare
I am very pleased to feature memoir author, teacher, editor and founder of The Memoir Network, Denis Ledoux in a four-part series on Memoir Writing Tips every Friday in October. Denis is presenting sessions on action, character description, setting and theme in preparation for “ November is Lifewriting Month (NILM).” The topic for today is action.
Welcome, Denis!
Denis Ledoux, author, teacher, editor
Action is Essential in Writing
In writing a life story, it is important to pay attention to three aspects: action, character, and setting. These will enhance your story every time. To neglect these elements is to risk having your story fall flat. In this article, we will concentrate on action.
The action of your story is its PLOT. Something must happen in your story to retain the interest of your reader.
Listen to how a child tells a story. It is all action. Nuances of character and setting are immaterial to the child. It’s what happens that counts. Our reliance on action, on plot, doesn’t wane as we grow older, but our ways of using it grow more sophisticated.
The amount of action necessary to retain interest varies enormously according to the sensibility and the education of different readers. Someone who prefers reading about ghosts and unpredictable supernatural occurrences will not find the English psychological novelist Virginia Woolf very interesting. But it remains true that readers–both of pulp fiction and of serious writing–need some sort of action to move the story along. Although much of Virginia Woolf’s action is interiorized, it counts as plot nonetheless.
When Writing About Action You Can Start in the Middle
One writer’s trick is to start in the middle of things. If you are writing about the time you got fired from a job, don’t start with the first vocational aptitude test you took in high school. Instead, start when you are first detecting a problem with a supervisor and then proceed from there to the unhappy conclusion. This sort of quick pacing will keep the interest of the reader.
Keep explanations and background material brief. Avoid the lengthy, informational flashback. Providing too much context can overwhelm your story and dissipate the energy of the action. Compare the next two paragraphs:
Groveton, an industrial city founded in 1809 and having a large population of Slovaks who started coming in 1892, Hungarians who first migrated in 1896, Byelorussian who arrived in 1899, the Greeks whose numbers swelled after 1901, Armenians who arrived around 1909, was the birthplace of my father.
My father was born in Groveton, an industrial city awash with waves of immigrants: Slovaks, Hungarians, Byelorussians, Greeks, and Armenians.
The second paragraph gives the information the reader needs to picture this bustling city but without the unneeded dates. The list of nationalities becomes central to our understanding of Groveton, and seems to wash over us like the immigrants themselves. In the first paragraph, the reader has no guidance to know if the dates are significant, and so labors through them. If it is indeed significant that Armenians arrived around 1909, that bit of information can be slipped in when it becomes important. Notice, too, that the second paragraph gets the most important information up front: My father was born in Groveton.
In the first paragraph, the writer tried hard to keep the action going by choosing different verbs to describe the arrival of each group. But the essential fact is that they all arrived and contributed to the life of the city. State that, and keep going.
Perhaps all of those immigrants arrived during your father’s childhood, and so the dates become more significant. You can still handle them in a less onerous way, read the example below:
My father was born in 1891, just before the first wave of immigrants from Slovakia arrived. He watched Groveton change almost yearly as waves of immigrants from Hungary, Byelorussia, Greece, and Armenia arrived over the next 18 years.
Your choice of words and sentence structure can contribute to the action, even in a paragraph that is conveying information to the reader
Good Luck with your writing!
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Thank you Denis for showing us the importance of incorporating action into our writing and for giving us specific examples on how word choice and sentence structure can contribute to the action.
Author Bio: Every November, Denis offers November is Lifewriting Month. NILM provides writing prompts via e-mail, free tele-classes on memoir-writing techniques and many surprise memoir gifts. Denis is the author of the classic Turning Memories into Memoirs/A Handbook for Writing Lifestories. Most recently , he completed his mother’s memoir, We Were Not Spoiled, and his uncle’s, Business Boy to Business Man. Denis is currently working on a book about “writing with passion.” Jumpstart materials are also available for writers wishing to be memoir professionals in their communities.
How about you? Do you have questions for Denis on how to incorporate action into your writing?
Denis has generously offered to give away the Memoir Start-up Package at the end of the series to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
The Memoir Start-up package
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week:
Monday, 10/7: “The Memoir Network Blog Carnival: What Memoir Writers Have in Common with Sculptors.”
Wednesday, 10/9: “How I Found My Memoir While Searching for My Roots: Akin to Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity” by Paige Strickland
Friday, 10/11: “ Memoir Writing Tips by Denis Ledoux: Describing Character in Memoir Can Be Easy.”
Six Tips for Honoring the Story Within: A Memoir Writer’s Challenge…
Writing a memoir is hard work.
I know because I have been writing mine for the past four years.
I actually started writing vignettes about twelve years ago and have journaled since my teens. But I didn’t get serious about my memoir writer’s journey until 2009 when I started taking memoir writing workshops and attending writing conferences.
It’s very humbling to learn what you don’t know and when I started out, I didn’t know anything about writing a memoir. I only knew that I had a story inside me and that I wanted to write about it.
It is a well-known fact in memoir writing circles that writing a memoir is a daunting task fraught with many challenges, not the least being: excavating painful memories, standing in your truth, and dealing with family members or close friends who may not agree with your perception of the truth.
All that on top of a market that says you have to be a celebrity to sell your story.
The odds against writing a memoir that will sell can feel pretty overwhelming.
But readers love stories they can connect with and we all have a story within to share.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou
I am very pleased to feature Memoir Author Grace Peterson in this interview about finding freedom from spiritual abuse.
Grace’s turbulent childhood, with her father’s violent temper and mother’s apathy, their divorce, and her relocation with her mother and siblings to Hawaii, where she experiences racism and violence, sets the stage for this incredible real-life tale of abuse, brainwashing, and ~ ultimately ~ the long journey to recovery.
At seventeen, Grace experiences love for the first time, but is soon unable contain the traumas of her past. Seeking a remedy from what she perceives as a spiritual problem, she enlists the aid of Brock, a charismatic exorcist and cult expert. Grace stumbles into a world of esoteric rituals, Luciferian doctrines, and New World Order conspiracies.
This gripping narrative illustrates how children adapt to a hostile environment, can grow up misreading their untreated traumas, and, while searching for answers, fall prey to unscrupulous charlatans who heap more damage onto an already wounded soul.
KL: Tell us about your memoir , Reaching and what made you decide to write about it.
GP: Thank you, Kathy. It’s a pleasure to be here.
I wrote Reaching to illustrate how the environment I was raised in contributed to my anxiety and how a misread diagnosis only compounded the problem. As young, impressionable, lost adults, my husband and I found a sense of belonging in the Christian church. But when a mental health crisis made it impossible to function, I mistakenly believed I was demon possessed and sought help from an exorcist.
KL: What are the main messages you want to convey through your story?
GP: One of the important things I hope readers will grasp from reading my book is the slow, methodical process of indoctrination. Brainwashing doesn’t happen instantly. A person doesn’t wake up one day and say, “Gee I think I’ll get brainwashed today.” Because it can be very subtle and address a need the person has, they often aren’t aware they’re being indoctrinated. People like me, with a skewed world view are more likely to find themselves under the influence of charlatans and their institutions.
I think with increased awareness there will also be increased compassion for those with mental health challenges and who are seeking healing from spiritual abuse.
KL: What was is like for you to resurrect all the painful memories of not only your spiritual abuse but of the childhood abuse that seemed to set the stage for your vulnerability?
GP: The entire writing process took over four years. I was a stay-at-home mom at the time with my youngest two in high school so I had a lot of time to devote to it. I spent many months completely immersed in my world. I’m a little obsessive/compulsive that way.
I’m not sure how it happened but I was able to distance myself from a lot of the emotional conflict and just write. However call it moodiness or hitting a nerve, there were times when I absolutely hated what I wrote. The entire project just sucked. Plucking words onto my computer screen somehow broke that emotional barrier and made my history real.But rather than grieve the events themselves, I would despise my writing. Then somehow I’d process it all, calm down and write some more.
And this may seem weird or egotistical but when I think about the events of my past, I feel emotional pain, yes, but I also feel a sacred connectedness to that part of me that lived through it all. It was that veiled enigma, that mystery of sacredness that kept me focused on writing to completion. I didn’t want to disappoint her.
I wanted to give her a voice to tell her story.
KP: You have a very distinct and honest writing voice and are able to effectively convey your point-of view from the different phases in your life. I found your use of present tense to be very intriguing. It made me feel closer to the story. How did you find this voice?
GP: Thank you, Kathy. Back when I was still toying with the idea of writing a book, I read a lot of memoirs. Most of them were written in first person/present and because I could relate so well to the words of the authors, I knew it was the format I wanted to use as well. I’m glad you were able to connect to it.
KP: Do you have any memoir writing tips you learned from writing your memoir that you would like to share?
GP:Writing memoir is a lesson in self-awareness. Allow the process to change you, mold you. Unless you’re under a deadline, there is no rush. Take your time and enjoy the process of stringing words together into a well-crafted story and believe that the time to share it with the world will happen exactly when it’s supposed to. Take time to live and feel those words and understand the nuances within the topics you’re writing about. Remember and feel. As you engage yourself in the process of reading and revising, you’ll not only become a more skilled writer, you’ll be more honest with your readers. And you’ll be better equipped to undertake the challenges of post-publication publicity.
KP: Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share?
For anyone who is interested, I have three “boards” on Pinterest devoted to images of the locations and objects mentioned in my memoir. While searching the web, the most pleasant discovery was the Pepsi commercial (circa 1975) featuring a little blonde-headed boy (who reminded me of my brother) frolicking with puppies. It was incredibly validating to view it again after 30 years and confirm that my memory was correct. You can view my boards, including the Pespi ad by going to: http://pinterest.com/gracepete/boards/
Thank you ,Grace for sharing your memoir writer’s journey with us. Your brave story of recovery from mental health issues and religious/spiritual abuse will give others inspiration and hope. I also appreciate your memoir writing tips.
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Author Bio:
Grace Peterson is an author, garden columnist and blogger. She is the proud mother of four grown children and four friendly felines. She has been married to her best friend since 1980. Reaching is her first book. Her second book, Grace In The Garden will be published later this year. She can be reached by commenting on her blog, www.gracepete.com or email: grace@gracepete.com.
How about you? Have you ever survived an abusive situation and decided to write about it?
Grace has agreed to give away a copy of her memoir to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Announcement: Congratulations,Mary McFarland! Your name was selected in a random drawing of commenters to receive Donald Dempsey’s memoir, Betty’s Child from Wow! Women on Writing.
Next Week, Monday 7/29 and Thursday 8/1 Memoir Author Eleanor Vincent will discuss ” From Grief to Healing: Loving and Letting Go of a Child” in a two-part interview. She has agreed to give away a copy of her memoir , Swimming with Maya to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing
I am very pleased to feature Memoir Author Mary Gottschalk in this guest post on how memoir writing is similar to fine wine. Mary and I met in Sonia Marsh‘s Gutsy Indie Author Facebook Group. Mary explores the many life lessons she learned while writing her memoir and explains why it took 20 years to do so.
Like fine wine, memoirs need to age to perfection.
In her memoir, Sailing Down the Moonbeam, Mary uses her sailing adventures as a metaphor for telling her story. My reviews can be found on Amazon and Goodreads.
Welcome , Mary!
Author Mary Gottschalk
Fine Wine and Memoir Writing
I have often been asked why it took me 20 years to write Sailing Down the Moonbeam, a memoir of my journey when I abandoned my New York City career to cruise around the world in a sailboat. After all, I had a stack of journals with daily entries covering virtually every day of the nearly three years on board. How hard could it be?
Very hard, as it turns out. I did indeed write a “memoir” during the year after the voyage ended. That first effort, documenting places I went and things I saw, felt flat and without a point. In writing that first memoir, I didn’t yet appreciate why the sailing journey mattered.
What Happened — The Illusion of Control
At age 40, I had a big job in a big city, with all the markers of success … two cars, a country house, millions of frequent flier miles.
I didn’t feel successful. Most of the time, I lived in a constant state of anxiety, exhausted from the effort of trying to keep life from flying apart. I worried about everything … satisfying my clients … whether my staff got the client report completed on time … if I’d catch a taxi in time to get to my next meeting.
What happened on the sailing voyage was that I discovered—that gut level, pit-of-the-stomach sort of discovery—that control is illusion. I began to see sailing as a metaphor for life itself. You can’t control your environment. You can set a goal, but your progress towards that goal depends on the winds and the currents … and you often end up somewhere quite different from where you set out to go. In sailing as in life more generally, you may be able to control the next decision you make, but you can’t control the outcome of that decision.
It was a powerful insight. I decided that even if I couldn’t control my life, I could avoid being trapped by others’ expectations. At the very least, I would spend it doing something I was passionate about.
Why It Mattered — Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone.
Moments of insight were not new in my life. Over the years in New York, I’d attended many workshops on personal development. Invariably, I came away from those confabs determined to do better. Stop being a control freak. Be more patient. Listen more carefully. Don’t make snap judgments. The list of ways I wanted to improve was nearly infinite.
None of those insights had any lasting impact, as I remained a prisoner of the unspoken assumption that I’d feel more successful—that I’d spend less time worrying—if I did a better job of meeting people’s expectations. Each time I returned to the real world, confronted by the same all-too-familiar expectations and challenges I’d had before the workshop, I fell right back into the same bad habits, born of trying to direct people and things that were not mine to control.
That insight at sea was different, as Mother Nature has no expectations. Since it didn’t matter where we were on any given day, there was no reason to worry if the weather delayed our arrival or our departure by a few days. I didn’t have to worry about the dinner menu since my options were limited to what was in the larder. And there was no point in worrying about violent storms, whales, or freak waves, as I couldn’t do anything about them until they were hard upon us.
Then too, I had three years to learn another way of doing things. Three years to grow accustomed to making decisions for myself, instead of responding automatically to the expectations of my mother or my boss or my neighbor. Three years to learn how much more I could accomplish—how much more content I felt—when I wasn’t worrying about what to do or when to do it. Three years in which to develop new habits to replace the ones I’d wanted to break in my New York City days.
When I returned to the corporate world—the point at which I wrote that first memoir—I was concerned that this nautical insight, like the earlier ones, would be decimated on the altar of the everyday.
In fact, this time it was different. I was no longer a prisoner of other peoples’ expectations. I had grown accustomed to a worry-free existence. I refused to take on projects that did not interest me. If I took on a challenging project, I was no longer afraid to admit the gaps in my knowledge or ask for help. I was no longer afraid to tell my boss that his deadline was unrealistic.
Conclusion
The answer to the “20 year” question is that the story I wanted to tell wasn’t over the day the voyage ended. The most important insight of all—the why it mattered—came only after I’d been back at work for enough years to see the results of that different mindset.Not only was I more successful, professionally and financially, than I’d been before the sailing journey, but now I also felt successful. I was making a difference. I was doing things I loved. It felt wonderful.
Today, as I read the flurry of memoirs that come to market, I wonder how many of the authors have tried to tell their story before they knew how it ended.
Like fine wine, memoir writing requires suitable aging, enough time for the events to ferment and the essence of the insights to come through.
Photo Credit: Wine by LMRitchie uploaded from Flickr Creative Commons
Thank you Mary for sharing your insights about the memoir writing process and for showing us the importance of giving ourselves time and distance to allow our stories to “age to perfection” like fine wine.
Sailing Down the Moonbeam book cover
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Mary C Gottschalk Bio:
Mary has made a career out of changing careers. She spent nearly thirty years in the financial markets, working as an economist, a banker and a financial consultant to major corporations. She has worked in New York, New Zealand, Australia, Central America, Europe, and amazingly, Des Moines, Iowa.
Along the way, she dropped out several times. In the mid-1980’s, Mary embarked on the multi-year sailing voyage that is the subject of her memoir, Sailing Down the Moonbeam. Twice, she left the world of high finance to work with the nonprofit community, first in New York and later in Des Moines.
In her latest incarnation, she defines herself as a writer. She is working on her first novel, writes for The Iowan magazine, and lectures on the subject of personal risk-taking.
Mary is on several non-profit boards, including the Des Moines A.M. Rotary
“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” George Moore
I am very pleased to feature Memoir Author Karen Levy in this guest interview about finding peace through memoir writing. Karen and I met when her publisher at Homebound Publications, Leslie Browning contacted me to do a review of her newly released memoir, My Father’s Gardens.
When I finished reading her memoir, the main thought that surfaced was how memoir writing can help one find peace. My Father’s Gardens is a story of a young girl who comes of age in two languages, and on two shores, between warring parents and rules that change depending on the landscape and the proximity to her mother. It is a gripping story of heartache, conflict and ultimate transformation. My reviews can be found on Amazon and Goodreads.
Welcome , Karen!
Memoir Author Karen Levy
KP: You have a very compelling story, Karen, of moving between Israel and America every few years while you were growing up, based upon your mother’s whims. When did you decide to write about it? What was it like for you to resurrect painful memories?
KL: The moving was due partially to whim and partially to my father’s work, but my mother suffered bouts of nostalgia that pulled us away from America when she missed Israel and towards America when she tired of Israel. Leaving was always accompanied by heartache, and it was frequent enough to become a familiar, somewhat exciting but also dreaded emotion. At the same time, that gypsy life became second nature, so staying in one location for lengthy periods of time while appealing, was also unfamiliar and when it became quite obvious that America had become permanent, once I married and had children here, there was a restlessness that I needed to handle in some way. And writing about it allowed me to travel great distances in my mind and on paper and give voice to emotions I was uncomfortable or incapable of expressing out loud. So while painful, it was also a release.
KP: Did you keep a journal when you were younger? If not, how were you able to resurrect so many memories in such vivid detail?
KL: I had a few diaries which I was very excited to go through once I decided to write, since I thought they would be a treasure trove of information. Yet they were quite disappointing and probably one of the dullest reads a teenage diary has ever afforded. They seemed to be more an account of daily activities instead of thoughts and emotions, they switched languages and started and stopped whenever we moved. And I believe that at some point I had the notion that my mother was reading them, so that may very well be why they contain absolutely nothing that reveals what I was actually doing or thinking beyond the very superficial. In other words, they were pretty useless sources of information. So I began to ask questions of anyone who was willing to dredge up the past, of which few people were. Fortunately I recall scents and textures and sounds quite vividly. I seem to embed places in my mind, how Jerusalem stone feels beneath my fingers, what an Israeli morning sounds like, how a California summer evening smells. I inhale locations.
KP: Your unique voice comes through and your writing has a lyrical tone to it. How did you find your voice?
KL: I’d like to think that it found me. I stopped trying to be someone else and allowed myself to be nothing other than who I am. The writing, like me, speaks its mind in as honest a way as it can, and I realized that I appreciated other writers who took risks and spoke from the heart. It feels more satisfying to read and write that kind of voice.
KP: You structured your memoir as a series of vignettes, very effectively I will add. How did you decide on this structure?
KL: I came across this style of writing in Sandra Cisneros’ book, The House on Mango Street, and I remember thinking to myself that I could do that, unlike full-fledged novels that seemed, and still do, like a daunting challenge to take on. Writing in what I like to think as snapshots, gives the overall effect of looking through a photo album at someone’s life, and listening to a story that is attached to each picture. Part of me also thought that it would be easier that way, soon to find out that getting the conclusion just right for each vignette was not as simple as it seemed.
KP: What is the main message you want to convey in your memoir?
KL: My quest has always been to find home, to find a place where I belong, and through this writing and from experience, I discovered that home can be found in more than one place, and among certain people, as well. For the longest time I thought I had to make a choice but it doesn’t work that way. Both countries have made me feel at home in different ways. This desire is not mine alone. I believe many of us need to know when and how we will be able to tell that we’ve arrived where we belong.
KP: You take us on a journey of self-discovery and ultimately to a point where you have reconciled the conflicts of your past. Did writing this memoir help you find that sense of peace?
KL: I believe it has to a certain extent. Because of this duality that has always been part of my life, there will forever be an underlying restlessness. My heart and mind are always in two different places at the same time, but overall, that discovery that I didn’t need to choose between them, that I could love both, was a relief. And writing about it all certainly allowed me to figure it out by forcing my hand in a sense, to examine so many pieces of my life.
KP: Do you have any memoir writing tips you’d like to share with us?
KL: Try to find a theme around which the information will revolve, otherwise you might feel as if you need to tell your audience everything, and that isn’t necessary. Be as honest and authentic as you can. Be yourself. If writing comes from the heart it will reach an audience.
Karen Levy is an Israeli-American writer. Born in Israel, Levy spent most of her childhood traveling between her native land and the United States. Commuting between these two countries and having a keen eye for detail have afforded Levy the knowledge necessary to recount the immigrant experience in a very candid style. Following her military service, Levy pursued her studies in the United States where she earned a B.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Davis, and an M.A. in English/Creative Writing from Sacramento State University where she teaches composition and interpretation of literature. Her work has appeared in Welter Magazine, So to Speak, the Blue Moon and The Meadow. She lives in Davis, California with her husband and two children.
How about you? Has writing helped you to find peace?
Karen has graciously agreed to give a way a copy of her memoir to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments or questions below~
Next Week: “The Role of Faith in Finding Freedom From Domestic Abuse: An Interview”
“The challenge with memoir is to make it interesting to someone other than the writer.”David Colin Carr, editor
Photo Credit: “Reading is Magic” by Sodanie Chea from FlickrCreativeCommons
One of the biggest challenges in memoir writing is to turn the events in your life into a story someone else would want to read. Writing with the reader in mind becomes an essential part of the process but I have found it does not occur in full force until the rewriting/polishing phase.
Keeping the reader in mind as I write my memoir is something I’m working on as I grind away after three years of writing vignettes and two rounds of professional editing by a developmental editor.
I am finally ready to focus on my reader.
Why now?
Because I didn’t know the true heart of our story until I had poured out many drafts on the paper—often referred to as “sh*#! first draft or the vomit draft–just getting it on the page with no regard for editing or censoring.
That’s been my experience.
This point was brought home to me in a recent discussion on Belinda Nicoll’s blog, My Rites of Passage during her A-Z Blog Challenge. In Challenge #23: Writing Models, she discusses paying attention to creative techniques in the hopes of crafting a story that will be of interest to the readers. Belinda had posed the question,
“Do you keep your readers in mind as you write?”
In response to my comment that the longer I write and revise, the more I find myself writing with the readers in mind, Lifewriting Coach and Author Sharon Lippincott had replied:
“Kathy, your comment prefaces what I was about to write. Only you can say for sure, but I suspect your early focus was more on the personal cost of disclosure and less on how it would affect readers. Ideally, I think we all need to “write like nobody will ever see” in the beginning, then tailor down to our disclosure comfort level balanced with reader impact.”
Bingo!
Initially, I needed to pour the words on the page before I even knew what my story was. My focus was on digging and excavating.
Now that I have my story—the narrative arc— I can concentrate on writing with the reader in mind.
But I think there’s a fine line between giving the reader credit for figuring out the details and giving the right details to make it clear.
I have a responsibility as a writer to transport the reader into my world in a way that is grammatically correct, nicely paced, appealing to the senses and action-packed.
As a memoir writer, I need to offer lessons learned from life experiences so the reader will have something to take away from reading my memoir.
With that in mind, here are a few tips I’ve gleaned along the way to write words so the reader will be moved:
Have enough emotional distancefrom the life events to be able to be objective in conveying the story.
Be clear on your intention for story and stay true to your theme throughout the story. Avoid distracting tangents. Yes, this means “killing your darlings.”
Offer reflections on the wisdom gained from life events rather than listing chronological events.
*If you are stuck on who your target audience is, try writing with one reader in mindand focus on what you want them to learn from your story.
Read your manuscript aloudto yourself and to others to listen for inconsistencies in pacing, clarity, voice. I use a digital recorder and tape some chapters. It’s amazing what I have been able to hear when I listen to my own words.
Use a critique group and/or beta readers for objective feedback. In the end, it is your story but being open to how potential readers view your story is crucial to getting your best work out there.
Commit to excellence on all levels.Invest (as you are able) in professional services for all levels of editing, book cover design, promotion. If finances are an issue, explore creative options for funding, such as kickstarter campaigns, beta readers, sharing services with other writers.
“It matters to put your best foot forward.” Jami Carpenter, The Red Pen Girl
Keeping the reader in mind as we build our characters and move our plot along through a series of event and actions that will keep our readers turning the pages seems like a reasonable expectation.
Photo Credit:” Reading Books” from Google Free Images
How about you? How do you move the reader with your words? As a reader, what does it take to keep you turning the pages?
I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
On Thursday, May 30: Justine Schofield, Communication Coordinator of Pubslush a global crowdfunding publishing platform will discuss: ” Crowdfunding Your Memoir: 6 Ways to Know If Crowdfunding Is For You.” She will give away three (3) ebook versions of Pubslush’s debut title, a memoir, a beautiful mess by Ali Berlinksi.
Memorial Day, 2013
We remember and pray for our living and deceased veterans and thank God for the freedoms of this country.
My WWII Hero Dad Saluting the American Flag, Memorial Day,2004
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.” Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
I am very happy to feature Memoir Author Janet Givens in this guest post. Janet’s upcoming memoir At Home on the Kazakh Steppe is a story of the challenges and transformation that occurred in their lives when she and her husband lived in Kazakhstan, the largest of the former Soviet Republics, as Peace Corps volunteers in their 50’s and 60’s in 2004.
Welcome, Janet!
Janet Givens Author Photo
KP: Where is Kazakhstan?
JG: Growing up in the 50s and 60s, I thought the Soviet Union WAS Russia. It wasn’t until I got into poli sci in grad school and the Soviet Union collapsed that I learned the difference. Russia was just one of the 14 “Republics” within the Soviet system that became independent in 1991 or earlier. (there are other republics still under Russian control). THEN, since the press kept referring to five of the 14 newly independent countries by lumping them together as “The Stans”, I still didn’t know about Kazakhstan. The Peace Corps changed that.
As for where it is, I can tell you that Kazakhstan is west of China (the fourth largest country) and south of Russia (thelargest). FYI, the USA is the third largest and Kazakhstan is the ninth. This is by area, not population. All pretty big, given there are about 200 identified countries now. A little fewer. I just found http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-largest-countries-in-area-map.html
The mountains of Almaty
KP: “How did you wind up being “on the Kazakh steppe,” and in the Peace Corps? It’s something that college-age students do, is it not? You’re a grandmother?
JG: I am a grandmother. My husband Woody Starkweather and I joined the Peace Corps as an older, married couple in 2004. We were a bit of a rarity, since only 7% of Peace Corps volunteers are married and 5% are over 50. As for going to Kazakhstan, the Peace Corps allows each volunteer to choose their region, but my husband’s desire to teach Engisih limited our choices to Asia and Central Asia. Then using some algorithm, the Peace Corps makes a final determination on the specific country.Th
Outside the Bazaar
As for why we wanted to join, let me quote from the book.
“The idea of Peace Corps still had a powerful pull on me. … An even stronger pull was the unexpected patriotism we both felt after the fall of the Twin Towers and the other tragedies of that September day. We both abhorred the patriotism that was measured by flag waving and a “my country right or wrong” mindset. … We found it devoid of compassion. Woody’s Peace Corps suggestion came at the perfect time.”
Except that I loved my life as it was and I didn’t want to give any of it up.
KP: You’ve been working on this memoir since your return in 2006. Why did you set out to write this book?
JG: Oh, that’s easy; I couldn’t NOT write this book.
Of the Peace Corps’ three goals, the third is for returning volunteers to “promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.” But, more than that, I wanted to understand what had happened to me. These are life-changing experiences, for the grandmothers no less than the twenty-somethings.
Students dancing
KP: How did you begin?
JG: I began by putting together the seventeen email updates–as I called them in the days before I knew about blogs–that I had sent home. And, I reread my journals from those two years. I found what Lisa Dale Norton calls “Shimmering Images” to be a useful metaphor for me.
When I began to query agents,I learned that Peace Corps memoirs had earned a bad rap; there just aren’t that many good ones. I knew I’d have to work harder. But I wasn’t sure how. I hired editors, I took a few Writers’ Digest workshops, and I bought books on writing memoir. Lots of books. All helped, but Eric Maisel’s The Art of the Book Proposalgot me on track.
Maisel taught me to seek the “universal truth” of my story, something a reader who has never been through Peace Corps could relate to. I needed to sort through what he calls the “many possible meanings” my memoir might offer, select one, and advocate for it.
Then I rewrote my memoir with my reader in mind. To paraphrase someone else, “I wrote the first draft for me, the next ones for my reader.”
KP: So, what is the meaning of your story? It’s ‘Universal Truth?’
JG: I wanted it to be the importance of accepting cultural differences.
While I was living in Kazakhstan, the Danish cartoon controversy hit the news. Misunderstanding grew into violence that eventually reverberated around the world, reminding me just how vital it has become to be able to understand, appreciate, and honor cultural differences.And, I believe, as our world gets smaller, this becomes even more important.
The problem was that actually living in such a very different culture was hard. Whatever book learning I may have had, I found that maintaining curiosity about cultural differences was overwhelming and exhausting at times.
Take the simple act of pointing. During my first semester as an English teacher, I essentially gave my students “the finger” each time I pointed to words on the board as I would in America. I know how I’d feel if a new teacher “flipped me the bird” on a regular basis. I was mortified when I learned.
When I tried to use a pointer, as instructed, I felt pompous, like I was putting on airs. Through my discomfort, I came to appreciate how deeply rooted my American sense of informality, casualness runs. It’s the gift of cultural clashes like this one, to help us understand our own culture better.
By the way, my students and my colleagues were universally welcoming and accepting of me, no matter how many cultural faux pas I made. And there were many.
KP: So, cultural difference is the theme of your book?
JG: Well, yes and no.If “cultural differences” was all the book offered, it would read like an academic tome. Or worse, a moralistic lecture. I’d get mostly yawns, at best.
I wanted to hold my readers through to the end. To do that I had to give them a real story, with enoughtension to keep them turning the page.
I had to let myself be vulnerable. By including my own insecurities — not just with the newness of Kazakh culture in which I was immersed, but with the unexpected struggles and doubts I faced about my young marriage –I found a path readers could relate to. Who hasn’t, no matter how stably married, wondered how well you really knew the person you’d married? Even better, I’ve not found a sub-theme of marital tension in any of the Peace Corps memoirs I’ve read.
KP: What has been the greatest challenge for you?
JG: I’m currently at the “weasel word” stage in my edits–finding all the “just” and “all” and “really” that sneak in without me realizing. The challenge is that I love this phase; I love how changing or deleting one word can make a huge difference in the tone of the sentence,or the emphasis or even the meaning. I can see me tinkering with my manuscript for months to come.I need to find a balance between my simmering perfectionism and my desire to get my story out.
Before this, I struggled for years with how to include my husband. In all external ways, this was a shared experience. But when we got back home, I kept hearing him say, “Janet had a really positive experience. But mine wasn’t so much so.” As a result, I consciously kept him out of my first few drafts. I feared his more negative experience would dilute my ultimately positive one. And of course, I didn’t want to admit how angry and disappointed I was that his experience didn’t mimic mine.
KP: What changed your mind?
JG: Editors changed my mind. The professionals I I’ve hired at various times over the last seven years all came back with the same message. “He’s conspicuous in his absence.” I struggled with how to include him without sounding like I was just complaining.”
KP: Has writing this book changed your life in any way?
JG: Once I learned the need for a good old-fashioned narrative arc, even in memoir, I began reading fiction again.I needed to see how great novelists developed their characters, what was it that made me like the protagonist, what made me care, and most important, what kept me reading? I tried to weave the answers I found from reading fiction into my story of living in Kazakhstan. I’m still learning (of course) and always will. I love the process, particularly the rewriting. I’ve found how much I love words, how much power they have, even the little,tiny ,short ones.
I also learned I needed to show as much compassion for the characters in my story, including myself, as I did the honesty I was so wedded to in the beginning. I’ve recently discovered the writer Dinty Moore, who writes, “Compassion requires that we understand, even if we disagree.”
That is, it turns out, may well be the real theme of my book.
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First month in Zherzkazgan celebrating 56th birthday
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Author’s Bio:
Janet Givens, M.A., is a practicing psychotherapist and sociologist who gave up her career to join Peace Corps at age 55. She writes of life, cultural differences, Kazakhstan, friendship and peace in the Vermont Countryside with her white shepherd at her feet and a stash of dark chocolate within her reach.
In addition to At Home on the Kazakh Steppe, Janet co-authored the textbook Stuttering, which was included in Choice Magazine’s “Best Textbooks of 1997″ list, the first in its field to win this award. She has a middle school work, Grandma Goes to Kazakhstan and a picture book/adult fable, Two Bunnies, in need of an illustrator.
Thank you Janet for sharing your memoir writer’s journey with us. In showing us how writing your Peace Corps memoir is a process of self-discovery, you provide us with many valuable memoir writing tips. Best wishes on the launch of At Home On the Kazakh Steppe. Be sure to keep us posted on the release date.
How about you? What has your experience been with cultural difference? Do you have any tips to add to Janet’s about writing a memoir? Any Peace Corps memoirs you’d recommend?
“Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity and humanity.”William Zinsser
I am thrilled to feature Writing Teacher, Author and Editor Cate Russell-Cole in this guest post. Cate has been published in many local and Internet e-zines, magazines and newspapers; and she has researched, written and taught her own courses since 1990. Her most successful course to date is Write Your Life Story, which has a thriving community on Facebook. Cate offers a wealth of writing resources on her site communiCATE. We met online and although I can not remember exactly where we met, I can tell you I feel like I have known Cate forever.
Welcome, Cate!
communiCATE logo
When I teach memoir writing, my students are mostly women. Whenever we have a male in the classroom, the whole dynamic changes. Often, they don’t want to get too touchy-feely or pour their souls out for a public audience. That’s fine. There are as many types of memoir, as there are memoir writers.
In 2004 the Queensland Art Gallery purchased a collection of photographic images by the Australian society photographer, William Yang. These photos are a striking contrast to the gilt framed oils and quirky modern works throughout the gallery. They are a series of 30 black and white photographs, with one short paragraph hand-written under each photo: memoir in a new form… and even better, memoir in a strikingly simple and non-judgemental form. I took my class to view it, including our not so touchy-feely male (who was actually very warm and pleasant off paper.) Everyone walked out of the gallery inspired, considering how they could communicate conflicts and complex issues as easily.
William’s exhibition highlighted where his family had lived, their beliefs, their morals and their values. At no time was he ever judgmental about a family member or situation. He did release some skeletons from the family closet, but they were all his skeletons to set free. Out of respect, he waited until his close relatives were deceased before he did so. The picture he painted was realistic, but sensitive. I noticed that he honored his late mother in a simple and special way.
As the Art Gallery owns the collection, they allowed me to take the photo shown here; but due to copyright, I cannot reproduce the works in an easier to see form. You can view their page on William here:
Below is some of the text which was with the photos.
“In 1979 I had a bad case of hepatitis and I came back to the house of my mother to recuperate. My mother liked having me at home under her control. But I felt the life I had chosen to lead was not in Brisbane, and when I was half better, I went back to Sydney.”
“In his day your father was a very dashing man. He played saxophone in a dance band, and he wore silk shirts. He wouldn’t let me iron them, he did them himself. I couldn’t iron them good enough” I stared at my mother in disbelief. “He wasn’t like you know him.” She said.”
“Frances was my father’s favorite. She was the apple of his eye. I was my mother’s favorite child. There was a friction between my mother and my sister. They were both strong women.”
You can see how simple, but strong the message is. There are no angst-ridden emotional dissections, or lengthy one-sided speeches that could cause family arguments to erupt, or lose your interest amid the details. William got straight to the point. He chose the most important aspects of his family life and how they had affected him. That is always a safe place to focus on controversial topics: how they affected you, rather than who committed what sin.
So when you are writing, whatever your gender, use your freedom to be creative and original. Memoir doesn’t have to be a series of dates or plain paragraphs in a book. You can communicate through art, scrapbooking, photos, story quilts, music etc: it’s up to you. Any form of memoir should reflect your personality and interests in life. It should be representative of the main character: you.
This photo of the collection has been reproduced for educational purposes with the kind permission of the Queensland Art Gallery, and is Copyright 2004 Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It may not be reproduced outside of this blog without first obtaining their permission.
Thank you, Cate for offering this unique alternative to telling our stories.
How about you? Have you ever considered telling your story through photos?
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Announcement: Congratulations to book winners: Angie Walker won Poems That Come to Mind by Linda Austin and Dan Blank won Home Sweet Hardwood by Pat McKinzie. Enjoy!
Next Week:
4/29: “Interview with Susan Weidener“Memoir Author and Founder of The Women’s Writing Circle on the launch of The Slants of Light Anthology.
5/2: “Re-launching a Memoir in the Digital Book Age: A Guest Post by Memoir Author Laura Dennis”
