Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Linda Brendle/@lindabrendle
” It breaks my heart to see her disappearing a piece at a time into the abyss of this disease.”– Linda Brendle, A Long and Winding Road: A Caregiver’s Tale of Life,Love and Chaos, 2014.
As a health care provider, I know that caring for a loved one who suffers from Alzheimer’s and/or Dementia is one of the most challenging conditions faced by families. When I read about Linda Brendle’s memoir of not only caring for both parents, one with Alzheimer’s and the other with Dementia, but taking them on a seven-week road trip in an RV, I knew I had to read her memoir and learn more about her experience.
It is my pleasure to participate in Linda’s Virtual Blog Tour and to feature her in this guest post about her memoir, A Long and Winding Road: A Caregiver’s Tale of Life, Love and Chaos and the five principles she learned through her writing.
My reviews can be found on Amazon, Goodreads, Shelfari and LibraryThings.
Welcome, Linda!
Five Principles I Learned in Writing My Memoir
About My Memoir:
A LONG AND WINDING ROAD: A Caregiver’s Tale of Life, Love, and Chaos is the story of a seven-week, sixteen-state RV trip. It is the story of the drama and hilarity that happen when two new RV owners and two people with dementia spend fifty-three days inside a four-hundred-square-foot box on wheels.
I didn’t really set out to write a memoir, but when I became a real hands-on caregiver, especially after Mom and Dad moved in with us, I often went to my aunt for advice. She cared for both her mother and her husband for many years, so she had experience to back up her advice. One thing she told me was to keep a journal, because one day my experiences might be of help to someone else. I didn’t write every day, but after a particularly trying episode, I would write about it and post it on Facebook. People responded positively, and that encouraged me to continue to write.
When we planned our epic trip, I decided to keep a daily journal. A couple of weeks into the trip, I mentioned the journal to Christian Piatt, my son and a fellow writer. He suggested I expand it into a story, not just of the trip but of our lives. He continued to work with me, encouraging me to put more of myself into the story and helping me find ways to focus my story.
The main way to focus a memoir is to decide who your target audience will be, what kind of people you imagine will ultimately read your book. In my case, my target audience was the sixty-eight million Baby Boomers who are at or nearing retirement age, the twenty-three to fifty-two million caregivers, depending on your definition of a caregiver, and the eight million RV owners in the United States.
Once you have identified your audience, the next step is to determine what you want to tell that audience, what message you want to communicate to them. While you may think every detail of your life is extremely interesting and significant, unless you are a mega star or a super celebrity, you will need to give your readers a reason to care about your story.
In my case, I wanted to touch those who needed encouragement, inspiration, or a little laughter in their lives. My book offers an entertaining read to anyone who loves a good travel story. However, it also offers caregivers the comfort of knowing they are not alone, the permission to admit that caregiving is hard, and the realization that sometimes you just have to laugh. It encourages them to take care of themselves and to continue to have a life of their own, and it offers the hope that, with God’s help, life can go on in spite of emotional difficulties, divorce, financial setbacks, and similar challenges.
While I was writing my memoir, I never really stopped to think about some of the steps I went through until recently. When one Twitter friend asked where I found the courage to write a memoir, and another asked how I dealt with sensitive material regarding friends and family, I spent some time pondering the process and wrote an article on the subject.
I’d like to share five principals I followed in writing my memoir.
1. Know your motives. Why are you writing your story? Do you have a purpose in mind, or do you just want to vent and air your dirty laundry? There is a market for both types of memoir, but the first is less likely to get you in trouble with your loved ones.
2. Tell your own story. If you’ve ever studied conflict resolution, you’re probably familiar with “I” messages. In any disagreement, it is important to speak about your own actions and feelings instead of assigning blame to someone else. In writing my memoir, I tried to tell my own story and leave others to tell theirs.
3. Make your characters likable. The author of a memoir is not actually creating characters. However, she does have the ability to make her characters sympathetic or not, depending on how she presents them.
4. Forgive before you write. When you sit down to write about a person who has hurt you in some way, be sure you have forgiven that person before you put your hands on the keyboard. As the author, you have complete control and can tell your story so that your readers will understand without a doubt who was the injured party and who the villain was, but you also have to be sure you’re prepared to accept the consequences. Is vindication worth ruining a relationship?
5. Speak the truth in love. If a memoir author skirts the truth in order to spare feelings, her story will not ring true. On the other hand, as she tells the truth, she must do so with love.
It took several years for my manuscript to grow from a handwritten journal to a published memoir. There were lots of edits and lots of growing pains–maybe the next one will be easier.
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Thank you for sharing so many valuable memoir writing tips, Linda. Your five principles will resonate with anyone who has the desire to write and share their story.
Author Bio:
Linda Brendle began life in a tiny west-Texas town that was so small the only clinic was on the second floor above a hardware store. She retired sixty-four years later to another tiny town in east Texas. In between she lived in and around Dallas and Tampa. She has one son and two beautiful grandchildren, and has been married to David, the love of her life, for fourteen years. She is a life-begins-at-fifty kind of gal. She received her Bachelor’s Degree at fifty-one, learned to ride a motorcycle at fifty-five, and finished her first book after she started collecting Social Security. She can’t wait to see what the next couple of decades bring.
Author Contact Information:
Twitter @lindabrendle
Website: lifeaftercaregiving.wordpress.com
Facebook: Linda Robinson Brendle
Links to the Book:
ALAWR up on UK Amazon! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Winding-Road-Caregivers-Chaos-ebook/dp/B00LDV3W50/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404173365&sr=8-1&keywords=Linda+Brendle
US Amazon with a review http://www.amazon.com/Long-Winding-Road-Caregivers-Chaos-ebook/dp/B00LDV3W50/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404173447&sr=8-1&keywords=Linda+Brendle
How about you? Have you ever had to care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s or Dementia and written about the experience? Do Linda’s memoir writing principles match your experience?
Linda and her publisher at Anaiah Press have graciously agreed to give away a copy of Linda’s memoir, A Long and Winding Way to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing of commenters.
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week:
Monday, 7/21/14: “Finding Forgiveness While Writing a Memoir” by Memoir Writer Joan Z Rough