How to Write Your Memoir and Still Go Home for the Holidays

Yesterday, I gave you a book review of a wonderful new release entitled The Power of Memoir, by Linda Joy Myers. The author Linda Joy offered to me our guest blogger today. If you've ever been excited about writing a memoir, this book is a must read. Linda Joy is president of the National Association of Memoir Writers and a practicing psychotherapist. She makes writing memoirs feel safe. ~HOPE

How to Write Your Memoir and Still Go Home for the Holidays

Linda Joy Myers
Author of The Power of Memoir

In every memoir workshop I’ve presented, I encounter questions about family, friends and loved ones who are “characters” in the memoir. Of course, since a memoir is about the inner circle of our lives, we are going to be writing about people who might be “reluctant characters”—in that they wish you were not writing a memoir at all.

It’s understandable for people to feel exposed through writing our personal stories. It’s important for memoirists to take into account the fact that we are offering up other people’s lives in our work. Some writers, even in fiction where the characters can easily be identified by those who know the author, feel that whatever has happened is fair game, and that no one should silence or stop them from writing whatever they feel like expressing.

Others feel an obligation to take into account the people who are in a memoir, even those whom they feel have created pain or trouble in their lives. But where do we draw these lines? If we worry about all this too much and listen to the voices of family in our heads all the time, we won’t write anything. We can get tripped up on what “truth” is, asking, “Do I have to include the family’s truth or can I just write my own?”

The challenging thing is that the inner critic can take on these opposing voices. We can become stuck and unable to write with a confusing chorus chattering in our head.

I have some suggestions:

1. write the first draft of your memoir without thinking of anyone but yourself and your memories. Don’t tell the family you are writing. If you’ve already confessed, now tell them that you’re taking a break, that you’re writing fiction or whatever it takes to stop the questions. Some families are more intrusive and nosy than others.

2. when the inner critic voices arise, write down what they’re saying and get them out of your head for a while. Then go back to your writing.

3. Keep your work private from friends or those who might share your work with others. If you are in a writing group, ask for confidentiality in your group. If you live in a small town, enroll in an online class.

4. Focus on your own truths. Think about the freedom and the healing that arises from writing without censoring, from putting everything on the page that you have to say. Research shows that writing the true stories of our lives changes our brain and frees us from our old perspectives. You can experience a new present and future by writing!

It takes courage to write a memoir, and perseverance. Begin today! Write for ten minutes per day about the most meaningful moments of your life. Soon you will have many stories and a whole new view of your life and yourself.