Linda Joy Myers - The Magic of Memoir: Inspiration for the Writing Journey

THE MAGIC OF MEMOIR

Copyright 2016 by Linda Joy Myers and Brooke Warner

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2016

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-63152-147-8

E-ISBN: 978-1-63152-148-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016953560

Cover illustration by Sarah Lazarovic

Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

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She Writes Press

1569 Solano Ave #546

Berkeley, CA 94707

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

Jill Kandel |

Eanlai Cronin |

Peter Gibb |

Lynette Charity |

Donna Barnes |

Roseann M. Bozzone |

Carol E. Anderson |

Bella Mahaya Carter |

Linda Joy Myers and Brooke Warner |

Krishan Bedi |

Sarah Conover |

Leza Lowitz |

Nadine Kenney Johnstone |

Lynette Benton |

Kelly Kittel |

Robert W. Finertie |

Rita M. Gardner |

Robert Hammond |

Marina Aris |

LaDonna Harrison |

Jill Smolowe |

Alison Dale |

Vanya Erickson |

Sonvy Sammons |

Laurie Prim |

Ashley Espinoza |

Jing Li |

Nancy Chadwick-Burke |

Dhana Musil |

Crystal-Lee Quibell |

Apryl Schwab |

Irene Sardanis |

Jude Walsh |

Fran Simone |

Rosalyn Kaplus |

Rosie Sorenson |

Paula Wagner |

Jerry Waxler |

Ruthie Stender |

Therein Lies the Magic

O ver the many years weve been teaching memoir writingduring which Linda Joy has written two of her own memoirs and Brooke has edited and published upward of three hundred memoirsweve encountered three ss that waylay writers on the way to writing their truths: secrets, silence, and shame. We know and have witnessed how important it is for writers to encircle and defeat this triumvirate if they are to free themselves to write what must be written, if they are to act as witnesses to and historians of the lives they have lived and the insights they want to share.

Why would anyone willingly go through this? Its a question we encounter often, and one most memoirists ask themselves. The great Mary Karr, in an interview with Brooke in September 2015, stated with complete conviction in response to the question of whether she would advise her own students to pursue memoir, I say if you dont really have to do this, if you can live a happy life...

The audience laughed, but Mary was serious, and many writers of memoir understand her assertion. They would not be writing their stories if they did not feel called to, if they felt they could possibly avoid it, if they didnt absolutely have to. Because weve taught and coached so many students over the years, we know how deep this need, this compulsion, this drive really is.

For Linda Joy, whos been teaching memoir for nearly twenty years and has written five books, two memoirs and three how-to books, the siren song of the three ss has forced her to encounter them again and again, pushing her to grow beyond these dark forces. As a therapist, she knows how secrets and shame create silence, and she respects how hard it is for people to reveal their hidden stories.

Brooke, whos been working with memoirists since 2004 as a coach, editor, and publisher, has witnessed firsthand how insidious the three ss can be. Exposing ones full self is an exercise in extreme vulnerability, and even writers who come to the page with a take-no-prisoners attitude, who feel ready to risk everything for the truth and their art, encounter shame. In fact, theres not a single memoirist Brooke has encounteredincluding high-profile and acclaimed authorswho hasnt brushed up against some fear when it comes to sharing and revealing things about themselves, their family members, their past, their desires and longings, their shortcomings and insecurities.

We live in a shame-bound culture, a culture that tries to paint a happy face over the many soul-stirring struggles that are a part of our lived experience. We may have stories that our friends and relatives dont knowor dont want to knowabout dysfunctional families, abuse, addictions, loss, and the kind of suffering that ensues as a result of what weve lived through. Some of us have been told to keep secrets to protect others and ourselves. This level of conditioning not to tell vibrates at a cellular level, and therefore its no small feat to interrupt a frequency weve been attuned to our entire lives.

Of course, not all stories contain dysfunction and darkness. Your particular struggle may reflect a more subtle shame. Perhaps you worry about exposing someone you love for the less-than-perfect human being they actually are or were. Perhaps, in order to be authentic in your memoir, youre being called to share the truth of your own striving and failure to be perfect. Maybe you have been a flawed parent, or an unfaithful spouse, or mean-spirited toward others in their times of need. None of these behaviors is uncommon, or even something wed condemn in others, but exposing ourselves on the page for who we truly are means coming to terms with the unseemly sides of our human experience.

Those memoirists who refuse to delve into the darkness, or who insist that their story is nothing but a fairy-tale existence that anyone would envy, tend to uncover the family myths that perpetuated the fantasy in the first place once they begin to write. We all struggle; were all less than perfect. We can be kind to ourselves as we expose our own underbellies, but memoir is not memoir if we are unwilling to gaze well beyond our navels. True memoir emerges like a beast from the gut and the heart, and its the writers job to tame it, to get to know it, to dance with ituntil it becomes a more palpable and ultimately beautiful creature that we feel prepared, if not totally ready, to share with the world.

Its this experience of taming and shaping our own stories, of working through our shame and exploring the depths of our human experience, that brings us to another topic: transformation. As a therapist, Linda Joy has observed the magic moments when suddenly she has seen a light turn on in someones mind, when the click they experience because of a new insight has been nearly audible. For Brooke, those moments have been equally palpable when writers have had a shift in perception, when they have realized how to convey emotion in a way thats universally resonant or why it matters that they synthesize their experience for the reader. These click moments are as powerful for writers as they will be for those authors future readers.

Memoir is a journey of the soul as much as a window into it. The writing of our personal stories is both an opportunity and a gift, and while writing itself may be solitary, many, if not most, new memoirists are drawn to write both for themselves and to share with others. The stories may belong to the writer, but the destiny of the memoir, by design, is to be released into the world. At that point, it ceases to be ours and instead belongs to our readers, existing for them to make sense of, to relate to, and to know theyre not alone.

Research has shown that writing helps to heal and reveal new layers of our consciousness. As this happensas we allow our writing to lead us down the pathways our stories takesomething amazing happens. We find ourselves writing words and sentences we had no intention of writing. We uncover things that we didnt know were there. We may come face-to-face with an inner critic who tells us our writing isnt good enough, but we also have moments of falling in love with our words. Through the storytelling, we relive the past, make new associations, and discover new ways of seeing ourselves. As our books progress, we continue to be in discovery mode, searching for more and deeper truths. Through this process, we reveal to ourselves surprising new aspects of our lives and illuminate our journeys, continuing to hold those things that will be universally resonant to our readers. We offer takeaways that keep the reader engaged, all the while delving more and more deeply into lessons and insights we didnt know about before we started to write.