I Have A Thought…

Excerpt: “How to Write a Memoir”

by William Zinsser

Most people embarking on a memoir are paralyzed by the size of the task. What to put in? What to leave out? Where to start? Where to stop? How to shape the story? The past looms over them in a thousand fragments, defying them to impose on it some kind of order. Because of that anxiety, many memoirs linger for years half written, or never get written at all.

What can be done?

You must make a series of reducing decisions. For example: in a family history, one big decision would be to write about only one branch of the family. Families are complex organisms, especially if you trace them back several generations. Decide to write about your mother's side of the family or your father's side, but not both. Return to the other one later and make it a separate project.

Remember that you are the protagonist in your own memoir, the tour guide. You must find a narrative trajectory for the story you want to tell and never relinquish control. This means leaving out of your memoir many people who don't need to be there. Like siblings.

****

My final reducing advice can be summed up in two words: think small. Don't rummage around in your past — or your family's past — to find episodes that you think are “important” enough to be worthy of including in your memoir. Look for small self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you still remember them it's because they contain a universal truth that your readers will recognize from their own life.

That turned out to be the main lesson I learned by writing a book in 2004 called Writing About Your Life. It's a memoir of my own life, but it's also a teaching book — along the way I explain the reducing and organizing decisions I made. I never felt that my memoir had to include all the important things that ever happened to me — a common temptation when old people sit down to summarize their life journey. On the contrary, many of the chapters in my book are about small episodes that were not objectively “important” but that were important to me. Because they were important to me they also struck an emotional chord with readers, touching a universal truth that was important to them.

One chapter is about serving in the army in World War II. Like most men of my generation, I recall that war as the pivotal experience of my life. But in my memoir I don't write anything about the war itself. I just tell one story about one trip I took across North Africa after our troopship landed at Casablanca. My fellow GIs and I were put on a train consisting of decrepit wooden boxcars called “forty-and-eights,” so named because they were first used by the French in World War I to transport forty men or eight horses. The words QUARANTE HOMMES OU HUIT CHEVAUX were still stenciled on them. For six days I sat in the open door of that boxcar with my feet hanging out over Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. It was the most uncomfortable ride I ever took — and the best. I couldn't believe I was in North Africa. I was the sheltered son of Northeastern wasps; nobody in my upbringing or my education had ever mentioned the Arabs. Now, suddenly, I was in a landscape where everything was new — every sight and sound and smell.

The eight months I spent in that exotic land were the start of a romance that has never cooled. They would make me a lifelong traveler to Africa and Asia and other remote cultures and would forever change how I thought about the world. Remember: Your biggest stories will often have less to do with their subject than with their significance — not what you did in a certain situation, but how that situation affected you and shaped the person you became.

As for how to actually organize your memoir, my final advice is, again, think small. Tackle your life in easily manageable chunks. Don't visualize the finished product, the grand edifice you have vowed to construct. That will only make you anxious.

Here’s what I suggest.

Go to your desk on Monday morning and write about some event that's still vivid in your memory. What you write doesn't have to be long — three pages, five pages — but it should have a beginning and an end. Put that episode in a folder and get on with your life. On Tuesday morning, do the same thing. Tuesday's episode doesn't have to be related to Monday's episode. Take whatever memory comes calling; your subconscious mind, having been put to work, will start delivering your past.

Keep this up for two months, or three months, or six months. Don't be impatient to start writing your “memoir,” the one you had in mind before you began. Then, one day, take all your entries out of their folder and spread them on the floor. (The floor is often a writer's best friend.) Read them through and see what they tell you and what patterns emerge. They will tell you what your memoir is about and what it's not about. They will tell you what's primary and what's secondary, what's interesting and what's not, what's emotional, what's important, what's funny, what's unusual, what's worth pursing and expanding. You'll begin to glimpse your story's narrative shape and the road you want to take.

Then all you have to do is put the pieces together.

From The American Scholar, Volume 75, No. 2, Spring 2006. Copyright 2006 by William Zinsser. This essay is adapted from a new chapter for the forthcoming 30th-anniversary edition of On Writing Well.

via On Memoir, Truth and ‘Writing Well’ : NPR.

When I was a kid, and my big sister was a little bigger kid (and before we hit our teens) we would conspire how to best celebrate Mother’s Day. Breakfast in bed for Mom was always a tried and true recipe. The actual meal was never very ambitious, and we weren’t allowed to actually make coffee, so Dad had to help with that.  But, we could produce toast and cereal and pluck a pansy from the garden to dress up the tray. She was always very pleased to see us collaborate on the plan.  Then, she would up the ante and tell us that we could really make the day special by cleaning our rooms.  That seemed a low blow at the time. But as a mom myself, I know I’ve used the same ploy too.

When we got older we would take her to lunch, or a special dinner. And, when we all started living in different states, the planning got more complicated. Complicated too by the fact that my sister, Linda, and I were now mothers ourselves.

My mother always said to me that the only gift she ever wanted on Mother’s Day was to have her children near her.  Often, I couldn’t make that happen.  We lived in Connecticut and she in Florida. Lives got busy and sometimes budgets were tight.  She was always understanding, never wanting to make it difficult for me. Now that she’s gone, though, I find myself regretting every one of those Mother’s Days I wasn’t there to thank her for the legacy of love she gave me. How she taught me that real, true love is bottomless. That it accepts and gives and lifts. It’s a lesson I hope I’ve been able to pass along to my own son.  A gift from his grandma really.

He seems to have inherited my mother’s big-hearted capacity for love. I can sometimes see the glow of her in him.

“He gives the very best hugs,” my mother said of my boy. “I can feel his love just surging through me.”

Thanks to you Mom.  Happy Mother’s Day.

This morning I opened up my email and saw that there was a post on a very interesting blog about my book, Replacement Child, on A Storied Career blog http://tinyurl.com/342co2h.

The author of the blog, Kathy Hansen, had seen my book and understood immediately what was meant by the term ‘replacement child’ because she is one herself. The circumstances are quite different, not a plane crash, but a car crash that killed her sister before she was born.  Nevertheless, the tragedy was part of her life growing up and part of the way she grew to view herself and her place in the world.  She always wished for her big sister to be in her life, and even hoped she would come back for even a day.  I had a similar feeling that I always wondered how the dynamics of my family would have been different if Donna had lived through the plane crash and fire.  I also wonder if Kathy ever felt the responsibility I did to live up to the promise of her big sister–the life she might have had.  I know that there are many types of replacement children–those who replaced siblings who died from accidental deaths, tragic circumstances and natural causes.  It is always intriguing to me the different forms the impact of the role has on an individual.

Do you relate to any of the following possible effects of being a replacement child for one who died:

– Identity issues: establishing your own unique identity outside of the role of being a replacement for the child who died?

– Issues of abandonment.  This sometimes is the case when parents cannot be totally present for the replacement child.  In my case, for example, my father never really got over losing his eldest daughter–and I believe unconsciously did not forgive me for being alive when she was not.  His ongoing grief and resentment removed him in an essential way.

– Issues of rejection.  Sometimes fear of rejection, which a replacement child might feel in a more intense way from parents who may still be grieving, plays itself out later in life in a replacement child’s relationships.  In my case, I know that my own fear of rejection, of being left, often pushed me to be the one to leave first.

If you are a replacement child of any kind–tell us your story.  Did you have a sibling who died before you were born? Did you lose a brother or sister early in your childhood? Are you a parent who decided to have another child after losing one?

I look forward to hearing your stories, and will also follow Kathy’s blog as well.

Follow your passion and you may just wind up doing the thing you love everyday. That was my primary message last night when I spoke to a community support group.  It was a great group of people, spanning a variety of backgrounds and skill sets–with one thing in common.  They had all lost jobs and were looking for a new opportunity, new ideas and a little inspiration.

If you’re new to my website, you may wonder what this has to do with Replacement Child, my memoir.  Well, I have to say that the book is a direct result of being downsized after a 20-year career in corporate marketing.  As it happens to me time and again, the telling of my story to this group clarified it for me.  I reminded myself that five years ago I made the tough decision not to go back into the corporate arena, but instead to start my own marketing copywriting business–and to give myself the time to write the book I had always wanted to write about my family and the plane crash that changed everything for us all.  It wasn’t an easy decision, and I remember the angst that went along with writing up my business plan, putting out feelers to possible clients, and taking the plunge.

Talking to the group last evening, I didn’t want it to sound like everyone should just stop looking for a job–but that they might just take another look at something that may have always been in the back of their mind and see if their reasons for not pursuing it were real, or imagined.  We sometimes talk ourselves out of taking risks with roadblocks that are only in our minds.  I asked the group if they would open up and share their own personal passion–something they had thought about but that didn’t seem realistic. Slowly, hands went up around the room and a lively discussion began.

One person talked about thinking she needed a business education to start a small business, but after we all talked about using Quickbooks to manage accounts and finances–she may be re-thinking whether that is indeed an obstacle for her.  Another woman confided that she had always regretted not going ahead with buying a hot dog cart–for the freedom it might give her, and the fun she thought it would be to run it with a friend.  She’s looking for another one now I think!  One ambitious woman started talking about two ideas she had and we all realized that she was already doing both on a small scale, and could possibly grow them to see what will work best.

We talked a bit about networking with friends, and social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.  I imparted a few tips I’ve picked up marketing Replacement Child.  That topic could take up many more hours! I also warned that while those social sites are great and very helpful, they can be a black hole that consumes your time.  Setting aside a certain amount of time each day for them is a good idea–but not more than an hour or so.

Right after the group broke up I had a brief conversation with one woman about what helps to keep you from feeling down when you are suddenly out of work, and I realized I had missed an opportunity to share some of the things that helped me during that time in my life.  I told her how making myself a schedule helped a great deal.  For me it was writing in the morning (either work assignments or my book), exercise in the afternoon, marketing my business or project for a couple of hours in between.  We agreed that keeping busy was important.

I hope the group came away with renewed inspiration to look at their job loss as an opportunity to reshape their work life, and maybe to rethink that one idea that put a spark of excitement into their voices when they told about it.

Maybe information and communication are too free, and way too easy.  I never thought I would entertain that idea, especially as someone who trades on those very resources, but the growing use of cyberspace to taunt vulnerable kids to the point of ending their young lives has me questioning what kind of pandora’s box we have opened.  Now, I hear on the Today Show that it’s not enough to goad someone to their death, “online trolls”  are now preying on the loved ones of the deceased during their time of grief with cruel comments left on message boards and memorial sites.

Internet search makes it a breeze to find out about accidents, suicides or murders and to target families with hurtful messages, and even images, about those they have recently lost.  Most often, the perpetrators don’t even know the person they are bad-mouthing.  They have no connection to the family, and no remorse about skewering the heart of a parent who is suffering what I believe must be the worst kind of loss–that of a child.  Has our society become so callous that we look the other way at this kind of assault to our sense of right and wrong?

The messages on boards, chat rooms and blogs that espouse this kind of evil are not against the law — but they are against any kind of law of decency.  I also have a sinking feeling that the recent violence in our political arena is somehow related.  What will we tolerate in order to preserve our freedom of expression?  Certainly this is one of many wake-up calls for us to take a hard look at what we teach our children, how we educate them, and what we promote as having value.

I can’t help thinking what this kind of harassment would have done to my own parents when they lost their child to a plane crash, and I’m grateful that their tragedy was in gentler times when they could rely on their neighbors, and many strangers, to reach out to them in comfort. To add to that kind of pain with cruel taunting is an unfathomable breach of even the lowest moral standards.

So, you’ve gone to the library (see last post) and now you have a stack of books that represents your possible next project. And, you stare at them on your desk, willing the information to be absorbed into your brain.  Sadly, you are wasting valuable brain cells!  There is no getting around it–you have to open the books. As you leaf through the books, there are ways to start filtering your information–whether or not you’ve zeroed in on what you want to write about.  Here are some suggestions:

Organize:  This is a fall back technique that has lifted me out of many creative ruts.  Choose your own weapons. I tend toward file boxes, index cards and bulletin boards.  At the beginning of a project, or just to be inspired–I write myself notes where I can see them everyday. On a white board at eye level I might just write: WRITE SOMETHING TODAY!!

My index file box may have different dividers, depending on where I am in a project.  Here are some possible sections to include:

1. Themes
2. Characters
3. Settings
4. Topic Facts
5. Philosophy (your own over-riding ideas about a topic)
6. Why Write It (your personal reasons for writing about the topic)

Once I start to really work on the project, I like to use index cards in plain view on my bulletin board to help me along.  If I’m working on plot, for instance, I may map it out on cards on my bulletin board to be able to rearrange them as I write.

I KNOW you writers out there have tips of your own that you can share to help us all get writing and stay on track, so please share them here in the comments section.  And, subscribe to this blog to keep up on new ideas as they are added to the posts.

Happy writing!

Whether you are #writing a #memoir, or anything that requires creative juice, there will be times when nothing comes to you.  I like to think of the Grateful Dead song with the line “heads all empty and I don’t care”–but the truth is I do care.  I care a lot! And, if you are a writer working on a project, or trying to find your next project–I know you care too. So, I thought I’d share some of the ways I’ve found to combat the dreaded empty head. So, here is your Friday afternoon tip:

Go to the library.

It may sound simple. But, especially if you are looking for a new project, this can unstick even the most stuck brain cells. You can do this from your office using the Internet–but I find having all those books around me has some kind of magical power.

Bring a small notebook with you to the library. Make yourself a list of possible topics that interest you, either from a factual or fictional viewpoint. Proceed to the computerized card catalog and look up any and all related topics that may help spark your imagination. When you have five or six books or articles you want to read, go find them and start leafing through. Don’t be afraid to get side-tracked.  In fact, that might be the best thing that can happen.  You may just wind up going down a road you had never envisioned before–so keep an open mind and have fun.  This is your brain on information saturation–and it’s a beautiful thing! Let’s face it, we have no clue where our best ideas come from.  Feed your brain fascinating facts and it will reward you with a journey into your imagination.

Let me know if you have some helpful tips of your own to share in the comments section here.  I’ll be adding to the list each week, too, so sign on the RSS of the blog to be sure to get the next installment.

Happy writing!!

This past Friday’s interview with Women’s Memoirs was chock full of great questions from the loyal followers of this great blog for women memoirists. We talked about how to get around dicey family issues, whether to write that controversial family saga and risk the wrath of family members to tell the truth. How to reconcile imagined scenes and the inner workings of a “character’s” mind in your memoir.  And–what to do with your manuscript once it’s written–then published.

I hope you enjoy listening in to the recorded interview at www.womensmemoirs.com as much as I enjoyed our conversation. If you have any other questions for me, you can either leave them here on my blog, or on the Women’s Memoirs blog and I will be happy to answer you in those forums.  If you’d like a personal answer to a question, you can leave your question on my blog and mark it PERSONAL, with your email address and I will not post the comment–but will answer you individually if you like. (All of my blog posts are reviewed before posting live.)

Listen in at www.womensmemoirs.com!