Is Your Story Worth Telling?
An important question to answer when writing a memoir about your life
I have been writing steadily towards my Survival Show Biz memoir for about 3 years now.
I’ve always wanted to tell my harrowing (true to life) story of how I survived a violent husband, my years of severe panic attacks and anxiety while singing/performing around the world — and how I came through it all a stronger wiser person.
My story culminated in 1996, when my husband who was traveling with me to a resort gig in Sun City, South Africa ended up taking all of the money out of our joint bank account. I was stunned. This was money I EARNED singing my ass off nightly during a 9 month gig.
He left me penniless.
And, I was alone in a foreign country!
I had no money to get home to the states. (This was after many months of his violence, stalking me and threatening my life.)
It was a harrowing time. I had to call upon all the inner strength I could muster and all the faith I had in myself and a Higher Power to find a creative way out of this situation.
The irony of it all was I had just hit the ‘peak’ of my Musical career success. I was offered the ‘finale’ role(the starring role) in a Multi Million Dollar Production show called ‘Beyond Belief’. Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes, I say.
So, on the outside, my life might have looked successfu but it was far from that. My story is a bit of an Ike and Tina Turner tale. But, it is my life…my true story… and I SURVIVED IT! It is eventually a story of redemption and hope also.
I felt it was my mission and my life’s calling to tell this story.
BUT, the pain of writing and reliving this story was too much for me. Looking through my journals from those years was too damn painful, so about a year ago I put it aside after writing over 65,000 plus words.
WAS MY STORY WORTH TELLING?
I asked myself these questions often :
Is it worth the pain of revisiting these old memories and open all my old journals just to get this story out?
Is it worth the pain it might cause my family members?
Is it selfish to write this story?
Should I shelve this whole project?
There were many reasons why I put it on the back burner to simmer.
- My parents and sister are still alive. UGH. There is just too much messy unresolved family stuff there. I knew I had to bring up my family dysfunction in this memoir. I knew authenticity was key to a good memoir and part of authenticity was talking about family. I still wasn’t sure how I would navigate all of this. I could not write this book without mentioning family dysfunction. Plus my 86 year old dad just had 4 strokes and was probably dying very soon.
- I didn’t feel I had enough closure yet, even after 25 years. I was in therapy. So much of my life seemed raw. It just wasn’t time!
- I didn’t want my story to be a Misery Memoir. NO!NO! I’ve read about Misery Memoirs. I wanted mine to be redemptive and encouraging — not a bunch of whiny, poor me crap from my past.
4 . I tried ‘sharing’ two chapters with a few writer friends about a year ago. One writer wrote back after reading my opening chapter saying it was TOO DAMN DARK! She pretty much threw it under the bus. She said “You wouldn’t go to a cocktail party and begin by vomiting on a stranger!!” Two other friends ironically said it was NOT too dark at all and that they LOVED it. Funny but when I sent that same negative woman back a Preface which explained that my book was eventually redemptive, she seemed to take back her opinion.
SOOOOO… I was confused. Which voice to listen to?
This is a major issue with us memoir writers and writers in general.
But, I reminded myself of other memoir teachers who strongly advise to START your memoir in the ‘midst of the shit’ — to go straight in to the meatiest part of your story in your opening chapter.
I did that. I was confused by her violent reaction.
So — I wasn’t sure if this story really NEEDED to be told at all. I thought it might be best to just keep it hidden — hidden far away from view.
Its definitely safer that way. It is safer not to talk.
I also thought that maybe it was enough to just write it all out for ME and me alone?
I CAME TO BELIEVE THAT MY STORY WAS WORTH TELLING
Around the time the #me-too movement came along it re-inspired me to pull up my memoir chapters and bravely begin editing them — again.
A very supportive editor friend suggested I begin by sending her one or two chapters at a time which I did. Also around this time I decided to recommit to writing a minimum of one story/essay a day on medium.com.
I felt if I wrote 2 essays a day, every day, by the end of the year I’d HAVE TO become a far better writer — I mean who doesn’t get better if they do something long enough?
This would inevitably help me when I went back to finish the memoir. Plus, I loved writing and the medium platform was a nice one.
Today I have been back to editing the Memoir again. YEAH!
I decided to get bold and share TWO CHAPTERS from my upcoming memoir with you all today.
For some reason I’m feeling brave. Hey it’s the end of the year. I want to break out of my comfort zone this year. So, I’m starting by doing this brave act.
My boyfriend just spurted out ‘Carpe DIEM!” Live for this moment!
So I’ll throw some caution to the wind today and fling these 2 rough draft chapters out there!! lol They are a bit long so this will not be a quick read!
First, here is the Elevator Speech which is the quick synopsis of the Memoir which I have yet to name. For now it is titled: ‘NO I AM NOT STREISAND — An impersonators full circle journey back to herself ‘
Elevator Speech
This Memoir is about my life as an impersonator of Barbra Streisand performing around the world while at the same time dealing with debilitating panic/anxiety issues, and surviving an abusive husband.
My story culminated when on a gig in South Africa after almost killing me he emptied our joint bank account. He left me in South Africa penniless with no way to get home to the states.
Yes, it is a harrowing tale with pain and heartache but it’s also a redemptive and hopeful story—an inspiring story of survival and renewal. And, a story about how creativity heals.
An essay I wrote about my memoir writing process was featured recently on The Memoir Network. You can read it here: