THE PENNY PUB

Why I Write Memoir

Reliving my past through my words is how I share my stories

Memoir has become my favorite genre to write. I don’t know if it’s my age and I’m doing more reminiscing or if I finally feel like I have something to say.

Author Mary Karr says a memoir is “the poetry of a single person trying to make sense of the past.”

I am certainly not an expert on memoir writing but when I started on Medium, I gravitated toward the genre and think I’ve learned a few things.

If you have journaled or kept a diary for any length of time, you will have a leg up over many memoir writers… like me. I was a sporadic journaler throughout my life and the notebooks that I have kept can unlock explicit memories that I can now write about. I wish I had kept more of them.

Getting started is often the hardest part. If I don’t know how to begin, I just start writing. It does get easier once you begin. Like walking the Camino, one foot after the other, just start writing, one word after the other.

It always amazes me the details that come back to me when I focus on a specific time or event. I don’t worry about editing in the first draft, it’s just a matter of pulling the story out of my memory files. Sometimes, a tiny note will trigger a wave of memories, the clothes I wore, the smells, the tastes, and what was going on around me. The best stories are when I get in the “flow state,” when I enter the zone, the words just pour out of me.

Once I’ve written my first draft, the one where I write down everything I can remember, I can take a step back. This is when I try to hone in on the key elements of the story and try to construct the narrative arc, the perfect beginning, middle, and end. I look for the flow of the story, and I begin to polish it up, which usually means blasting away all the dirt that is stuck to that hidden gem.

I’m not one to publish on the same day. It happens, but rarely. I prefer to let a story sit for a day or two so I can come back to it with clear eyes. Each time I read it through I am making changes, corrections, and revisions. Sometimes, a story will sit for days, weeks, or even months before I can polish it up the way I want. I can’t force it. I usually know when it’s ready to submit to a publication, and hopefully, I will get an editor who can look at it with a critical eye and highlight inconsistencies as well as mistakes with grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I don’t mind a tough edit.

Once I hit edit, I have to let it go. Walk away. There are times I want to go in and tweak it some more, but I don’t. I leave it to the readers to decide if I hit my mark with the story. If I do, I can revel in that, and if I don’t, I try to learn why not and move on to the next story. There is always a next story.

Thank you for reading.