Author Archive: lifemagic

Early Memories: From Chaos to Scenes

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At this point in my writing process, I have a couple of scenes, a prelude of being with a lover in middle age (not included here as a kind of flash forward) and my idea is to then flash back to thirty years before, doing a magick ritual to find love and live in the tropics (the lover scene hints at being in the tropics, and so the reader is asking, did the magickal ritual work, and is still working, thirty years later). Then the ‘Meat’ of act one starts, mainly childhood, not so sure of the cut off point for act one.

I have the first part written. I have a chronic disease that has influenced my life, it’s genetic, and I begin with the first symptoms (aged five) and show the context (living with cruel parents in a cruel school system, and this part introduces a goal (going to live with my rich aunt instead of my drunk mother).

I’m struggling a bit with the next scene. I started writing diaries aged 16, and I have then as copied jpegs now. In my thirties I switched to digital, and so I can get notes from this material. But the early reference is only my memories and a few photos.

So I started writing, a kind of mix of brainstorming and stream of consciousness of those memories. There’s an unformatted dump of this at the end of the article. I asked AI to put a bit of structure to it, suggest some writing prompts, and I’m going to pick it up from there. I’ll include the output below with my notes.

Memory and storytelling are messy. When writing a memoir, raw notes often start as a stream of consciousness—fragments of memories, emotions, and disconnected events. The challenge is turning them into structured, compelling scenes. Below is an example of how scattered thoughts can be organised into something more cohesive.

Structured Scenes from Raw Memories

1. The Household and Early Struggles

My sister was spiteful and always tried to make me fail. She would lie about me, undermine me, and tell me I couldn’t do things. At school, I was assumed to be stupid, but at home, I devoured adult books and later taught myself computing.

2. School as a Trap

School was a place of boredom and silent frustration. They deliberately demotivated me, assigning me reading materials far below my ability while I read adult horror novels at home. They sold private lessons to my family, but these were a scam—I was left alone in a room with nothing to do.

3. A Fascination with the Occult

Gothic and supernatural themes captivated me early. By ten, I was reading about the occult and doing card readings. I had a ghostly visitor—an old woman who sat on the stairs and spoke to me. I played with a cassette recorder and, years later, realised I had captured spirit voices.

4. The Town Occult Shop

One day, I stepped into the town’s occult bookshop. I didn’t realise it then, but this moment would define my life. The books inside felt like home. I bought a crystal ball and found I could use it immediately.

5. Safety and Isolation

After my parents’ divorce, I was sent to live with my aunt in her shop. It was a different world—wealthy, orderly, and filled with books and pets. She was strict and controlling, though, throwing away my things without asking, making me feel invisible. Still, it was a sanctuary compared to my mother’s house.

6. The Violence and Turning Point

At nine, my mother beat me unconscious. My uncle, who had been ill with cancer, died moaning in the living room. When my mother lost her driving licence for drunk driving, she moved into the pub she ran, leaving me alone in the suburbs at twelve. I stopped going to school, became agoraphobic, and immersed myself in the occult.

7. A Father’s Last Attempt

One night, while I waited outside a pub where my mother drank, my father approached me. He wasn’t allowed to speak to me, but he told me he loved me. My mother saw from inside and ran out, attacking him. The look in his eyes was pure horror as he fled. I didn’t see him for thirty years.

Writing Prompts for Expanding These Scenes

  • Memory vs. Reality: How did you experience the events as a child versus how you understand them now?
  • Atmosphere: Describe the occult shop. What did it smell like? What books were on the shelves?
  • The Turning Point: What was the moment you knew things had changed? When did childhood end?
  • Isolation: What did it feel like to be alone at twelve? What was your daily routine?
  • The Last Look: Describe your father’s expression as he fled. What emotions surfaced later?

Original Raw Notes

My sister was a hateful girl. She was always trying to make me fail and tell me I couldn't do things, lying about me and being spiteful. 
I was continually bored at school, and assumed to be or given the message I was stupid, but at home I could (and did) read adult books, and when I got a bit older, taught myself computing. 
I was drawn to the occult, and horror and gothic themes early on and it's been a defining theme in my life. There was a magazine about the occult I liked when I was about 10 and I used to do card readings. 
I was always imaginative and creating imaginary scenarios and little characters I would pretend were around me. 
I could see a ghost when I was a kid, a woman who used to sit on the stairs near my bedroom and talk to me. I used to play and make tape recordings and when I got older I realised there were spirit voices on the cassettes, talking to me. 
I think the first part of my life is up until I left the lower school and around then I walked into the town occult shop, and all the books inside became the interest of my life. 
It was mostly unhappy memories because I hated school so much and the country was so harsh and my mother so violent, but I did end up going to live with my aunt in a shop, where I was safer and happy. 
She had a boat and we had idyllic holidays where I spent all day reading and fishing. 
She bought a dog but was a very domineering woman so it was my dog for about a week, then she completely took over its care. 
I was alone a lot of the time. 
School was very bad. Looking back I feel it was deliberate. They deliberately demotivated me. 
My mother and father split up. My mother tried to turn me against him. 
She was a drunk and would pick me up hours late from school. I sat outside a pub in an empty car park until midnight, when she would drink-drive me home. 
She was stopped and breathalysed (and her partner) and so they lost the licence and moved into the pub and stopped coming to the house, which is why I ended up living alone. 
One day I did see my father, who wasn't allowed to speak to me. He came up to me in the car park to speak to me and tell me he loved me. My mother saw from inside and ran out and attacked him violently. 
The look in his eyes was horrified, pure, pure horror and he ran away and I didn't see him for over thirty years.

 

Writing & Selling Your Memoir- a Review

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(by Paula Balzer, available from Writer’s Digest Books).

Available on Amazon (non-affiliate link)

I. Overview

The book provide a practical guide to writing and selling a memoir, emphasizing the importance of planning, research, and self-awareness. The author offers advice on identifying a compelling “hook,” developing a unique voice, structuring the narrative, setting realistic goals, overcoming writer’s block, and ultimately, navigating the publishing process. The document uses examples of successful memoirs to illustrate key concepts and provides exercises to help aspiring writers develop their craft.

II. Key Themes and Ideas:

  • A. The Allure and Challenge of Memoir Writing:Memoir writing stems from a fascination with other people’s stories. Memoir lovers are a nosy lot, and wonderful tales are often spun from the smallest of details
  • It’s a challenging but rewarding process that can preserve personal stories for future generations: “Whatever your story, the good news is that, while memoir writing can be incredibly challenging and daunting, it is possible to make the process a little easier with some proper planning and hard work…you’ll come out with a piece of writing you’ll be proud of, and that will preserve the story you want to tell for generations to come.”
  • B. Preparation is Crucial:Before diving into writing, it’s essential to understand the memoir genre, read widely, and identify what makes your story unique: “As a member of the publishing industry, I’m constantly astonished when my colleagues tell me they just “don’t have time to read.”… it’s best you know who and what you’re up against.”
  • Authors need to know what is considered the best of the best and be familiar enough with the genre.
  • C. Defining the Scope of a Memoir:A memoir should focus on a specific period or experience, rather than trying to encompass an entire life story: “To date, memoir has come to mean an autobiographical work that is generally more specific in nature or that encapsulates a specific period of time or an experience. In other words, your memoir does not need to cover every detail of your entire life.”
  • The author advises against starting with “It was raining the day I was born,” emphasizing the need for a focused narrative.
  • D. Finding Your “Hook”:The “hook” is the unique element that makes your story marketable and memorable: “A hook is that certain something that makes your book marketable. It’s an element that is utterly unique to your story. It is memorable, compelling, sometimes controversial, and appealing to the media.”
  • Examples include a mentally ill psychiatrist (Kay Redfield Jamison) or unusual settings and survival stories.
  • E. Developing a Unique Voice:“Voice” is what gives personality and originality to a work. A good voice should be readable, relatable, and engaging.
  • It involves finding your authentic writing style, rather than trying to emulate other writers: “We can’t all be the next Diablo Cody or Augusten Burroughs, but ultimately, the world would be a pretty dull place if we all wrote just like they did… Developing an authentic voice is going to help you create a readable memoir, while a poor copy of something that already exists is going to land your manuscript in the trash.”
  • Quirky details can add color and life to your story.
  • F. Structuring the Narrative:Structure provides the framework for your story and helps maintain cohesion.
  • Narrative thread is basically a fancy term for whatever it is you use to hold all of the pieces of your story together. It’s the element that can be found uniting each chapter to the next, adding cohesion and consistency to even the wackiest of stories.”
  • G. Setting Goals and Deadlines:Realistic goals and deadlines are essential for staying on track and improving your craft: “Writing a memoir is difficult business, so why not take some satisfaction with every step you take? Setting goals that are realistic but still force you to stretch your skills as a writer will keep you on track and will put you in a position of having to improve your craft as well, and you’ll be a better writer in the end as a result.”
  • The author provides exercises for managing time and overcoming distractions.
  • H. Overcoming Writer’s Block:Being “stuck” is a normal part of the process. The key is to find productive ways to deal with it.
  • Taking breaks, researching, reading, and social networking can help overcome writer’s block: “I firmly believe that part of being a good writer is knowing when to stop yourself from working and take a proper break.”
  • I. Building a Platform:Writers need to identify their area of expertise and build an audience through various channels, including social media.
  • Social Media: Writers need to provide interesting, relevant and timely information to your core group of followers.
  • J. Navigating the Publishing Process:Submitting a well-written query letter and quality pages is crucial for landing a literary agent.
  • It’s essential to act professionally and be respectful of an agent’s time: “The majority of the packages or letters that agents receive are poorly written, the pages are not ready to be seen by anyone other than the writer’s best friend or immediate family, the writer is not behaving like someone we would want to do business with, and more often than not, the project in question is not even a good match for us.”
  • K. Understanding the Role of a Literary Agent and Publisher:An agent is not a personal assistant or banker but a business partner who helps polish your work and sell it to a publisher.
  • Publishers are on your side and want your book to succeed.

III. Practical Advice and Exercises:

  • Exercises for identifying voice: The author suggests identifying the formats in which you are most comfortable using “your voice” and paying attention to what flows.
  • Exercises for setting story parameters: Determine what you want to include in your story.
  • Exercises for working with dialogue: Incorporate dialogue into your narrative, be playful and read dialogue out loud.
  • Exercises for theme: Spend time thinking about what makes a particular section special.

IV. Examples of Successful Memoirs:

The text references several successful memoirs to illustrate key concepts, including:

  • Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
  • The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
  • An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
  • Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
  • Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
  • Candy Girl by Diablo Cody
  • I was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

 

Core Concepts of Memoir Writing

 

Memoir vs. Autobiography: A memoir focuses on a specific theme, experience, or period in your life, while an autobiography covers your entire life story. The distinction is important because memoirs allow you to craft a focused, engaging narrative rather than a broad life summary.

The Hook: This is what makes your memoir unique. A compelling hook grabs attention, makes your story stand out, and increases its marketability.

Voice: Your writing style, personality, and perspective all contribute to your voice. A strong, authentic voice makes your memoir engaging and memorable.

Parameters: Setting clear boundaries for your story helps you stay focused and prevents the narrative from becoming overwhelming or scattered.

Narrative Thread: This is what ties your memoir together. It could be a theme, a key relationship, a time period, or a journey that keeps your story cohesive.

Show, Don’t Tell: Engage readers with vivid descriptions, dialogue, and sensory details instead of just explaining events.

Universal Themes: Connecting your personal story to broader human experiences makes it relatable and meaningful to a wider audience.

Relatability: Readers connect with emotions and shared experiences. Making your story accessible helps draw them in.

Platform: Building an audience through social media, blogging, or speaking engagements increases your memoir’s reach and appeal.

Revision: Memoir writing is an ongoing process of rewriting, refining, and receiving feedback to improve your manuscript.

Key Aspects of Writing a Memoir

1. Finding Your Hook

What makes your story different? A good hook isn’t just about having an interesting life—it’s about presenting your experiences in a way that captivates the reader.

2. Developing Your Voice

Readers connect with authenticity. Your voice should be natural and consistent, reflecting your personality and perspective.

3. Structuring Your Narrative

A strong memoir has a clear beginning, middle, and end. The narrative thread should guide the reader seamlessly through your experiences.

4. Balancing Honesty and Storytelling

Memoirs should be truthful, but they also need to be engaging. Finding the balance between factual accuracy and storytelling is crucial.

5. Writing with Purpose

Every scene should serve the larger story. Avoid unnecessary tangents and focus on moments that contribute to the overall message.

Common Challenges in Memoir Writing

  • Distractions: Balancing writing with daily responsibilities can be tough. Setting clear goals and boundaries helps keep you on track.
  • Emotional Barriers: Writing about personal experiences can be emotionally draining. Take breaks and give yourself space when needed.
  • Editing and Revision: The first draft is just the beginning. Be prepared for multiple revisions to refine your story.

Preparing for Publication

Before submitting your manuscript, ensure it’s polished. Seek feedback, edit thoroughly, and format it professionally. A well-crafted query letter increases your chances of attracting a literary agent.

The book Writing & Selling Your Memoir by Paula Balzer includes numerous exercises to assist in the memoir writing process. These exercises cover various aspects of memoir writing, from identifying your hook to refining your voice and improving pacing. Here are a few, and I recommend purchasing the book to get the full benefit of the author’s vast experience.

  1. Write Your Own Flap Copy: Effective flap copy is crucial for a book’s success. Flap copy and catalog copy serve as vital marketing tools, providing memorable book descriptions that are both clear and concise. Carefully read the flap copy of three of your favorite memoirs and then write the flap copy for your own memoir to distill the essence of your story. Consider the story’s tone and overall direction, and how the “hook” captures the story’s essence.
  2. What Keeps You Up at Night?: Identifying your hook requires time, persistence, and listening to your inner voice. By noting any ideas, no matter how crazy or obscure, that cross your mind, you may find a theme to explore. Keep a notebook and jot down any thoughts that distract you, as these could steer you in the right direction. Break down your subject to find interesting subtopics and uncover the perfect hook.
  3. Examine Key Memory Pieces: Ask the following questions of your key memory pieces:
    • Does one of the pieces inspire you to shift your focus?
    • Does one of your key memory pieces feature a person who plays a key role in the story?
    • Is there an unexpected emotional element that keeps making an appearance?
    • Is one of the key memories a special setting or place that can provide a backdrop for a memoir?
    • Have you personally experienced something unusual or unique that you can relay to others?
    • Is one of the key memories adding an element to a common theme that no one has used before?
  4. What Does Your Writing Style Say About You?: Analyze your writing style by examining manuscript pages, journals, or past writing exercises. Determine if you prefer wrapping up each chapter tightly with individual stories that fit into a larger work, or if you engage readers with hints and suspense. Consider your preference for writing longer pieces and how you envision them coming together.
  5. Examine Your Ultimate Memoir List: Create a list of all the elements of your ideal memoir, including adjectives, names of other memoirs, names of friends, and events. Listing these elements will help you see whether or not you’re headed in the right direction with structure. This list can help you gain clarity about what kind of style you’re more comfortable with, encouraging you to explore how to work your material into passages that are lighter, shorter, and more fun to write and read.
  6. The Three Things You Don’t Want to Do Under Any Circumstances: Create a quick, gut-reaction list of tasks you dread doing, even within activities you typically enjoy. This exercise can reinforce your structure and show you what kind of memoir you’d like to write.
  7. List Five New Things You Bring to the Table: Identify five unique aspects that differentiate your memoir. This exercise involves checking your ego and being imaginative. It can highlight your memoir’s finest features and help you recognize a truly unique aspect of your work.
  8. What Does Your Blueprint Look Like?: Review your notes from the previous steps to see the picture that’s developing. By looking at your strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and comfort zones, you should be able to see what kind of blueprint makes sense for your personal story. This will allow you to incorporate your parameters and hook to complete your blueprint.
  9. Where Are You Most Comfortable Using “Your Voice?”: Identify the mode in which you are most comfortable writing. Pay attention every time you write for a couple of weeks, including letters, emails, postcards, and social media posts. Notice what feels right and what flows, and whether you find yourself writing especially interesting and colorful accounts to certain people. Determine if a voice emerges in one particular format and consider how to translate this voice into your memoir.
  10. Commit the Crowd Pleaser to Paper: Write down a story you tell that always gets a laugh or has people on the edge of their seats. As you commit your story to paper, think about what it is about your story that gets the positive reaction from people, including your delivery and how you tell the story. Consider how to translate this to the page and whether there are aspects of this storytelling that can translate to your writing voice.
  11. Go Back in Time: Select a passage that’s been giving you difficulty and try to put yourself back into that place. Remember who you were then, what things were like, what you were feeling, and what kind of person you were. Try rewriting the passage from the perspective of the person you were then to loosen up and become more comfortable using your voice.
  12. Free Writing: Engage in free writing to overcome the “evil inner critic” and get your words flowing.
    • Step # 1: Write for fifteen minutes each day for a week about various topics such as your favorite room, best childhood friend, greatest fear, or biggest regret.
    • Step # 2: Apply this to your memoir by choosing a section and committing to writing without criticism or self-editing. Set a reasonable page goal within a specific timeframe and work until the words flow freely without inner critic interference.
  13. Rewrite the Conversation: Remember a conversation in which you wish you had said something that you didn’t say. Remember how you felt during that conversation, picture where you were, what the other person looked like, and what they were doing. Rewrite the conversation had you said what it is you would have liked to say and see what that conversation looks like now.
  14. Take It Person By Person: Examine the dialogue you’ve written for each character in your memoir. Determine if it is consistent and if each person sounds unique, reflecting a particular pattern, rhythm, and style. Also look for clichés, excessive he said/she saids, or extra exclamation points.
  15. Revisit the Places You’ve Been and Edit, Edit, Edit: Mark every place where you have a description of a place, including rooms, houses, vacation spots, and cafes. Be brutally honest with yourself about how much description is truly needed and start to decide which descriptions can be edited down and if there are some sections that can be cut completely. Repeat this process with descriptions of events and emotional responses.
  16. Take a Look at What’s Missing: If you’re flying through your memory pieces but running out of material, you’re moving too quickly and need to slow down. Read your manuscript and make a list of every single item you bring up that warrants description. On a separate piece of paper, write out three distinct things about the passage you are describing—things only you would know. Go back through the descriptions in your memoir and see how many of them would benefit from having the items you listed added to their sections in the memoir.
  17. The So-Called I Don’t Have Enough Time Dilemma: Spend a week keeping track of everything you do to search for blocks of time that can be used in a more productive fashion. Review the list you made on the worksheet and identify areas where you feel like you could improve.

In addition to these exercises, Writing & Selling Your Memoir emphasizes the importance of reading and analyzing other memoirs to understand different writing styles, structures, and voices. By immersing yourself in the genre and actively engaging with these exercises, you can refine your memoir writing skills and create a compelling and marketable story.

10-Day Memoir Writing Course

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Welcome to this intensive 10-day memoir writing course. Each day, you’ll complete structured exercises designed to uncover memories, emotions, and themes from your life. By the end, you’ll have a collection of raw material ready for expansion into a memoir.

Day 1: Perspective and Memory

Exercise 1: Just the Facts
Write a short description of your life as it is now, sticking to factual statements. Then rewrite it with a pessimistic tone, and finally, with an optimistic tone. This will help you see how perspective shapes narrative.

Exercise 2: Enter a Room
Pick a memorable room from your past. Describe every detail, using all five senses. What does the room reveal about you or the people in it?

Day 2: Objects and Language

Exercise 3: Rosebud
Choose a childhood object that holds strong emotional significance. Describe its physical details and explore the memories, people, and emotions connected to it.

Exercise 4: Say What?
List words, phrases, or expressions unique to your family or community. How many do you still use? How do they shape your voice?

Day 3: Place and Belonging

Exercise 5: Tour of the Town
Give a virtual tour of your childhood hometown, starting from your front door. Include weather, sounds, and significant landmarks.

Exercise 6: Going Home
What does “home” mean to you? Describe the place and the feelings it evokes, both good and bad.

Day 4: Self-Perception

Exercise 7: Jolly Johnny
Write down the words people used to describe you as a child. How did those labels shape you?

Exercise 8: Blind Men and an Elephant
Describe yourself from different perspectives: a supermarket cashier, a boss, a child. How do they see you?

Day 5: Secrets and Lies

Exercise 9: Worth Telling?
Write about an event from your life that seems insignificant. Then, explore whether it hints at a larger truth that could be compelling to readers.

Exercise 10: Liar, Liar
Make a list of lies you’ve told, from harmless to serious. What patterns emerge?

Exercise 11: Tell Me a Secret
Write a list of secrets you’ve kept, betrayed, or wish to reveal. What do they say about your life?

Day 6: Patterns and Sensory Memory

Exercise 12: Over and Over Again
Think of an event that happened repeatedly in your life. Write everything you remember and everything you don’t.

Exercise 13: Your Family as Characters
Choose a family member and describe them as if writing a novel. Include their backstory, motivations, and struggles.

Exercise 14: Happy Things
List small, unexpected things that make you happy. Be specific.

Day 7: Food, Rituals, and Celebrations

Exercise 15: Candy
Write about a candy-related memory. Where were you? What did it taste like?

Exercise 16: Fireworks on Hot Summer Nights
Describe a summer carnival or celebration. Identify its deeper themes (loss, fear, joy) and revise accordingly.

Day 8: Conflict and Emotion

Exercise 17: A Said, B Said
Write about a past conflict from one person’s perspective, then rewrite it from another’s. Make both viewpoints compelling.

Exercise 18: Pivotal Events
List key events from a specific year. Organize them chronologically, circle the most important, and highlight the ones that evoke the strongest emotions.

Day 9: Memory and Perspective

Exercise 19: Self, Meet Self
Take an upsetting event from your past and write a conversation between your younger self and an imaginary therapist (also you).

Exercise 20: Shame on Me
List things you are ashamed of that also define you—a lie, a broken promise, an avoided truth.

Day 10: Reflection and Closure

Exercise 21: The Body Knows
Describe a memory through physical sensation—heat, cold, pressure, movement—without stating the emotion.

Exercise 22: While It’s Hot (and Cold)
Write about an incident that just happened, then write about one from six months ago. Compare the differences in tone and clarity.

Exercise 23: Don’t Judge
Describe the worst thing you’ve ever done in a neutral, factual way, without justifying or condemning yourself.

What’s Next?

By completing these exercises, you now have a solid foundation of raw material for your memoir. Read through your work and highlight themes, key moments, and potential narrative arcs. Start piecing them together into longer stories or reflections.

Memoir writing is about making meaning from memory. Keep writing, keep questioning, and keep refining your voice.

 

Writing the Radical Memoir – A Review

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by Paul Williams and Shelley Davidow - available from Bloomsbury Academic

Available on Amazon

The book "Writing the Radical Memoir" explores the concept of memoir writing beyond a simple recounting of events. It emphasizes:

 

  • Uniqueness and Experimentation: Every memoir is unique because every life and perspective is unique. The book encourages experimentation with form, style, and genre.
  • "There are as many ways to do something new as there are humans who do them...encourage you to throw caution to the wind, be wild and unfettered in your affair with words and the way you turn your life into art."
  • Subjectivity and Truth: Memoir is not about objective truth but about the felt truth of an experience. It's about your perspective and interpretation.
  • "It is in the perception of events, and not in the events themselves, that the truth of the experience emerges."
  • The Reader/Writer Contract: This central concept highlights the implicit agreement between memoirist and reader: The author strives for honesty and authenticity, even while acknowledging the limitations of memory and perspective.
  • "Personal memory is a limitless resource for story material... staying true to this contract with your reader: this is what it felt like to be that person living through that experience – this is what happened for me."
  • Memory as Reconstruction: Memories are not static recordings but are constantly being reshaped and reinterpreted by the present.
  • "As discussed, memory retrieval is not simply getting fixed data that is stored somewhere, like a file we can access and read... memories are not static. They are changed and re-written depending on where we stand in the present."
  • Radical Honesty & Self-Examination: The book encourages unflinching honesty, even when it's uncomfortable, and pushes writers to examine their biases, prejudices, and the societal influences that have shaped their perceptions. This includes acknowledging privilege and the potential for harm in representing others.
  • "A radical memoir asks us to step back and look at ourselves not in isolation but how we are in relation to our society."
  • Ethical Considerations: Writing about others requires careful consideration. The book raises questions about the memoirist's right to tell other people's stories, the potential for misrepresentation, and the impact on those involved.
  • "In my darkest moments I feel as a memoir writer like a literary cannibal – am I at some level consuming the people in my life and history, leaving behind in the public sphere, avatars of the people in my life that I have constructed?"
  • Genre-Bending and Deconstruction: "Writing the Radical Memoir" advocates for breaking free from traditional memoir conventions. This can involve experimenting with form, incorporating other genres (poetry, fairy tales, etc.), and deconstructing the very notion of a stable "self."
  • "Since writing a memoir is a [re]construction of identity that offers the opportunity to push back against traditional structures and draw on other genres, could a life-story be made up of a pastiche of other narratives?"
  • Writing as Therapy: The act of writing and retelling stories can be transformative, providing new ways to understand the world and frame impactful events.
  • "In telling our stories, we reframe our narratives. As writing teachers and authors we know the therapeutic power of telling and retelling stories. It has been our experience that focusing on particular themes and going to their depths has helped us see our lives in completely new ways."

II. Key Ideas and Exercises

The book offers practical exercises and concepts to facilitate radical memoir writing:

  • Freewriting: Use prompts to bypass the inner critic and tap into raw thoughts and feelings. Example: "I want to write a memoir, because..."
  • Photographic Realism: Analyze a significant photograph to unlock memories and explore their emotional resonance.
  • Example: The author analyzes a photo from Rhodesia, revealing details about his youth, repressed desires, and the social context.
  • Happiness Index Graph: Chart your emotional life on a graph to identify pivotal events and patterns.
  • Freytag's Pyramid: Understand narrative structure and plot the course of your life story using this model.
  • Ultimate Quest: Frame your life as a hero's journey, identifying your quest, powers, mentors, adversaries, and "grail."
  • Disclaimer Exercise: Write a disclaimer to liberate yourself from constraints and expectations.
  • Creating Characters: Develop real people into compelling characters through dialogue and descriptive details.
  • "Write a scene from your life (300 words) and at the centre of this, create a piece of dialogue between you and one of your ‘characters’ or between people you know."
  • Bursting the Bubble: Contrast a domestic event with the broader political context of the time.
  • Your Life as a Haiku: Condense your experiences into this poetic form.
  • Playing with Form and Genre: Experiment with non-traditional structures, such as writing in columns or incorporating elements of horror, romance, or fairy tales.
  • Autobiographics: Write about yourself from another point of view (a lover, friend, enemy) to challenge fixed notions of "self."
  • Other Voices Exercise: Define a particular event in your life using multiple voices (mother, eulogy, newspaper clipping, diary entry, etc.).

III. Theoretical Framework

The book draws on various theoretical frameworks to inform its approach to memoir:

  • Narrative Psychiatry (Lewis Mehl-Madrona): Internal narratives shape our lives and can be shifted over time.
  • Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Understand the driving forces behind your story by considering your characters' (and your own) needs.
  • Derrida's Deconstruction: Examine the constructed nature of reality and the "self" to uncover hidden structures and challenge assumptions. ("There is nothing outside the text.")
  • Lacan's Méconnaissance: Recognize that the "self" is a misrecognition, a constructed illusion.
  • Lyotard's Grand and Petit Récits: Be wary of grand, all-encompassing narratives and embrace the value of smaller, more personal stories.
  • Gilmore’s Autobiographics: Understand “I” or the “self” is not an unproblematic unified, timeless “me” but needs to reflect ‘the shifting sides of identity’.

IV. Examples from the Authors' Own Work

The authors, Paul Williams and Shelley Davidow, provide examples from their own memoirs to illustrate the concepts discussed. These include:

  • Paul Williams' Soldier Blue: Deconstruction of his experiences in the Rhodesian army.
  • Shelley Davidow's Eye of the Moon and Whisperings in the Blood: Exploration of identity, memory, and the complexities of growing up in South Africa during Apartheid.
  • Shelley Davidow and Shaimaa Khalil's Runaways: a collective memoir and exercise of two voices.

V. Overall Message

"Writing the Radical Memoir" encourages writers to be bold, honest, and experimental in their approach to memoir writing. It emphasizes that memoir is not just about recounting the past but about understanding and re-creating the self through the act of writing. The book promotes a critical and ethical approach, urging writers to consider the impact of their work on themselves and others. The overall aim is to discover who you are and put the story into a narrative form.

Memoir is not just about recounting the past—it’s about shaping a narrative that reveals something deeper, both to the writer and the reader. It’s a creative act that demands honesty, structure, and sometimes a willingness to challenge traditional storytelling. Writing a memoir, particularly a radical one, means stepping beyond conventional boundaries to interrogate memory, identity, and the forces that shape our lives.

Two Paths to the Final Work

Writers typically take one of two approaches when developing a memoir: learning from authority or drawing from personal experience. The best writing often blends both. You study craft, read great memoirs, and absorb narrative techniques. At the same time, you experiment, freewrite, and discover your own voice through lived experience. The balance between structure and intuition is what brings a memoir to life.

Memoir as Photographic Realism

A memoir functions like a photograph, capturing a particular moment or emotional truth rather than an exhaustive account of everything that happened. Just as a photographer selects framing, light, and focus, a memoirist chooses what to highlight and what to leave in the shadows. It’s about revealing the essence of a moment rather than documenting it with rigid accuracy.

Mapping Your Life with a Happiness Index

A useful way to start structuring a memoir is to chart the emotional highs and lows of your life. A "happiness index" helps identify pivotal moments—periods of joy, despair, transformation. Mapping these points allows patterns to emerge, guiding you toward the deeper themes that shape your story. This method helps uncover connections between events that might otherwise seem unrelated.

Narrative Structure: Freytag’s Pyramid

Memoir, like fiction, benefits from a strong narrative arc. Freytag’s Pyramid is a classic story structure that outlines key plot points:

  • Introduction: Establishes the setting and characters.
  • Inciting Incident: The moment that sets the memoir’s main events in motion.
  • Rising Action: A series of events that build tension.
  • Climax: The emotional or thematic peak of the story.
  • Falling Action & Denouement: The resolution and reflection on the journey.

A compelling memoir doesn’t just list events; it builds momentum, leading the reader through a transformative experience.

The Power of Internal Narratives

Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, a psychiatrist and narrative medicine expert, suggests that our internal stories shape how we experience life. These narratives, often deeply ingrained, become neurological patterns that influence our thoughts and behaviors. Memoir offers an opportunity to examine and even rewrite these personal myths, shifting our understanding of ourselves.

Memoir as a Decolonial Act

Writing a memoir isn’t just a personal exercise—it can be an act of resistance. A decolonial memoir challenges dominant narratives, placing personal experience within broader social and historical contexts. Instead of presenting the self as an isolated individual, this approach examines how identity is shaped by external forces such as culture, politics, and inherited histories.

Using Haiku in Memoir

A Haiku—a short poem with a 5-7-5 syllable structure—can be a powerful tool in memoir writing. It forces the writer to distill a moment into its purest essence. Haiku can punctuate a memoir, offering brief, lyrical reflections that contrast with longer narrative passages.

The Impact of Parataxis

Parataxis—the placement of words or phrases side by side without conjunctions—creates a fragmented, collage-like effect in writing. This technique allows a memoirist to present a series of images or moments without explicitly linking them, letting the reader draw connections. It mimics the way memory often works—flashes of experience rather than a continuous flow.

Derrida’s Challenge: "There Is Nothing Outside the Text"

Jacques Derrida’s idea that "there is nothing outside the text" suggests that language doesn’t just describe reality—it constructs it. This challenges the traditional notion that memoir is a direct reflection of truth. Instead, memoir is an act of creating the self through storytelling. Every choice—the words, the structure, the omissions—shapes the identity being presented.

Autobiographics: Memoir Beyond the Singular Self

Feminist scholar Leigh Gilmore coined the term autobiographics to critique the idea of a singular, unified self in autobiography. She argues that identity is fluid, full of contradictions and interruptions. A radical memoir embraces this complexity, resisting the urge to present a polished, coherent version of the past. Instead, it welcomes shifting perspectives, gaps in memory, and moments of resistance.

Ethical Considerations in Memoir

Writing about real people comes with ethical responsibilities. Memory is subjective, and perspectives differ. How do you tell your truth without distorting someone else’s? How do you navigate the tension between honesty and compassion? Memoirists must consider the impact of their words, balancing personal expression with ethical awareness.

Radical Memoir: Breaking the Mold

Traditional memoirs often follow familiar structures, focusing on personal transformation within a linear narrative. A radical memoir, by contrast, pushes boundaries. It experiments with form, incorporates multiple voices, blends genres, and questions the idea of objective truth. This approach can be challenging, but it allows for a richer, more nuanced exploration of personal and social identity.

Memory and Its Distortions

Memory is unreliable. It shifts over time, influenced by new experiences, emotions, and even the act of remembering itself. A memoirist must acknowledge this fluidity. Rather than striving for absolute accuracy, a compelling memoir embraces the gaps, contradictions, and subjectivity inherent in recalling the past.

Narrative Techniques in Memoir

Different techniques can add depth to a memoir:

  • Parataxis: Creates a fast-paced, image-driven narrative.
  • Multiple Perspectives: Offers different angles on the same event.
  • Genre-Bending: Blends memoir with essay, poetry, or theory to expand its scope.

These techniques break from traditional storytelling, making room for a more layered and emotionally resonant narrative.

The Therapeutic Power of Memoir

Writing a memoir isn’t just about telling a story—it can be a transformative process. It allows writers to reframe their past, make sense of trauma, and gain new insights. By reshaping personal narratives, memoirists can shift their internal stories, sometimes even altering their relationship to past experiences.

Final Thoughts

Memoir is more than a recounting of events—it’s a construction of self, a challenge to established narratives, and a space for deep reflection. A radical memoir takes this even further, questioning conventions, exploring new forms, and positioning personal stories within larger cultural and political frameworks. Whether traditional or experimental, memoir is a way of making meaning from experience—and in doing so, shaping the way we see ourselves and the world.

Practical Exercises

  • Freewrite: 'I want to write memoir, because …' Set a timer for two minutes and write continuously without stopping, paying no attention to grammar, spelling, or punctuation. The goal is to explore your motivations for writing a memoir.
  • Photographic realism: Find a photograph of yourself that holds significance. Describe the photo in detail, including the setting, people, and your feelings at the time. Then consider the following questions:
    • What did you learn about yourself by doing this exercise? Sum up who you are and who you were. Have you changed? How? Why? What point could you make about yourself here? What did you focus on? Is there a theme? Write a paragraph analyzing this.
    • Destabilizing memory: do you think there are any inaccuracies in how you have described yourself/this event/these people? Any biases you have or had? Write a short paragraph discussing this. This exercise encourages you to analyze a moment in your life and consider potential biases in your memory.
  • The Truth Is…: Search for your digital self online and write a 150-word paragraph about yourself based on that information. Then, write another paragraph starting with "the truth is…" providing details that may contradict what you found online. This exercise highlights the difference between online representation and personal truth.
  • Speed Dating: Create two dating profiles of yourself, each 250 words long. In the first, present yourself in the most attractive light, and in the second, be searingly honest about your faults. Include a photo for each profile. Reflect on the effect of these two versions side-by-side and consider if this could be a useful literary device in your memoir. This exercise encourages you to explore different facets of your identity.
  • Happiness Index Graph: Create a graph of your emotional life with "time" (from age three to now) on the x-axis and "happiness" on the y-axis. Plot pivotal events on the timeline, use these events as headings, and write rough notes about each one. Then reflect on any revelations or insights into the pattern of your life and consider if there is a story there. This exercise helps you visually map the emotional trajectory of your life.
  • Every Character Wants Something: Write a 200-word paragraph about an intrinsic need, describing an event or incident that reflects you trying to find someone, to be loved, heard, fed, seen, to succeed, or be yourself. This exercise encourages you to explore your core desires and motivations.
  • Core Wounds: Write a short scene where you reveal a 'core wound' through dialogue, action, or thought, without explicitly stating the emotion. Consider themes like abandonment, unrequited love, regret, or guilt, and use sensory detail to illuminate the sentiment. This exercise focuses on showing, not telling, to reveal deep emotional scars.
  • Your Ultimate Quest: Answer the following questions to identify the themes in your life:
    • What journey/quest are you on?
    • What powers do you have?
    • What mentor will help you?
    • What adversity are you struggling against?
    • What/who is your nemesis?
    • What threshold experiences do you face?
    • Who/what is your ‘grail’? This exercise uses the framework of a hero's journey to help you reflect on your life's purpose and challenges.
  • Disclaimer: Write a fifty-word disclaimer for the memoir you are writing or will write. Be humorous, ironic, or serious, and write something that sets you free to do what you will be doing. Remember that you can change this several times once your memoir is complete. This exercise encourages you to define your approach to truth-telling in your memoir.
  • First Memory: Using as much sensory imagery as possible, write out your first memory in a paragraph of 300 words. Recall what it was like to be that age: what did you hear, smell, taste, feel, think, and see? Then, consider why this memory is significant and its relation to the rest of your life or memoir. This exercise aims to uncover the roots of your identity through early sensory experiences.
  • Cued Recall: Write for six minutes about Tuesday, October 29, 2005, at 3 p.m.. To start, consider what you were doing that year, where you lived, what work you were doing, who was in your life, what you usually did on Tuesday afternoons, and what the weather was like.
  • Free Recall: Write without stopping for five minutes about a song, a smell. This exercise is designed to practice and exercise memory recall.
  • Multi-Sensory Scene Building Using Dreams: Write a descriptive paragraph (300–500 words) that brings a sensory experience from a dream to life. Focus on sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste, and recreate the details and the corresponding emotion. Show the impact of that experience/dream and how it inscribed itself into your memory. This exercise taps into the unconscious mind to enrich your memoir with surreal and emotional depth.
  • Creating Characters Out of People You Know: Write a 300-word scene from your life with dialogue between you and one of your 'characters' or between people you know. Describe the setting and the characters with brief 'brushstrokes'. Allow the dialogue to reveal who these people are, and ensure you place a statement or some words that you actually said/heard somewhere in the dialogue. Build the interaction around that. This exercise focuses on capturing the essence of real people through dialogue and brief descriptions.
  • Remember This: With a family member or friend, discuss incidents in the past that you both remember, involving the two of you. Select one incident, and each person should write a 300–500-word paragraph that captures what happened and describes each person from the other’s point of view. Share with each other and discuss the discrepancies. This exercise highlights the subjective nature of memory and perspective.
  • Life into Art: Create a scene (300 words) from the past involving friends or family members. Include dialogue, description, and/or mannerisms that particularly identify them. As a reflection, consider how those people might feel about the passage on them. Would they agree with your rendition of them/the situation, and why/why not?
  • The Political Is The Personal: What political, social, economic, religious, gender-related or racial forces or expectations shaped your identity, and how did you respond to these forces? Were you aware of them, or did you awaken to them later? Did you accept them or resist them? Write a short scene (300 words) where you show the subtle forces of others’ expectations on your life using the above as an example.
  • Your Life as a Fairy Tale: Write the beginning of your life as though you were writing a fairy tale, starting with "Once upon a time there was a little boy/girl/princess/troll called …". This should be a five-minute exercise.
  • Magic Realism: Write a 300-word paragraph/segment of your life as a magical realist piece. Describe magical things as if they are everyday occurrences. Add magical elements into your life-story without making excuses for them or relegating them to the realm of dream/fantasy/vision and see what happens.
  • Text Messages: Write a section of your life as a series of text messages that reveal what’s going on and some tension between the ‘characters’. Use a real conversation or parts of a real conversation if it suits you.
  • Parataxis and Stream-of-Consciousness: Write a 300-word paragraph about your life using parataxis to create a stream-of-consciousness effect. Place the same emotional weight on each element, or build a collection of different items, ideas, or experiences that have the same ‘weight’.
  • Hypotaxis and Emotional Build-Up: Write a 300-word paragraph about your life using hypotaxis and create a build-up of emotions or different ideas that stack on each other incrementally.
  • Playing with Form and Genre: Write a page of your memoir by experimenting in form. Either write in several columns, each column representing different aspects of yourself, or different times, moods, and places in your life, or break the form even more, disrupting the linear flow of narrative across the page, using patterns and gaps to create the story.
  • Beginnings: Write a 300-word beginning of your memoir, starting at a tense or action-packed moment, in medias res, an exciting episode you take from later in the memoir – the most exciting or tense part of your story. Don't give us the whole scene, just a teaser, a taste, a foreshadowing of what is to come. Read this to someone and ask if they would read on.
  • Emotional Truth: Write a 300-word scene from your past that was intensely memorable and describe it as you feel it was, not necessarily as it happened. Create dialogue that may not be exact but that conveys the spirit of what was said.
  • Two Selves: Write a 300-word paragraph about an incident where you returned to a place from the past – your old country, house, or school. Describe the experience of the current reality, superimposing it on how you experienced it in the past and how it looked back then. Map the emotional distance between then and now.
  • Other Voices – Alone or With Others: Write three or more paragraphs that define a particular event in your life, such as an accident, a wedding, or a pivotal moment. Use a different voice for each of these paragraphs, such as your mother telling the story, a eulogy, a report, a newspaper clipping (real or created), or your own diary entry. If you have a partner to write with, a sibling, or a close friend, give them the task of writing one of those paragraphs to juxtapose with yours.
  • The Power of Two Voices: This exercise takes two partners. Step 1: write for seven minutes a scene from the past in which you both feature. Do not consult each other or plan what to write. Step 2: Share what you have written. Read the example from Runaways.
  • An Astonishing Fact – Autrebiography: Write a paragraph of 200 words about an incident that happened more than ten years ago, using ‘I’ (first person). Then rewrite the same passage in the third person. Note the difference and distance this creates, and decide which one you prefer and which one reflects the emotional truth of the incident better.
  • Unflinchingness: Write a 300-word paragraph about an incident in your teens. Somewhere in the piece, present a reflection, as per the examples above, on the distance between that past self and the present self who is now writing the paragraph. Be as ‘unflinching’ as you can, but be forgiving too!
  • Truth or Lie: Write three things about yourself, one of which is a lie (a fiction). Share with a partner or writing group and ask them to guess which is the truth (autobiography) and which is the lie (the fiction), making the lie about yourself as convincing as possible.
  • Autobiografiction: Write a 300-word paragraph about yourself that may or may not be true, or it may have some truth. It could be a story someone else has told about you, or one you invented, a lie you told once about yourself. You can also add a reflection on how this self and story has been constructed.
  • Petit Récit: Write a 300-word anecdote, fragment, or small incident from your life that stands alone. It may not fit in with any theme you have uncovered and may not even make sense to you, but it happened and it has some significance.
  • Biographemes: Write three 'biographemes', three short 100-word 'petits récits' that are unrelated memories. These could be anecdotes, fragments, or small incidents.
  • Transmedia: Add to your 'biographemes' and the first 'petit récit' you wrote some fragments of your past self, such as a photograph, an old letter, a text message, or a drawing you did as a child. Rearrange these fragments in random order to make a collage of your past self that others can read.
  • Méconnaissance: Imagine you are attending your own funeral. What would others say about you? Write a few short paragraphs, each one by an imagined friend, family member, or work colleague, and allow for contradiction in this pastiche.
  • Portfolio – Your Radical Memoir: Collect and collate all the exercises in this book, including the photographs, graphs, and experimental forms, and create a portfolio of these fragments. Arrange them in whatever order you want and format them. Give the memoir a title, and perhaps you now have a first draft.
  • Final Naked Freewrite: Using the title ‘The Root of Things’, write without stopping for five minutes about the root of things – whatever that means to you. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar, just go – experiment. Be poetic, be random, and have no boundaries in form or content. Be angry, be sad and be joyful. Write as if no one will read this. When you are done, read over what you've written.

By engaging with these exercises, you'll not only generate material for your radical memoir but also gain a deeper understanding of yourself and the art of crafting a compelling narrative.

Writing the Sacred Journey

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This article is based on the book Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir by Elizabeth J. Andrew, published by Skinner House Books, Boston.

Writing the Sacred Journey: Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir"

This review provides a summary of the key themes, ideas, and practical advice presented in the book "Writing the Sacred Journey: Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir." The book explores the process of writing a memoir that delves into one's spiritual experiences and growth. It emphasizes authenticity, self-discovery, and finding the sacred in the ordinary.

I. Core Themes:

  • Spiritual Memoir as a Journey of Self-Discovery: The book emphasizes that writing a spiritual memoir is not merely recounting past events, but a process of exploring one's inner landscape, beliefs, and relationship with the sacred.
  • "Perhaps we write towards what we will become from where we are.”
  • "Those who write spiritual memoir write to find out what we believe or, more fundamentally, what we know to be sacred and true."
  • Finding the Sacred in the Mundane: The book encourages writers to look for the spiritual in everyday experiences, memories, and even seemingly insignificant details. The act of writing itself can transform ordinary events into something meaningful.
  • "Maybe then the problem of identifying the spiritual is simply a subtle one requiring a sharp eye and a talent for reading the resonance of events."
  • "I also see that extravagant yawn as a window into another life, a bored adult’s life, and I have complete freedom to imagine the circumstances surrounding it. It’s a mundane, quirky anecdote. But if I treat it with reverence, I find holiness in the clarity and humor and in my youthful conviction that the image was worth retaining."
  • The Importance of Authenticity and Honesty: Writers are urged to be truthful in their portrayal of themselves and their experiences, even when it involves confronting difficult or uncomfortable truths. The book suggests ways to explore "lies" or embellishments in early drafts to uncover deeper emotional truths.
  • "When memoir writers are responsible to the story, they honor that which is vital and true—the spirit—within their experience."
  • "It is, however, a good policy to be honest about your dishonesty."
  • The Power of Story: The book underscores the significance of personal stories, even if they are not extraordinary. It emphasizes that everyone's experience is unique and valuable, and that sharing these stories can connect with others and reveal universal truths.
  • "Each of us is a concentrated universe; each of us mirrors eternity. Books and stories demonstrate this amazing phenomenon."
  • "The universe is made of stories, not atoms."
  • Revision as a Process of Deepening Understanding: Revision isn't simply about correcting grammar or polishing prose; it is about revisiting memories, exploring their layers of meaning, and gaining deeper insight into oneself and one's spiritual journey.
  • "If memories are sacred stories and our means for discerning holiness in the world, then revision is a form of meditation or prayer."

II. Key Ideas & Facts:

  • Writing for the Story Itself: The true motivation for writing should stem from a compulsion to tell the story, rather than external factors like seeking fame or pleasing an audience.
  • "But there is a third, more subtle answer—one that is at the source of your drive and conviction: “I write for the story itself.”"
  • Living the Questions: The book emphasizes the importance of exploring questions, rather than seeking easy answers. The process of questioning can be more valuable than finding definitive resolutions.
  • "What makes a good memoir is the search, not the resolution."
  • "Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
  • The Writer's Journal: Keeping a journal is recommended as a space for exploring ideas, memories, and emotions without judgment or pressure. It serves as a "dumping ground for false starts" and a place to confront writer's block.
  • The Significance of the Body: The body is presented as a vessel of memory and wisdom. Attending to physical sensations and bodily experiences can unlock deeper insights and ground the story in reality.
  • "Bodies carry our immediate history and our heritage; they too are made of stories."
  • Dreams as Scripture: Dreams are described as a unique form of personal scripture, containing messages and insights that can aid in healing and self-understanding.
  • "Every dream is a story uniquely crafted for you and no other; each dream, no matter how disturbing, works for your healing."
  • Honoring Teachers (Internal and External): Recognizing and honoring the people or experiences that have acted as teachers on one's spiritual path is crucial. These figures can serve as containers for the author's story.
  • "Essentially this is the literary role the teacher-character plays in every spiritual memoir. The teacher is a vessel that, for a period of time, shapes and holds the author’s story."
  • Spiritual Geography: Place and setting play a vital role in shaping one's identity and spiritual journey. Describing the landscapes of origin can reveal deep connections and influences.
  • "Nearly twenty years ago I returned to the holy ground of my childhood summers; I moved from New York City to the house my mother had grown up in, in an isolated town on the border between North and South Dakota. More than any other place I lived as a child or young adult— Virginia, Illinois, Hawaii, Vermont, New York—this is my spiritual geography, the place where I’ve wrestled my story out of the circumstances of landscape and inheritance."

III. Practical Advice & Exercises:

The book includes a multitude of practical exercises to help writers explore their memories, develop their voice, and craft compelling narratives. Examples include:

  • Listing Life's Grand Questions: Identify and reflect on the significant questions that have shaped one's life.
  • Mapping the Spiritual Journey: Visually represent one's spiritual journey, marking landmarks, turning points, and significant memories.
  • Writing "Lies" to Uncover Truth: Explore imaginative embellishments to reveal deeper emotional truths.
  • Describing a Game from Childhood: Reflect on the symbolism and meaning of childhood games to understand essential nature.
  • Describing a Difficult Memory in Third Person: Shift perspective to gain distance and clarity when writing about challenging experiences.
  • Writing Digressions Intentionally: Allow the mind to wander and explore seemingly unrelated memories to uncover deeper insights.

IV. Cautionary Notes:

  • Beware of Clichés: Avoid relying on generic or overused language when describing spiritual experiences.
  • Don't Condescend to Your Younger Self: Treat past selves with respect and understanding.
  • Avoid Too Many Questions: Too many questions can diffuse the story's focus and create anxiety for the reader.
  • The importance of Details: Include details that "do the work of the piece" grounding the reader, evoking emotions, and revealing the story's heart.

V. Concluding Thought:

The book suggests that the true reward of writing a spiritual memoir lies not in publication or recognition, but in the process of self-discovery and integration. By confronting memories, exploring beliefs, and finding the sacred in the ordinary, writers can gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their place in the world.

"Our stories reveal holiness."

 

 

Writing Prompts

 

  • Describe a small, ordinary activity and reflect on what it reveals about you and what mystery it contains.
  • Write down a question you wish you knew the answer to, and then write a memory that helps explain the origin of the question.
  • Make a list of all the grand questions of your life, as well as the minute mysteries, and reflect on what it means to love these questions.
  • Describe what it will be like to perform a task from your to-do list, how it will feel, why it matters, your history with the chore, and what it reveals about your values and beliefs.
  • Answer the "What is at stake?" question for yourself in a journal entry to determine what you will get from the process of writing your story.
  • Write out the core question you’re exploring in a piece of writing, and revise it as it changes over time.
  • If you are unable to write freely for fear of what others will think, imagine a completely receptive, affirming reader and create a character sketch of this person.
  • Choose a particularly difficult memory and write about it from the third-person point of view, then revise it into first person.
  • Think of a moment in your past or your family’s past that contains more questions than answers, and explore it by writing several hypothetical explanations or scenarios of what happened.
  • At the top of a blank page, write the title "Lies about _____," fill in the blank, and allow yourself the freedom to write as many lies as you wish, then revisit them to see how they reveal the truth.
  • Describe in detail the items in your coat pocket or pocketbook, noting the meaning you have already given them and what else they might symbolize about you or your life.
  • Describe a game you played as a child, write the story of playing the game, and then reflect on the symbolism of the game and its elements.
  • Write memories in the present tense to bring them forward with marked clarity.
  • Write about the same memory again from scratch, only this time in the past tense, including all the sensory information from your first draft as well as any adult reflections or insights you would like to add.
  • Choose a part of your body that elicits strong emotion, and enter into conversation with that part, allowing it to speak on the page and asking it questions.
  • Write three brief self-portraits, as though they are snapshots: one of you at the start of a journey, one in the midst of journeying, and one at the end.
  • Draw a map of a landscape from your childhood and label the places where stories happened, then write these stories, paying particular attention to their settings.
  • Brainstorm a list of things found in nature or attributes of the natural world that confound you, and choose one item from the list to which you can attach a specific memory.
  • Create a chronological list of the holy sites in your spiritual journey, describing each place.
  • Return in your thoughts to a moment of vulnerability as a child, write that memory, and then explore what it teaches you about your childhood beliefs.
  • Choose a part of your body that elicits strong emotion, and enter into conversation with that part, allowing it to speak on the page and asking it questions.
  • Choose a small, unusual experience of spirit that you cannot rationally explain, write the story, attending to the details, and describe any doubts, either from the time of the experience or from the present, without worrying about what the reader might think.
  • Find a photograph from your past, describe the photograph in detail as an object in its own right, and write out your observations about your personality, struggles, or beliefs based on this image in a straightforward, reflective voice, then rewrite the description to reveal your insights through the details.
  • Without looking, conjure up the image of a photograph from your past, write your memory of that moment, then examine the photograph, paying acute attention to the details, and rewrite the memory including these details.
  • Identify a scene that is important to your story. If you are an underwriter, stretch the moment by lingering on as many telling details as you can recall. If you are an overwriter, identify and linger on the telling details, then cut all other extraneous prose.
  • Practice writing a conclusive statement at the end of a scene or story in your memoir.
  • Return to the conclusive statement you wrote for the preceding exercise and cut it from your story. Rewrite the passage to incorporate your concluding insight.
  • Return to a scene or story that you’ve written; identify the question that was driving your exploration, write it out, and rewrite the piece incorporating your question.
  • Find a stretch of reflective writing within your memoir and ask yourself, “What memory or anecdote helped inform these thoughts?” Write the scene, revealing what you previously told with story.
  • Return to your spiritual journey metaphor and apply this same metaphor to your experience of writing.
  • Write a little every day.
  • Write whatever comes to you, even if it’s not what you originally set out to write about.
  • Write about your resistance; enter into conversation with it, ask it what it wants to say, find out its origin and history.
  • Create chunks of writing around a single question.
  • Choose one person/lesson that has energy for you. Write a scene showing you in relationship to this person, learning the lesson. Describe the teacher, the student, the setting, and the circumstances. As concretely as possible, show the learning process.

 

The Soul Work of Telling Your Story

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Available on Amazon

Overall Theme: This writing guide emphasizes that memoir writing is a journey of self-discovery (“soul work”) and personal transformation, not merely a recounting of events. It focuses on providing exercises and guidance to unlock memories, understand their deeper meaning, and craft a compelling narrative. The book highlights the potential for healing and growth through the process of writing one’s life story.

 

1. The Purpose of Memoir Writing:

 

  • Self-Understanding: Memoir writing is presented as a way to make sense of one’s life, recognize patterns, and achieve a deeper understanding of oneself. As one student wrote, “I write because somehow, when I’m doing it, I begin to see the shapes and patterns of my life, and it begins to make sense to me.”

 

  • Rehabilitation and Transformation: The guide illustrates how memoir writing can be a tool for personal rehabilitation. The example of Kenny Wightman, a convict, highlights how writing his life story allowed him to reassess his past, understand his motivations, and ultimately change his life for the better. “In being able to stand outside his personal experience he could see his actions and judge his life from a different perspective… He was, in this way, rehabilitating himself by writing his story. Each day he was saving his soul, one paragraph at a time.”

 

  • Transcending the Self: Memoir writing can extend beyond personal catharsis and offer value to others. By sharing their story, writers can provide insights into the human condition and potentially help others avoid similar pitfalls. “When he saw that, he saw that the story was not merely about himself, but it was a story that reached out to others. It transcended him.”

 

2. The Writing Process:

 

  • Individualized Approach: The guide rejects a “cookie-cutter” approach to memoir writing, emphasizing that each writer’s journey and narrative will be unique. “There are no cookie-cutters here. One size will not fit all.”

 

  • Active Engagement: The guide stresses the importance of actively engaging in the writing exercises to unlock memories and uncover deeper meanings. “If this process is to work properly you cannot just think about doing them, you’ll actually have to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and write. In this way you’ll learn to value the memories you have and allow them speak to you.”

 

  • Listening to Your Life: The book encourages writers to listen to the “prompting that comes from deep within” and to be prepared to listen to what their story asks of them. “This is your story telling you how it needs to be told. So, be prepared to listen to what it asks of you.”

 

  • Creating Space and Rituals: The guide recommends creating a dedicated writing space, establishing a writing routine, and rewarding oneself for achieving writing goals. It also speaks to the value of creating a “Writer’s Shelf” or “Treasure Chest” filled with objects related to your life/memories that will help you write. “If you don’t schedule a space in your life for your writing I guarantee that you will not get around to doing it. It’s as basic as that.”

 

  • Dealing with Writing Blocks: The guide emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and addressing writing blocks, as they often point to difficult but essential material that needs to be explored. “Acknowledging a blockage right away allows for it to be dealt with and overcome, and for the riches to be accessed that inevitably lie on the other side of the block.”

 

3. Exercises and Techniques:

 

  • Photograph Analysis: Examining old photographs to unlock memories, connect with the past, and identify strengths and sources of pain. “So look at that picture and ask yourself what’s reflected back at you… What were your strengths even at that age? If you don’t know, now would be a good time to find out.”

 

  • Message Identification: Reflecting on the messages received from family members about one’s identity and how those messages have shaped one’s life. “Thinking about these ‘messages’ can be very useful because we are, to some extent at least, what we believe about what other people say we are, and how they treat us.”

 

  • Non-Dominant Hand Writing: Engaging in a dialogue with one’s inner critic using the non-dominant hand to access less rational and more creative aspects of the mind.

 

  • The “Three Gifts” Visualization: A guided visualization exercise designed to uncover what one feels they need to move forward with their writing and their life.

 

  • The “Because” Exercise: A repetitive sentence structure exercise designed to peel away layers of meaning and uncover the core motivations behind writing one’s life story. “‘I’m here because I’m sitting at a desk to write; I’m sitting at a desk to write because I think I have a memoir inside me; I think I have a memoir inside me because I have a story to tell about my father; I have a story to tell about my father because I’ve never forgiven him…’”

 

  • Recalling Specific Sensory Details: Focusing on specific details of time and place, especially tactile, scent, and flavor sensations as a tool for remembering.

 

  • “Jabberwock” Drawing: A visualization/art exercise where the author asks readers to draw a Jabberwock from the Lewis Carroll poem, in order to see their “very own private monster” – the things that get in their way when they try to do their soul work.

 

  • Remembering/Writing Scenes: The author encourages readers to think of writing as remembering scenes, like a movie director.

 

4. Structure and Narrative:

 

 

  • Basic Structure: The guide acknowledges the importance of a beginning, middle, and end, but stresses that the structure should emerge organically from the story itself.

 

  • Identifying Turning Points: Exercises are provided to help writers identify key moments of change in their lives, which can serve as structural pillars for their memoir.

 

  • Memoir is Never Just About You: The writer should be the observer of a situation, and the audience should care about that.

 

5. Ethical and Practical Considerations:

 

  • Truthfulness and Accuracy: The guide encourages writers to strive for honesty and accuracy in their recollections, while acknowledging the limitations of memory.

 

  • Sensitivity to Others: While encouraging writers to tell their truths, the guide also advises them to be mindful of the impact their stories may have on others and to consider changing names or combining events to protect privacy.

 

  • Confronting Fears: The guide acknowledges that memoir writing can be a challenging and emotional process and encourages writers to embrace their fears as a sign that they are undertaking a worthwhile task. “As we observed right at the start of this book, writing your memoir will change you; and your fears about telling your truths are indicative that the change is happening.”

 

  • Not being afraid to describe faults: The author emphasizes that there is no need to censor yourself at the beginning and that being able to fully write out all aspects of the story – even parts one doesn’t like – is critical.

 

6. Six Stages of Memoir Writing:

 

  • The Innocent: Approaching the task with trust and openness.
  • The Orphan: Facing challenges and feeling alone in the process.
  • The Wanderer: Seeking guidance and exploring different paths.
  • The Warrior-Lover: Displaying tremendous energy and courage.
  • The Destroyer: Breaking down old patterns and beliefs.
  • The Magician: Achieving a place of understanding, compassion, and wisdom.

 

7. Memoir is Liberation:

  • The author states that in England, there used to be a popular question of “the unexamined life is not worth living” but rarely did anyone encourage actually doing this examining. Memoir can help the writer and reader understand the value of the examined life.

 

The book “Write Your Memoir” contains numerous exercises designed to help you explore your memories and develop your memoir. Here’s a compilation of the practical exercises mentioned in the sources:
Picture of Yourself as a Small Child Find a picture of yourself as a small child, preferably around four or five years old, and write down your thoughts about that child. Consider what you see, who that child was, and any memories or thoughts connected to the picture.
Messages from Childhood Jot down the things you heard while growing up. Who was expected to do what? Who got punished and who escaped? Who was in charge, and who wasn’t? Write down as many of these ‘messages’ as possible.
Creating Your Book Cover Imagine your memoir is published, and design the cover, complete with the title and back cover blurb. The blurb should be a hundred words or less.
Floor Plan of Your Childhood Home Try to remember the house or home you lived in as a child. Draw a floor plan from memory, including as many details as you can recall.
The Three Gifts Exercise Visualize a scene where you are given three gifts. Reflect on the gifts, who gave them to you, and what they mean to you.
“I’m here because…” Exercise Take a new piece of paper and write at the top, “I’m here because…” Finish the sentence, then take that newly added half of the sentence and make it the start of the next sentence, adding the word ‘because’. Continue this exercise as far as you can.
Twelve Moments of Change Write down twelve moments in your life that you feel marked a point of change. Then, select six from your list and put those six in order of importance.
Turning Points in Others’ Lives Identify the major turning points in the lives of those people you found it difficult to deal with. Try to find twelve points, cull them down to six and then to four, and ask the same questions you asked of your own experience.
Conversation With the Inner Voice Write a conversation with the voice in your head that is questioning the content of your memoir. Using your dominant hand, ask the voice why it wants to know the answers before you’ve finished writing. Then, take a pen in your non-dominant hand and write the answer.
Proud Moments Exercise Think about an event in your life that you feel you can be proud of. With a partner, take turns speaking about the event for two minutes while the other listens. Then, the listener repeats back everything they can recall.
Drawing a Jabberwock Imagine what a Jabberwock might look like and draw one. Label things on your diagram.
In addition to these specific exercises, the book also suggests incorporating writing prompts into your daily practice, especially when you feel uninspired. These prompts cover a wide range of topics, from family stories and favorite meals to fears, achievements, and personal relationships.

Five Pivotal Moments as Photographs

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with motivation and obstacles

 

The Occult Shop

The first time I walked into the occult shop in town. I pushed open the heavy wooden door and a bell rang atop, and the smell of paper and insense and magick and the excitement. I’m young and is a school uniform, entering another new, exciting world. I’m wide-eyed and it’s mysterious and positive and I’m free. I wanted to be in another world but I didn’t know what it was.

 

The Lonely Bedroom

I remember the Chinese New Year before I left. I went to a Vietnamese celebration. I was reading books thinking of leaving. I remember I bumped into an old schoolfriend there and told him about them, but there was no definite plan. I remember music and a Chinese dragon dancing and there was some disco arranged and I paid but an over-zelous security guard threw me out, pretty much for no reason other than ‘It’s something the Vietnamese have arranged for themselves’ (it wasn’t, I’d paid).

I walked home and ended up crying in my bedroom and it was just pure desperation. There was a world out there I could live and I was trapped in one that I hated. I took a picture of my puffy face for posterity and thought that it will be good to look back at this if I survive. The image is my red face and the darkness. I wanted to be in another world but I was scared.

 

The Blurriness

Being pinned down on my back, powerless, with my mother atop me punching me in the face. The world blurry from my tears. The aloneness as my aunt stood by. I wanted to be in another world but I was broken.

 

The Boat

Sitting on my uncle’s boat, at the back, by myself. Rocking gently on the river. I was reading the Howling, a horror book about wearwolves. I was loving it so much I read each sentence slowly so I didn’t finish it on one day as I usually did. I fell into the story, in another country surrounded by the supernatural and danger and normal families standing together. I was in another world.

 

The Cold

Walking home from collage. It was about 2km from the collage to my aunt’s house where I lived. It was night time, about 10pm. I used to wear a nice suit with a formal, long black jacket. I remember halfway home I stopped at a little Indian convenience store and bought a samosa and it was in plastic. I remember being in the street and trying to unwrap it and it was dark and I was shivering and I was so cold that my red fingers were numb and I couldn’t get the packaging off. I’d been reading guidebooks about the tropics and I resolved then, in the cold, that I would leave the UK forever- no matter what. I see the image as very dark, with me in dark clothes and a dull, yellowy street light shinning down. I wanted to be in another world and nothing was stopping me.