Tao of memoir writing

When our children were small, we took them on short walks in nearby wooded areas. As they got older, we showed them the pleasures of hiking the trails of Yosemite National Park and other places of beauty. No matter where we went or how easy or how hard the path, they loved to dash ahead to seek new adventures. Parental pace was much too slow for them. They ran ahead and then came back quickly. They wore themselves out by covering each distance twice. But that was part of their enthusiasm.

Reflecting on the different paces we manage at different times in our lives, consider this sixth and last Tao of memoir writing:

The child in us runs ahead on the path with boundless energy. The seasoned scout cautiously leads the way.

In writing, we tell others of delights or dangers, yet we are the same person.

There is more than one storyteller in each of us. We should let each of these voices come to the fore at different times to help others understand the many textures of our lives.

Writing Tip. Writing about a time of passionate youthfulness? Try using short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs. You will convey some of the boundless energy of that period. Writing about a period of aging or time spent caring for your elderly parents? See if longer sentences and paragraphs better reflect the slowness of those experiences.

If you think about music, recall that there are fast passages and slow passages. Similarly, words create a tempo for the reader and the memoirist controls this by varying the length of the sentences and paragraphs.

Exercise: Find a paragraph in a memoir that is particularly vivid for you. Analyze it: Count the number of sentences. Count the number of words in each sentence. Do several long sentences follow each other? Are short sentences used to create impact?

Then rewrite the paragraph. Try making a long sentence short. Make a short sentence long. You can do this by combining sentences or by cutting some in half. How do the changes alter the rhythm of the story? Which do you like better?

Not all stories are created equal.  Some memoir vignettes we write evoke pleasant memories.  It is tempting to tell these stories as if we are still experiencing them.  Other vignettes evoke quite the opposite memories.  When we tell these contrasting stories, we want to “keep our distance.”  When we consider the Tao of memoir writing, we say:

Too close or too far away, we cannot see clearly.

There is a best distance for recalling each event of our lives.

Some stories may be pure delight; they invite us to recount them from an intimate distance. Yet if we stand too close, we may miss their meaning.

Other stories may be too painful to tell without distance, without a narrator’s voice that lets us step outside the situation. Yet if we are too far away, we may lose sight of the emotional and factual truths.

Writing Tip: We write memoirs for many reasons.  But a common outcome across all the reasons for starting is a better understanding of ourselves at the ending.  Writing a memoir provides clarity on what has been and usually helps us to look forward with insights about the kind of life we want to live.

Try this:  Take a newspaper or magazine article.  Hold it up so that it almost touches your eye.  What do you see?  Take that same newspaper or magazine article and put it on the other side of the room.  Now walk back to where you usually sit.  What do you see?

If you do this little exercise, you’ll understand what we mean in this fifth consideration of the Tao of memoir writing.  Too close or too far away, we cannot see clearly. When the newspaper or magazine article was next to your eye, you couldn’t make out a single word, possibly not even a single letter.  The parallel in memoir writing is the story, chapter, or vignette when you include many details but forget to say why it mattered.

When the newspaper or magazine article was across the room, you couldn’t read words although you could tell something was written on the paper.  In memoir writing, this is the equivalent of crafting a vignette in such a remote way that the reader wonders why you bothered to include it.  Again, to “see clearly” our lives, we need to write at the mid-range, neither too close nor too far away.

This is not to say we write about all events in the same way or from the same distance. Be prepared to move in as close as you are comfortable. But before you conclude your story, move back.  Put the story in context.  Consider its impact on your life.

Write a paragraph about an event or person in your life.  The first time, lavish details on this vignette. Get as close to it as you can. The second time, write with coldness and detachment.  Reflect on how you feel after each effort.  Write a second paragraph for each version. In the second paragraph take the story and put it in context, personal, cultural, or historical. Give the vignette perspective, personal perspective. How did you feel? How did it change you?

As you write your memoir consider the implication for you and your reader of writing at various distances from the story.

Today’s Tao musings focus on the habit of writing. Consider:

Good habits are good friends; we return to them gladly every day.

A ritual or habit creates a path that is shaped by use.

We seek to release ourselves from rituals that bind or restrict. We seek to open ourselves to habits of creativity that we gladly practice daily.

The habit of writing, once established, carries us forward toward our goals.

Writing Tip: How often have you said, “I’ll work on my memoir when I have more time?” If you are busy today, it is a safe bet that you will be busy a week from now, a month from now, a year from now, and five years from now. Time doesn’t suddenly become available on its own. You need to put writing into your admittedly busy schedule.

Do you know the memoir by choreographer Twyla Tharp The Creative Habit? In describing her life, her creative art, she has deliberately given us a guide for how we can be more creative within a set of habits that keep us moving forward.

Try writing even 10 minutes per day. You’ll be amazed at how the ideas begin to flow.

Today, I’m reflecting on the telling of our life journey.  Consider this:

The journey begins at the gate or the journey begins in the middle of the garden.

Wherever we are appears to be the center. And wherever we go, there we are.

Where will we begin our stories? There is no single answer, no right answer.

Perhaps we should start where we are - wherever our thoughts are focused now. The structure will grow from that. “A tree broader than a woman can embrace is born of a tiny shoot.”

Writing Tip: If you are just getting started on your memoir, the most important thing to do is to just begin. As your ideas and words begin to flow, there will be plenty of time to consider the structure of your memoir. If you are bogged down, don’t worry about a cohesive flow. Pick up your writing at another point in the story. Later you can organize the material.

Many years ago, so long ago that i was using an electric typewriter, I developed a three step trick for getting started: (1) Insert a blank piece of white paper into the platen and roll it until about an inch was visible; (2) Type the word “The”; (3) Cross out the word with a series of xxxs.  Voila! I didn;t have to worry that the first word or first sentence was perfect, engrossing, or even vaguely interesting.  The blank page wasn’t blank.  I was already launched.

That old trick seems silly today, but it conveys a message. You can start any place. You cannot imagine where the memoir writing journey will take you.  You simply need to get started on the adventure.

Today, we look at another element in the Tao of memoir writing. Our lives are not a series of unrelated elements. Each flows into the other. We put it this way:

Yin becomes yang as night becomes day.

Each has an element of the other within it. Yin and yang are opposites, yet interdependent. Together they represent the process of transformation.

In telling our stories, we look for elements that brought about changes in us or in others because of us. Are there the seeds of one in the other? Does tragedy lead to new hope? Does happiness eventually come from pain? Does health come from sickness?

Lives are not all yin or all yang but an ever-changing combination of the two.

Writing Tip: Take time to consider the turning points in your life. In reflecting on your life, what do you think has made you the person you are today? Influences from the geography in which you were raised? A relative or teacher who helped redirect your life? A passion that you “gift” to someone else? A trauma that redirected your energies? A death that released you to be the person you are?

Create a list of turning points in your life. Create a second list of people who have helped you through your turning points or created them. Write a paragraph on one combination of turning point events and people involved in the turning points.

What did you learn about yourself? Notice the interdependencies of events and people in your life, including those that seem like opposites.