Post #25 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing and Healing – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
Pamela Jane Bell always gives us something new to consider and today’s post is no exception. But more than just introducing her latest contribution, I wanted to let you know that her new children’s book is out in time for Halloween — Little Goblins Ten
On to today’s post for memoir writers…
Memoir Writing and Your Mood
by Pamela Jane Bell, guest blogger, children’s book author and currently writing her memoir
“When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, without faith and without hope…suddenly the work will find itself.–“ Isak Dinesen
Jane Austen probably knew that her novels were works of genius even as she composed them. That may itself be a quality of genius. But how many of us have written something in state of mild euphoria, convinced that our writing was brilliant, only to find that it was deeply flawed, or readers didn’t respond the way we expected? Perhaps our mood betrayed us, or possibly we only thought we had conveyed the fire, depth, and intensity we felt at the time.
The realization that a positive and confident mood doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of one’s work can be daunting, but more often we under-estimate our writing because of a discouraged or self-critical state of mind.
This came home to me recently, after I wrote a children’s book about a second-grade girl who is writing her memoir. I got the idea largely from my own childhood. I used to imagine myself as the central character in a great novel I was writing in my head. It was a serial story and I must have been turning out at least thousand pages of mental manuscript a month. In my imaginary novel, the small dramas of day-to-day life were not obscure, unrecorded episodes in the life of an anonymous little girl, but events of universal interest and significance. I pictured people all over the world waiting breathlessly for the next installment. Talk about positive visualizations!
I was in a dark mood when I started working on the children’s book about the little girl writing her memoir. I’m not normally depressed, and I can’t even remember now what was getting me down. But the truth was, I was feeling hopeless. Writing a light, funny book began as a way of amusing and distracting myself.
I wrote the first chapter, read it over and thought, wow, this is the biggest piece of #$@% I’ve ever written. But what the heck, I figured, I may as well write another chapter. And so it went, chapter by tortuous chapter. I recited no positive affirmations, visualized no great success. I 
didn’t do anything. Just wrote another lousy chapter.
When I finished the story, I put the manuscript away for many months. Then one day, almost by accident, I found it and read it over. Hey, I thought, this is kind of cute. Maybe I can make something of it.
And so for several more months I worked on revising my manuscript. Then I submitted it to several publishers. Two editors expressed interest in publishing the book as the first in a series featuring my character, so I acquired an agent to help me sort things out. As it turned out, the plot needed work, but both my agent and the editor we ultimately submitted to were happy to help because they liked the character’s voice.
Now my manuscript is making its way through the convoluted acquisition process at the publisher. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But whatever does happen, this experience has taught me that mood is not a reliable judge of my writing or the final arbiter of my work. A story I thought had no virtue, not one redeeming quality, piqued the interest of editors, and helped me find an agent.
What I learned – perhaps belatedly – is true for many writers. While the unbelievably brilliant novel you wrote might need (just a little) tweaking, the disastrous first draft of your memoir could be a potential treasure.
In the meantime, the fate of my children’s book hinges on the wild swings and fluctuations of the publishing industry. If you ask me, the publishing industry has real mood problems. In comparison, writers are models of composure and stability.
How do moods affect your writing and your perception of what you write? Do your moods help your work, or do they get in the way? Are you able to see beyond moods, especially negative ones?
