Don't Get Mired Down in Your Memoir

Mired down in your writing? Get unstuck.

I want to begin this post with a heartfelt congratulations to anyone who is not a writer by training or profession but who is attempting to write a book—any kind of book. Writing is hard. That’s not an original thought; it is a well-known fact that writing is a difficult process, even for those who have an education that focused on writing or who have written throughout their career. Simply being comfortable with good grammar and having excelled in school with book reports and the infamous five-paragraph essay are just the most basic building blocks for creating book-length prose.

Fortunately, I had a knack for stringing together interesting sentences and compelling paragraphs at a relatively young age. Math and science? Meh. My university majors of Mass Communications and English were the only two tracks that made any sense to me, at least at that time.

But for the last three months or so, I have been tasked with ghostwriting a memoir for a man with whom I have nothing in common; a middle-aged man of color, a retired Army veteran with twenty-one years of service, three deployments to Iraq, a traumatic brain injury and severe PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I cannot personally relate to any aspect of who he is or what he’s been through. But I’m determined to do his service and sacrifice justice, tell his story with empathy, and let his experiences produce a survival guide for others in similar circumstances. That is my promise to him and to myself.

I have a habit of starting my blog posts with a personal story that in my mind is connected to the true topic of the post. I’m doing it here again. I am struggling with this ghostwriting in a way I’m unfamiliar with. I spend an hour at a time staring at pages of notes I’ve transcribed from this man’s audio recordings, trying to make sense of his war experiences, timelines, injuries, and challenges in retirement so I can organize them in a way that will make an inspiring read.

Recently, I asked a social media memoir-writing group why it has taken some of them years to write their memoirs. I will add, the way in which I worded the question put some of them on the defensive, because they felt I was implying that a memoir is something they should be able to crank out in a few months. Even though it was a misreading of my intent, I apologized. But I do believe that if all aspects of the writing process are perfectly in place, they could produce a good first draft in a matter of months, not years. In other words, in a perfect world, they could. But few of them are writing in a perfect world.

My post garnered about eighty original comments plus comments about comments. From these, I identified four issues at play for those who say they have been writing their memoirs for anywhere from two to ten years. These are the recurring obstacles:

• The writers are creating book-length prose for the first time and have no formal training or career experience with extensive writing projects, so they are learning how to write as they go. And the struggle is taking time.

• The memoir is dealing with traumatic events in their lives, such as disease, abuse (physical and sexual), addiction, suicide attempts, and mental illness, causing the writer to unpack this baggage slowly and painfully.

• Other aspects of life are interfering with their writing: full-time jobs, children, school, or family issues such as caring for elderly parents.

• They have no support or are facing active resistance (including threats) from ex-partners, spouses, family members, or others who might appear in the memoir.

The other issue that emerged is that some of them are frustrated and unhappy about how long it’s taking to finish, while others don’t care and have an “it takes as long as it takes” attitude. I’m trying to formulate a process that will help the ones who really want to get their memoirs finished, either because they just want to be done with it or because, more importantly I think, they have a story to tell that they know will be helpful to others in similar situations. They desire to “do good” for others with their memoirs. I want to produce a formula that will guide those who are already writing as well as those who are still thinking about it.

Looking at the list of challenges for these folks, I plan to write a series of blog articles that will address each one, with the hope of helping writers make progress and get off the fence about starting their personal stories. My agenda looks like this:

• Resources to provide training and guidance with writing skills. I can’t teach talent, but a collection of books, websites, and online courses to improve your writing are achievable tasks.

• Determining if you are ready to write your memoir. This might sound contrary to helping someone produce a memoir, but I feel strongly that the writer must be able to determine if they are truly ready to write about trauma. Or if it’s just too soon.

• Learning to manage your time to make writing a habit in your life. Many authors have documented their techniques for making the writing process part of their daily routine. I’ll share them.

• Dealing with the ramifications of resistance to your writing. I cannot fix personal problems and I will not disregard your fears, but I’ll collect some personal and basic legal advice that might give you comfort.

Like many of you, I will write these blog articles as I can after my work and personal obligations are complete. Let’s see how I do.

Heal and Grow: The Power of Journaling

If you’ve ever visited my website, you have likely noticed that I am a volunteer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAMI. I mention it on my About page and I have written several blog articles about mental health-related topics that are posted on my Blog page, but which were originally posted on the websites for NAMI.org and Life At The Intersection, my friend Terri Lyon’s creative activism site.

Like millions of other families in this country, there is mental illness in mine—diagnosed depression and anxiety.

For those who are diagnosed with mental health disorders or syndromes, treatment most often comes in two forms: psychiatric medications and psychotherapy (one-on-one talk therapy and peer support groups).

So, why in a blog for my editing business am I taking you down this road? As an editor, blogger, and writer myself, I wondered how best to merge these two worlds—my advocacy for those with mental health disorders and my skill with words.

That quest inspired me to educate myself about journaling. I found that journaling comes in many flavors—gratitude, art, prayer, dream, travel, and so on. But with a focus on mental health, I’ve chosen these three styles to discuss: therapeutic, reflective, and expressive. Let me share what I’ve learned.

What Is Therapeutic Journaling?

Therapeutic journaling differs from traditional journal or diary writing, which involves recording the details of daily events. Instead, difficult life events and challenges are written about and discussed with a mental health practitioner for the purpose of working through pain and trauma and moving toward self-confidence and recovered mental health.

Therapeutic journaling allows you to come to a deeper understanding of yourself and gain a different perspective on these difficulties. By identifying patterns in thinking, you see your struggles in a new light, allowing you to break the patterns.

Note: Therapeutic journaling sits in the wheelhouse of trained therapists, psychologists, LCSWs, and clinical settings. The type of writing that is done is not dramatically different from expressive or reflective journaling. The distinguishing aspect is that the journal entries are read and analyzed as part of the writer’s mental health treatment.

In summary: Therapeutic journaling is about delving deeper into your life’s experiences to make sense of them, learn from them, and gain new perspectives on your challenges. Writing about your thoughts and emotions provides opportunities for healing and growth.

Expressive vs. Reflective Journaling

I found this description of these two journaling styles in a February 2014 article on a website for the Education Resource Group. It is meant as a classroom writing assignment:

Expressive writing is personal and shows your thoughts, ideas, and feelings about an experience. Reflective writing goes beyond just sharing an experience, requiring the author to look back at the past and apply what he or she has learned to the future.

For some, the distinction between expressive and reflective journaling might be a case of splitting hairs. Let’s see if I can bring the purpose of each into focus.

What is Expressive Journaling?

Expressive journaling was popularized by Dr. James Pennebaker of the University of Texas, Austin. According to Pennebaker in his book Expressive Writing: Words That Heal, expressive writing promotes physical, psychological, and behavioral health.

Expressive writing, explains Pennebaker, is not so much about what happened during your day but how you feel about what happened. By regularly documenting your emotional reactions to life events, you are able to identify problematic thinking patterns that might not be serving you well.

In summary: Expressive writing is not about what happened but how you feel about what happened. Okay, so what’s the difference between expressive writing and therapeutic writing? The primary difference is that expressive writing looks at your current daily life, while therapeutic writing focuses on memories of past trauma or injury and how they detrimentally affect your thinking now.

What is Reflective Journaling?

Reflective journaling is the process of writing down your daily reflections (hence the name) about something positive or negative that happened to you. By thinking back on the day’s events, reflective journaling lets you put into words what you have learned from your experiences.

In summary: A reflective journal encourages you to think about all you experienced in the course of your day and decide what learnings you can come away with. It’s a reflection on your behavior and the behavior of others in relation to you. Whether an experience was good or bad, there are lessons to be learned.

Tips for Journal Writing

Regardless of which type of journaling you choose, follow these guidelines to get the most from the practice:

• Choose a quiet, private place with no distractions.

• Write at the same time or as close to the same time as possible each day you journal.

• Write daily if possible or, at least, several times during the week. The more often you journal, the better you will become at it and the clearer a picture you will get of yourself.

• Use whatever writing medium appeals to you: a pencil or pen that feels good in your hand, a special notebook or journal that is yours solely for the purpose of your regular writing practice, a laptop or desktop if you’re firmly rooted in technology. The choice is yours. The medium does not matter, just the practice.

• Write quickly and don’t stop to edit or correct. Don’t over-think it. Just let the words spill out.

Pitfalls of Journaling

At the risk of sounding like a silly fuddy-duddy, journaling can have its downsides. Here are a few behaviors to be on the alert for.

• Journaling can dredge up all kinds of emotions and might cause an outpouring of negative feelings and memories. It should never drive someone to a place of despair. Sharing your journals with a mental health practitioner, a journal writing group, or even just friends can keep you balanced and keep your memories and feelings in perspective.

• Don’t write excessively, to the exclusion of other activities. Journaling should add insight and growth to your life, not rob you of other life experiences.

• Over-analyzing your journal entries will not lead to improving your life. You can analyze your words to death. Read your entries a day or more after you’ve written them with an eye toward planning, problem-solving, and decision-making. Journaling is meant to be a complement to your life’s activities.

Benefits of Journaling

Journalist and therapist Kara Mayer Robinson, in an article for WebMD, summarized the many reasons that journaling is beneficial. Journaling…

• Promotes self-awareness. You will get to know yourself better.

• Lets you take charge of your emotions and worries. See them. Name them. Take control of them.

• Shifts your viewpoint about yourself and those around you. You will gain a broader perspective.

• Creates a positive opportunity for healing and recovering self-worth. Whether you write in a journal about problems or gratitude, a healing process happens.

Your Comments and Stories, Please

I welcome comments about my descriptions of these journal writing styles and the usefulness of one form of journaling over the other. If journaling in any form has improved your life, I’d love to hear about it.

In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.

Personal Essays are Still a Hot Commodity

Don’t believe the naysayers. The long-form essay is not dead. It is alive and well, but you have to know where to find it. Long-form personal essays are a mainstay of publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Sun Magazine, Creative Nonfiction Magazine, Dame Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Slate, newspapers such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe, and too many other publications and websites to mention.

Reading long-form personal essays requires a patience and time commitment that stands in direct contrast to the itty-bitty nibbles we are served on social media and the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sounds bites of 24-hour television newscasts.

What is a Personal Essay?

I have written about personal essays before, in my blog article of July 23, 2019, “With Creative Nonfiction, Reality Meets Great Storytelling.” Truthfully, I dedicated one paragraph to talking about personal essays, because the article was kind of a scatter-shot look at the genres within CNF.

So then, what is a personal essay? It is notoriously difficult to nail down but here goes: a personal essay is a combination of a super-short memoir, a touch of biography or autobiography, a pinch of journalism, and a slice of compelling nonfiction storytelling. Got that? No? Alright, how about this—

A personal essay is about a topical subject discussed from a personal perspective, yours or someone else’s. A personal essay must have, at its core, a discussion of an event, person, or situation to which the essayist adds personal experience and a unique point of view.

Personal essay is related to the op-ed, too. I’ll go into that in another article.

Examples of Great Personal Essays

In the event that this definition has only muddied the waters, it might be best to direct you to some great essays written by some great essayists. These are in no particular order, no particular category.

After the Shooting: A Year in the Life of Gwen Woods, by Jaeah Lee, The California Sunday Magazine, August 3, 2017

My Family’s Slave, by Alex Tizon, The Atlantic, June 2017

A Rattle with Death in Yosemite, by Kyle Dickman, Outside magazine, June 20,2018

Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong, by Michael Hobbes, Highline, September 19, 2018

I’ve randomly chosen essays that have been recognized for their outstanding quality. If you want to read others, visit longform.org. There you will find hundreds of quality personal essays. Categories include Health, Crime, Science, Politics, Arts, Business, Tech, and Sports. Don’t be intimidated. Get a feel for the purpose and intent of the long-form essay and give it a go.

A Good Length

The word count of the essay varies depending upon the publication. Suggested word counts for the top 20 magazines, newspapers, and websites that use personal essays span 800 to 15,000 words. The average is 800–1,200 words. Review the submission criteria of your target publications before you write. No need to construct a brilliant 3,000-word essay if the publication you have written for has a word-count limit of 1,000.

If you are an accomplished writer with name recognition, magazines and big-city newspapers will snatch up your essays. But if this is your first foray into getting published, Writer’s Digest suggests your chances of success are better if you submit essays in the 500- to 900-word range. A word count of 800–850 seems like the sweet spot for a newbie essayist.

Define to Impress

Tell your friends and colleagues that you hope to be a published long-form essayist. When they inevitably ask, “What is a long-form essay?” impress with the reply, “A universal truth with a personal perspective.” That’ll get their attention. Now, write!

In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.