Heart Speak, The Writing Advice Column #5: Writing in the Face of Fragile Family Relationships
Dear Lisa,
My memoir is about growing up in a family where the default position in any dispute was to totally cut that relative from our lives. It resulted in me growing up in a bubble with no extended family. As a child this seemed quite normal, but as I grew up, I began to realise how dysfunctional and destructive this behaviour was.
After the death of my parents, I took a leap of faith and reconnected with a number of relatives I had never met. This shed light on an otherwise dark past and brought much happiness to my life.
It has also led to a conflict. I believe my experiences are not unique and hope telling my story will help others feel less alone. I want to write the truth, but I don’t want to hurt my fragile extended family. How do I write my memoir without hurting the people I love?
Sincerely,
Fragile Family
…..
Dear Fragile Family,
Your letter contains two questions: Should I write this memoir, and should I publish it?
The answer to your first question is a resounding yes. As Joan Didion says, we write to understand ourselves. If this family pattern is still bothering you, it’s worth understanding. The writing process might shed additional light on your family situation and increase your compassion for them. Over time, the story you’ve always told might evolve. There’s only one way to find out: write it down.
In her Tin House podcast “How to Write a Kickass Essay,” memoirist Ann Hood says we should write like an orphan, especially for the first few drafts. Don’t tell anyone outside your writing group about this project, and definitely don’t show it to anyone else. As you write like an orphan, consider what else you need to tread through this forbidden territory. What messages do you need to counter? What family rules do you need to break? Who can cheer you on and offer support?
The answer to second question—should I publish—is largely personal. While I can’t answer this for you, I can share some exercises that might help you make the decision that’s right for you.
Step one: Write your story without an eye toward publishing. Write until the story makes sense to you. Request feedback from critique partners. Write some more. Once you’ve figured out what your story is actually about and how to frame it move on to step two.
Step Two: Revise Toward Compassion. All memoirs reconcile the unintegrated stories in our lives. To truly reconcile, forgiveness is required. This doesn’t mean excusing bad behavior or reconnecting with bad actors. It does mean unearthing and examining the layers in your story and creating truer, more complex human characters. If done properly, readers will see that while you may not know the causes of someone’s behavior, you understand that nothing happens in a vacuum. While it might seem like this step is about other characters, forgiveness is an act of self-empowerment.
Step Three: Evaluate the Pros and Cons of Publishing. Once your manuscript is ready, make a list of potential rewards and losses you might experience. Upon creating this list, some people decide not to publicly share their stories. For others, the mission behind their words is more important. What matters to you?
Step Four: Circle the Wagons. Essayist Meghan Daum says that if you’re not willing to write something someone might hate; you’re not writing something someone can love. If your work is honest and open-hearted, it will not please everyone. Nor should it. In the event of fallout, surround yourself with loving support.
But also know that some families hunger for their stories to be told. In Krystal Sital’s memoir The Secrets We Kept, Krystal writes about the joy her grandmother expressed when asked about her experiences. Krystal writes, “no one has ever asked her before. This is the release she’s been yearning for.”
Some books reauthor family narratives.
In her memoir I Am Yours, Reema Zaman writes about the tumultuous relationship she had with her father and how he dismissed her early writings. As father and daughter come to understand one another, Reema’s father admits to fearing the ferocity of her fire and mourning the loss of the little girl who asked him questions. They choose to forge a new relationship that’s stronger than either could have imagined.
But let’s be realistic. Not all stories have happy endings. When Lara Lillibridge was working on Girlish, she shared the galleys with her brother and sister but not her mothers, fearing they would pressure her to make changes. Lillibridge says, “It pretty much decimated my relationship with them, though not necessarily in the way one might expect. I was as upset with my moms over their reaction to the book as they were with me for writing it. We didn’t speak for many months, but now we’re slowly rebuilding our relationship.”
I am still writing my memoir, yet I’ve already experienced the complexities of publication. In 2015, I published an article in The Guardian about my brother Joe’s suicide. It led to an interview on NPR’s With Good Reason. While I told my father about the article and NPR interview, I foolishly and arrogantly didn’t tell Joe’s twin. Somehow, I believed he wouldn’t find out because we lived in separate towns. The story was syndicated. My brother heard it while driving through our hometown. He was furious, and rightly so. We haven’t spoken since.
I would not go back and change one word of that article or interview, nor would I seek my brother’s input, but I would tell him about these publications and what I hoped to accomplish.
Despite this sad turn of events, these publications healed my relationship with my father. I left home at seventeen during a tumultuous time in our family. The events are outlined in my book but suffice it to say a crisis occurred that led me to ask the school for a voluntary foster care placement. Throughout my childhood, my father had done his best to provide for us kids despite job losses, functional homelessness, and severe depression. When I left home, it broke his heart. We didn’t speak for several years, and while we eventually reunited, that period remained an unspoken tension between us. After listening to my NPR story, we talked about that terrible time. At the end of the conversation, he patted my leg and said, “You did the right thing. I’m proud of you.”
As you decide whether or not to publish, I hope you hold as much space for the potential good your book can accomplish as you do for any possible harm. But that’s all down the road. First, write. Write for yourself. Write to heal. Write to eradicate these old family patterns. I’m cheering you on.
Warmly,
Lisa Ellison
Have a memoir question of your own? Contribute to the Heart Speak column.
Lisa Ellison is a writer, editor, and writing coach with an Ed.S in Clinical Mental Health and a background in mindfulness meditation. She teaches experiential workshops on The Art of Forgiveness and The Gifts of Grief as well as classes in memoir and creative nonfiction through WriterHouse, a nonprofit writing center in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Lisa is passionate about fostering authors’ creativity. Whether she’s working one-on-one or with a class, Lisa uses her knowledge of craft and love of human relationships to empower writers as they approach the page. Clients and students have commented that Lisa’s insights as well as her compassion and heartfelt encouragement have helped them achieve creative breakthroughs and complete their projects. Learn what writers have to say about working with Lisa.
Writing in Retrospect
I am in the middle of writing an essay that spans a full twenty-nine of my thirty-two years of life. It hinges on an event that happened three Thanksgivings ago, but reaches as far back as my third birthday and as far forward as—well—now. And it is here, half-way through the writing of this essay (which is as heavy in terms of my emotional investment as it is long in word count), that I pause, close my laptop, and momentarily step away.
Last week, I read a piece of the essay to my beloved writing group–a handful of soul-sisters who have been meeting monthly, if not at times more frequently, for the past two years. I skipped over the beginning, which contained the most recent pivotal event in my life, and dove into the second section instead: my happy childhood years, my teenage struggle, my young-adult reckoning. This part was the most solid and well-crafted.
“Where does it go from here?” A member of the group asked once I finished.
I smiled. These women know me inside out—my daily life, my aspirations, my past and the way it has molded me into the woman (mother, daughter, wife, sister) and writer I am today. I knew it was a question about narrative flow and thematic resolution more than one of particular events and details. Still, I struggled to find the words that might shed some light on the essay’s conclusion. Eventually, I was able to stammer out an answer. But it was so vague that a stranger could have hijacked my vocal cords spoken the words for me. “It ends with my life as it is now,” I said.
In an attempt to be forthcoming, authors often begin their memoirs by defending their memories, by placing a big disclaimer on them, or both. “In writing this book I referenced journal entries, photographs, and travel itineraries” …“The events portrayed in this book are written as closely as possible to the way I remember them unfolding”. This exercise in admitting the fallibility of our memories and our resulting need for supplementation fascinates me. Lowering ourselves into the depths of our earlier lives is certainly no easy task. The human mind is limited in its ability to extricate perfectly intact scenes and information from the murky waters of our past. Yet, the creation of effective first-person narratives most often requires retrospection. It requires writers to be standing somewhere further along in the storyline than the beginning. It requires a newly realized perspective—a feat that is usually achieved once an ending is reached, or is at least in view.
Often, the earliest point at which a writer will even realize the potential for story is at the onset of the climactic event, as it transpires for them in real life. Many times, the full narrative arc can only be grasped after the story’s resolution. And perhaps this is the case for good reason: constructing story while still searching for its outcome can be a disingenuous exercise compared to writing about an un-tampered-with past. So while we want the vivid, precise kind of reportage born of writing that is immediate, what we really need is the cohesion and meaning writers imbue when they look back and tease out the pertinent memories (however blurred and misshapen) from the superfluous ones. What we need is writers’ hindsight.
All this goes to say: I’m stuck in the middle of my essay, but at the end of my lived experience, because I can’t seem to do the thing that many might think to be the easiest, the clearest, or the most straight-forward. The thing that doesn’t require defense or disclaimers. The thing that seems to only need my five senses and a pencil. I. can’t. write. the. now.
I meditate on my problem during moments in which I feel most present: while watching my toddler pull clean fork tongs out from between her teeth and smile back at me with a mouthful of peas, while walking my dog and stopping to watch a white-flecked fawn romp in a neighbor’s yard, while tuning into my binaural beats tracks on YouTube and watching the neon ribbons of pixels spin and wave. Inevitably, I open my laptop to my essay-in-progress, scroll to the bottom, revisit my garbled notes and type a list of marginally improved bullet points. But what I find myself begging into the ether is: What will I remember, later on, out of all that I’m experiencing now? And how will I know when I’ve arrived at the right “later on”—when I’ve metamorphosed into the woman with the best perspective—to finish the piece?
It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? I’m asking for communion with my own Future Me so that I can tap into her hindsight—her remembrance of the present moment. It’s like I’m trying to escape myself in order to re-arrive in my body.
This, I realize, makes me a total lunatic—not only because my time-hop plan is impossible, but because what I can access now is infinitely more precise than what I will be able to later on. The glint of sunlight off my neighbor’s waxen magnolia leaves, the cracks in the sidewalk that the weeds shoot through, the crinkle in my toddler’s nose when she laughs—these are details I may not catch if I wait.
On second thought, though, maybe I’m not that crazy. Retrospective writing deserves real credit. In many ways, memories are so much stronger than our observations in media res. Even if flawed or incomplete, memories leave lasting impressions on us, meaning that they influence our inner realities to a much greater extent (and for a much longer period of time) than the tidbits of information we gather in the moment. Memories answer the question: What pieces of my lived experience will (for so many curious and interesting reasons) become essential to me while the rest fall away?
So here I sit, with my cursor blinking in the space where my fully lived experience and my unfinished essay meet. I turn up my palms to my future self offering her the heaps of minutiae that I’ve gathered. But it’s no use right now. Only she can tease out what matters from what doesn’t, and she has made it clear that she won’t be meeting me half-way.
Where does my essay go from here?
It’s a good question. I think I may just need to wait and see.
Meet Our Memoirists: Athena Dixon
In April, I met Athena Dixon in person when she traveled to Massachusetts from her home in Philadelphia to present at the Muse and the Marketplace, a three-day literary conference sponsored by the Boston-based writing center, Grub Street. I drove into the city from my home in New Hampshire, and Athena and I spent a couple of hours chatting about our lives and our writing over dinner at a bustling Asian restaurant. Athena’s natural warmth and charisma made for easy conversation. I left feeling like I’d spent the evening with a long-time friend.
Athena is an incredibly hard working and versatile writer. She is the author of the poetry chapbook, No God in This Room, (Argus House Press, 2017). She is the Founder and former Editor-in-Chief of Linden Avenue Literary Journal, which she unveiled in 2012. Her work has appeared in both print and online publications, and she’s twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Recently, her powerful essay, “The Incredible Shrinking Woman” appeared in the debut issue of Gay Magazine, a new magazine from acclaimed author Roxane Gay with a mission to offer “some of the most interesting and thoughtful cultural criticism to be found on the Web.” It’s clear that Athena’s dedication to her craft and incomparable work ethic are clearing a path for her voice to be impactful to readers in a particularly meaningful way. I asked Athena to share some of her experiences navigating the literary world and the wisdom she’s gathering in the process. I invite you to watch our author chat below and read the interview that follows to learn more about her and her brilliant writing.
Melanie Brooks: You are a busy woman! Your literary life is dynamic and multi-faceted. You write poetry, fiction, and nonfiction; edit Linden Avenue Literary Journal; speak regularly at conferences; and co-host a podcast for New Books in Poetry. You also work full time. How do you maintain your sanity through it all? What advice can you offer other writers who are struggling with work/life balance?
Athena Dixon: It can be a struggle. I always feel as if I have something vying for my attention. I do my best to allow myself downtime without feeling guilty about it. A friend of mine once told me that sometimes you need to input instead of output. So, when I am being “lazy” and not working on one of my projects I try to remind myself that whatever I am partaking in can possibly be included in something I will write later on.
I will say that I’ve really had to force myself to use Google Calendar to keep track of things because I’m still learning to say no and until I do so I need to be organized!
I’d say to approach your writing with both passion and logic. Yes, we all want to do what we love, but real life requires money. If that means you have to devise a schedule or a routine after your day job then you have to. That doesn’t mean you aren’t passionate, it means you have a job. Also, make dedicated time each year to attend workshops or conferences if you can. It doesn’t have to be one of the large ones. It can be anything from a local community college meet-up to an online course. Also, write when you can! There is no cookie cutter writer’s life. If you squeeze in lines during lunch break? Good! If you write an hour before bed? Great! If you know all you have is Sunday to craft? Then do it. There is no rule that says you have to write every day or like anyone else. Your journey is yours alone.
MB: Tell us about the memoir you are working on. What prompted you to begin that particular writing journey, and how is the process different from the other writing projects you’ve undertaken?
AD: My current memoir project is a collection of essays tentatively titled Reader Insert. It touches upon only a portion of my life, mainly the last eight or so years, but also reaches back to my childhood to give a foundation of how I came to be both accepting and disillusioned with my love life or lack thereof. I’d wanted to write a full life memoir, but I found my joy and interest in writing the essays that comprise the collection were the pieces that were pithier, more urgent, and raw. I took those kernels and reshaped the book.
My main inspiration has really been wanting to write for care burdened black girls, quiet girls, those who sometimes feel invisible or unheard. I had this nagging issue when I first began working on the original manuscript over two years ago that no one wanted to read such a thing. Thankfully, I’ve had a few friends tell me that my work is very much needed because there are people out there just like me who need a voice.
This is really the first full prose project I’ve undertaken. I’ve written quite a few standalone essays and even quite a bit of fan fiction, but this is the first time I’ve had to really think about how a collection of prose should be ordered, about through lines, and arc progressions. I’ve really been forced to be honest with myself and remove things in order to best serve the larger project and to organize by what makes sense versus what I love.
MB: In a recent blog post for Moving Forewords, “Doubt by Any Other Name: Thoughts on Impostor Syndrome,” you acknowledge the voices of doubt and fear that many writers wrestle with. Instead of pushing us to ignore those voices, you encourage us to “take stock of what [they’re] saying” because they might be trying to tell us something important about our work. Has taking this approach to self-doubt benefited your writing process? In what ways?
AD: It really has benefited me greatly. Instead of spending my energy on what can sometimes be false positivity, I can expend that same energy on trying to get to the root of what I’m feeling. Of course, there are days when those doubts and fears are really just doubts and fears. They aren’t rational. However, there are those times when they are trying to tell me something. I know when I haven’t fully prepared for an event or a task and I know that can sometimes manifest in me feeling as if I don’t belong. If I can acknowledge that, then I can better prepare myself for future situations that I know will spurn self-doubt.
Because I know my tendency to feel like an outsider or a fraud, I’m forced to really concentrate on making sure I’m prepared. I try to prep for events well in advance. I try to cover all my bases to avoid missteps. I concentrate on making sure the work I present to the world is the best I can possibly make it so it lessens my feelings of inadequacy. Doing each of these things has really helped me buckle down and hone my voice.
MB: In your writing and in your work at Linden Avenue Literary Journal, you strive to give voice to underrepresented writers. Why is this mission particularly important to you and what do you hope your voice can add to the conversation surrounding lack of inclusion in the writing industry?
AD: I remember feeling as if I was at a disadvantage when I entered writing and creative spaces in an academic setting. And this continued when I started submitting my work for publication. There is always an underlying current of expectation, the assumption that everyone has read the same books, attended the same programs, or know the same people. It puts writers from marginalized groups of any kind at a disadvantage because many times editorial boards do not reflect us as a readership or a world. And this spills over into the experiences and lenses through which they review and accept work.
When I started Linden Avenue, I wanted to make sure the playing field was level. It was my hope that by having black women at the head of the journal, we would be able to have a wider scope of experiences to allow the best work we came across to be published. These publications are not based on who someone knows, where they are from, or what their publication background may be.
In the end, I hope that I can contribute a safe and stable space for marginalized writers, one that doesn’t expect them to trade on trauma or carry the world in order to tell their stories. One in which they aren’t a token or regulated to special issues.
MB: We were excited to hear that you will be attending the Forbes Women’s Summit in New York City next week. What are you looking forward to the most? How will this experience help to fuel your creative life?
AD: I’m really looking forward to hearing from women who have blazed their own trails while still being fully present in other aspects of their lives. Sometimes creatives are forced into a “do what you love” narrative that does not take into account the other parts of our lives that need nurturing.
I think attending will really help me continue to be confident in the idea that everyone’s path is their own and it’s what you make of presented opportunities that can really push you forward. And, of course, being among so many successful and talented women is only going to make me work harder to be able to share my talents with the world.
MB: Thank you for this glimpse into your writing life, Athena! I’ve no doubt that your talents will continue to find space in the world, and I’m bursting with anticipation for all that’s ahead for you!
Heart Speak, The Writing Advice Column #4: Escaping the Forest of Endless Revision
Lisa,
I’ve been told it takes an average of ten years to write a memoir. If this is true, I’m right on track—maybe. Let me explain.
Ten years ago, with my new husband’s encouragement, I read his deceased daughter’s journals. Reading about this dead girl I’d never met, a young woman who died by suicide at age twenty-four, unveiled secrets and hard lessons from my past—secrets about faith, trust and honesty I didn’t want to confront. And so, a book idea was born.
Like Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, my story has interconnecting plots linked by a central theme. Weaving the character threads into one story has taken discipline and drive, qualities that are not obstacles for me until I’m mining the next layer of honesty in myself. Then I get lost in the forest of “Revision Times Infinity,” a place where fairies with magical potions like Puck cause me to imagine my name on the cover of a book. The book whose revision I have yet to finish.
I’m currently in the forest of “Revision Times Infinity.” Can you show me the way out?
Signed,
Lost in a Midwinter Night’s Dream
…..
Dear Lost in a Midwinter Night’s Dream,
Revision times infinity. Don’t many of us know it. There is no easy way to write a book and no exact timetable to follow, though memoirs generally take longer than fiction. Memoir poses unique challenges. Unlike fiction, where writers build truths around the worlds they’ve created, memoirists mine their experiences to excavate truths that are sometimes deeply buried. Wandering in the dark and bumping against the walls can lead to disorientation. No wonder you feel lost.
The first step in re-orienting yourself is determining what kind of book you’re writing. Some books work on us while others work through us. Writers of the latter form frequently describe their books as having been channeled. These rare projects require just as much effort, but the way forward is clear. Most memoirs are meant to change us. We’re inspired to write them because our experiences aren’t integrated. We spend years patiently picking them apart, trying to understand their meaning. As Andre Dubus III says in Melanie Brooks’s Writing Hard Stories, “Just because we know what happened, doesn’t mean we know what the hell happened.” Melanie adds, “It’s the figuring out the meaning within the chronology and understanding its impact that makes the writing part challenging.” In other words, until we know what the hell happened, the narrative arc eludes us.
I could offer the standard fare about taking classes, joining writing groups, finding beta readers, and working with professional editors, but I sense you’ve already done these things. You’re looking for something deeper.
Here’s your first question: What kind of book are you writing? (One that works on you or through you?)
Once you’ve identified the type of memoir you’re writing, envision your success. Create a collage of your narrative arc. Then create another one that reveals how you will have changed as a result of completing this project. Clip pictures from magazines or print them off the web. Get out the scissors and glue. Let your unconscious guide you as you pictorially imagine the comfortable resting place for your story. In the world of images, you may discover something that’s been evading you.
If you still feel stuck, pause. Sometimes we wander in the dark forest and feeling tricked by illusions because the ego mind is trying to defend a deeply held core belief or a traumatic experience. Fearing the examination will destroy us, the ego creates detours and impasses. If you already know this is happening, proceed with caution. Remind yourself of this book’s purpose: to change you, not the world. This work shouldn’t be rushed.
Counseling can sometimes help writers navigate these dark forests and create a safe space for an honest exploration of secrets and hard lessons. While traditional talk therapy is very useful, some writers benefit from sand tray therapy. Sand tray is an intensive form of projection therapy that bypasses the ego’s defenses. In sand tray, you arrange a series of objects in a sandbox while talking about your story. To the untrained eye, it looks like play. But in sand tray, blocks are revealed. Unexpressed emotions or needs rise to the surface so they can be attended to. By manipulating the items in the sand tray, you not only develop a new understanding of the story you’ve always told, but you can also change it at the brain level.
I’ve experienced sand tray therapy and have been trained as a practitioner. It’s a powerful healing modality. You’ll feel your feels and come away with realizations. But be forewarned. Sand tray is not for everyone. Consider it a possible source of inner guidance, but only follow this path if it speaks to you. Forcing yourself to confront things before you’re ready or for the wrong reasons (like getting published) is never helpful.
Sometimes the best thing to do when your draft is lost in the woods is to let it go. I’m not suggesting you give up on your manuscript, just that you may need more time away from it than you think. Distance may lead to new insights. Or, something may happen in your life that changes your memoir’s trajectory. While you’re waiting, write something new. Using the knowledge you’ve earned from this challenging process could be very satisfying. It could also lead to insights in this manuscript.
Dinty Moore writes about the benefits of letting go in his book The Mindful Writer. He spent four years drafting 360,000 words toward a book with unresolvable problems. When his agent finally told him to let it go, he was devastated. But within hours of releasing the manuscript he felt free. This freedom allowed him to write the book he’s most proud of.
Letting go is an act of faith. Anytime faith is involved, fear arises. Writers worry that letting go of a manuscript is a failure or that they’ll never write again. We misconstrue the work manuscripts do on us with something that must be published. We forget that personal transformation is the real miracle of memoir and that sometimes this is enough.
But you’ll tell me, I’m writing to get published.
And I’ve worked so hard.
Letting go is an act of courage. It’s living into the belief that your best work is in front of you, not behind you. It’s believing that nothing has been wasted. Anything you’ve learned over the past ten years will make your new projects even better. If this book is meant to be published, you’ll return to this manuscript. When you do, it will not only work on you but through you. At that time, a clear path out of the forest will appear.
You are a courageous writer, Lost. I have faith your wandering days will soon be behind you.
Warmly,
Lisa Ellison
Have a memoir question of your own? Contribute to the Heart Speak column.
Lisa Ellison is a writer, editor, and writing coach with an Ed.S in Clinical Mental Health and a background in mindfulness meditation. She teaches experiential workshops on The Art of Forgiveness and The Gifts of Grief as well as classes in memoir and creative nonfiction through WriterHouse, a nonprofit writing center in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Lisa is passionate about fostering authors’ creativity. Whether she’s working one-on-one or with a class, Lisa uses her knowledge of craft and love of human relationships to empower writers as they approach the page. Clients and students have commented that Lisa’s insights as well as her compassion and heartfelt encouragement have helped them achieve creative breakthroughs and complete their projects. Learn what writers have to say about working with Lisa.
Meet Our Memoirists: Lara Lillibridge
I’m thrilled to share that this week, Lara Lillibridge‘s second memoir, Mama, Mama, Only Mama: An Irreverent Guide for the Newly Single Parent—From Divorce and Dating to Cooking and Crafting, All While Raising the Kids and Maintaining Your Own Sanity (Sort Of)
(Skyhorse, 2019) has hit bookshelves everywhere! This oh-so-real and laugh-out-loud funny book about Lillibridge’s experiences single-parenting her two young boys, “Big Pants” and “Tiny Pants” resonates not just with single mothers, but with anyone who has faced the ups and downs of parenting. Lillibridge’s voice is an engaging mix of sarcasm, self-deprecation, dry wit, and unchecked honesty that makes her a refreshingly relatable and authentic narrator.
I first met Lara when we both read as part of a debut authors’ panel at HippoCamp: A Conference for Creative Nonfiction Writers in August of 2017. Lara’s first memoir, Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home, was to be released the following spring. This achingly moving story of trying to navigate the complicated, sometimes heartbreaking, layers of dysfunction in her childhood home was chosen as a 2018 finalist for both the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards and American Book Fest’s Best Book Awards. I recently talked with Lara about her two memoirs and her journey to bring them into the world. I invite you to watch our author chat below and read the interview that follows to learn more about her amazing work.
Melanie Brooks: This week, your second memoir, Mama, Mama, Only Mama, launches onto the scene. What has the pre-publication preparation (say that 3 times fast!) been like for you this time around? Is there particular insight that you gained from the publication of your first memoir that has influenced the way you are approaching the process now?
Lara Lillibridge: Patience! The first time around I’d stress out or lose hope every time I had a delay. This time around, I knew that delays are inevitable and that release dates are really just target dates at the beginning. I worked with the same editor for both books, so I was way more relaxed. I knew what sort of edits she’d likely make, and I trusted her judgement on all aspects of the book. I also knew what to expect in terms of publicity and to manage my expectations.
MB: In Girlish you courageously tackle many complex and often painful issues that defined your childhood and adolescence. For memoirists, this kind of personal exposure can be a pretty vulnerable place to live. Do you feel the same kind of vulnerability as you send Mama, Mama, Only Mama off to readers?
LL: I guess it’s different. Girlish I was awake nights with terror. I lost a bunch of weight from the stress of it. Only Mama is a different kind of fear, but not as terrifying, for several reasons. First, it’s lighter by design. Second, I was in a happier place in my life, and third, I know that I’ll live through whatever happens. The unknown is terrifying, but after going through it once and living, it is definitely easier the second time around. But with Only Mama I worry about how my kids will view it if they ever read it, that people will judge me for admitting to being such a flighty person, that I might seem like a bad mother. And of course with Girlish I worried about the risk of writing in 3rd person—if I had the chops to pull it off. With Only Mama I worry that it’s not literary and that readers of Girlish will be disappointed.
MB: Humor is a prominent feature in both of your memoirs, and I found myself laughing out loud so many times when I was reading them. Is the use of humor a conscious decision for you? Do you think there’s a so-called “right” balance of levity and seriousness when it comes to writing memoir?
LL: It’s weird—with Girlish I wasn’t trying to be intentionally funny—any funny moments are a result of my personality, and I think I am a naturally funny person. I did, however, look at the overall balance of the book and added in lighter chapters to keep it from being too dark.
Mama, Mama, Only Mama was the opposite. When I started the blog, I wanted it to be humorous, so I sort of trained my eye to look for funny moments or how a story could be told in an amusing way. I put the book together during the wait between when Girlish was signed and when it came out, and writing it was a much needed respite from the heaviness of Girlish.
One of my first beta readers, also a single mother, commented that it was too light and fluffy, and didn’t have any substance. I chewed on that for a long while, and realized that she was right. The first draft was funny, but it wasn’t honest. After Girlish came out, I realized I couldn’t be completely bare in book one and flippant in book two—it was a betrayal of the readers. So then I went back and wrote in some of the darkness of those years. I called my word doc of this revision “Only Mama—More Honest and Beautiful.” I think I made it around 35% darker, but also, I hope, more meaningful.
MB: You have made some distinctive choices in terms of the style and structure of each of your memoirs. Though Girlish is about you and your family, you’ve diverged from the traditional first person approach and refer to yourself as “Girl” throughout the story. Mama, Mama, Only Mama weaves lists of advice, posts from your “mommy blog,” and actual useable recipes into the overall narrative in a really effective and creative way. Did the writing take these forms initially or did you land on these narrative choices later in the process?
LL: With Girlish the change from first to third POV happened somewhere around the second draft. I wasn’t able to find the distance I needed in first person. For me, I discovered in grad school that “weirding it up” always helped my writing—when I give myself permission to write any way I want and throw out the rules, I come up with my best work.
In Mama, Mama, Only Mama the structure was sort of given to me—I was at HippoCamp, and an editor from Skyhorse Publishing did a presentation about thinking outside the book. She was specifically seeking books that taught you things, or that incorporated photography or visual elements. I decided then and there to include survival of the fittest type recipes in Only Mama. What’s funny is that this was before Skyhorse signed Girlish, so although I wrote it with them in mind, I didn’t have any idea at that time if they’d actually want it. Luckily, they did, and they were the perfect publisher for it. I love how they made the recipes look as if they are printed on a different paper, and how the blogs are formatted as if you are reading them on your phone. My beloved editor also found all the images used in the book. I wanted it to feel as if you are reading my diary, with torn out recipes and blogs tucked between the pages, and Skyhorse took my vision and ran with it.
MB: One question that many memoirists grapple with (myself included) is what’s okay and what’s not okay when it comes to writing about our children. I know that this has been an ongoing challenge for you, particularly in the second memoir that journeys through the ups and downs of single-motherhood. You write at the end of Mama, Mama, Only Mama, “This fall, I have agonized over the ethics of writing about my kids as they become more adult-like…” Can you talk more about that struggle? What would you say to other memoirists facing the same concerns?
LL: When I started my blog in 2013 I knew the Internet lives forever, and that someday my kids might eventually find and read everything I wrote about them. I tried my hardest never to take the cheap laugh of making fun of my kid—something I see parents do all the time. I think other parents understand that under the laughter is deep love for these little creatures, but the little creatures themselves may not see the humor in it until they are grown. As Mama, Mama, Only Mama went through its final revisions, my kids were very much involved in it. They’d suggest recipes or stories to include in the book. They knew I was writing about our family, and my oldest occasionally read my blogs online. I found myself telling my kids, “don’t worry, I won’t write about this,” on more than one occasion. That was when I made the decision to stop writing about them for now. I didn’t want them to grow up looking over their shoulder, afraid that I would share their most embarrassing moments on the internet. I want them to trust me with their secrets.
At this point I have asked them not to read either of my memoirs, as I wrote them for adults. There’s a lot of content in both books that isn’t appropriate for children. I did offer my eldest the chance to read the chapters that he appeared in before I submitted the final version to my editor, but at the time he decided not to—he said that he trusted me and didn’t want me to change things based on his opinion when the book was written for adults. Now that both my kids are older I worry that they may regret that I have two memoirs out there, but we have spoken extensively on why I think the books are important—how books can reach out across the country and maybe, if they’re done well, help someone else feel less alone.
MB: You’ve published two books in two years. Is there another one on the horizon? How do you keep the creative momentum going?
LL: Publishing memoir is terrifying and anxiety ridden for me. The way I cope is by working on something completely different while I’m in the pre-publication stage. I started writing Only Mama while I was pitching Girlish. Once that was solid, I started writing Dragon Brothers, a middle grade novel written for my kids. Every night I’d read that day’s chapter and they’d tell me when the character’s voices were off, and if they fell asleep while I was reading I knew the action had lagged. Now I’m pitching Dragon Brothers and working on a couple of new projects. Writing is my happy thing, and I’m lucky to be able to devote a lot of time to it.
MB: Thank you so much for letting us peer into your process, Lara! I’m so excited for you as Only Mama settles into the hands of readers, and I’m looking forward to hearing more news of the latest book you are writing!
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