But I Don't Want to Write a Memoir
Rita Shaler-Nelson -- March 9, 2008
I have always wanted to write fiction. I have toyed with ideas but never had one I could envision bringing to fruition, all the while resisting writing the story I already knew from beginning to end, from inside and out. I knew it so well, so completely, because I had lived it.
I am a private person though, private to the extreme, perhaps. So, why this story and why now am I willing to let it out? Because I suddenly became compelled to tell it. That is the word, the one perfect word, which I did not have to search for because it simply was, and I have since read that it is often like that for writers. It is a fitting word and it is true; for many of us there simply comes a time when our own story must be told. So, yes, I am writing a memoir.
For the first two months I woke up suddenly, before the sun even, with words and ideas flowing so fast I raced to my small office and could hardly wait to turn on the computer and start. The writing was surprisingly easy. I was brimming with excitement, enthusiasm and ideas.
The reliving, dwelling on my past, however, was not so easy. Uncomfortable feelings were rushing in and taking up residence in my present and current life, but unwelcome though they were, they were not uninvited. Knowing full well what I would find there, I had opened the door to those feelings when I cracked open the pages of my diaries and journals, which had sat mostly untouched for over twenty years. I didn't go there looking for material for a book. I had no intention to write about those days. I was just visiting. I thought I'd take a peek and close the books yet again, maybe for good. But instead, once I was there meandering around in my past, I found it too interesting a place to just turn back around and leave. I was drawn in, and the only way out now is through the retelling.
Getting the depictions down, the details documented, is sometimes the only release for the flood of feelings that overwhelm me. But it isn't about personal catharsis. Going to those difficult places is the pathway I think to meaningful writing, and so as a writer, it is a joy. If I can go to that place I left behind long ago and give birth to a work worthy of the word literature, then perhaps I can redeem some of the mistakes and losses and regrets.
My central character is someone who wasn't that bad, but she wasn't as good as she thought she was either, and that is the crux of the story. She was, however, fun and interesting, willing to take risks, brave, loving and hopeful, and, as she discovered to her own disappointment, flawed.
What happens to her story after I have finished writing it, once I have made the last revisions and done as much as I can do to bring it all to life within the afforded splendor, as well as the limitations of the written word, will be out of my hands to a large extent. The story may or may not be read by one or two, or ten or twenty others, or more. That is not my ultimate concern at the moment. I am simply concentrating on telling the tale and trying to do it justice. It is my offering to that girl, and I didn't just know of her, or dream her up. I wish I had. But the truth is, I used to be her.