5 things I learned about the early stages of drafting a memoir

Last week I took several vacation days from work to join a “generative memoir bootcamp” led by Katie Bannon, a smart, generous, and talented writer and book coach.

(You can learn more about Katie by reading her post, 5 Reasons To Write Your Taboo Stories, or her reported essay, “I couldn’t stop pulling my hair, What was wrong with me?” published last week by the Washington Post).

This was the first time I’d really allowed myself the space and time to work on my own writing since I completed my MFA in 2014…and, to be honest, I should’ve done this sooner.

Over the past 15 years I’ve been working on essays and other stand-alone writing projects that have often tend to swirl around some very similar themes including: 1980s culture and horror movies, masculinity, and fatherhood; about being in longterm 12-step recovery and growing up with two parents damaged by historical and familial trauma; about how victims can be perpetrators and vice-versa, and about the monsters who live inside as well as outside ourselves.

Out of all these different themes and memories, I started to see some possible throughlines for a single project.

Here are my five big takeaways —things I learned or else was reminded of—from my week-long retreat

Build in accountability from the start

Early on last week I wrote myself a note in order to keep going.

Lower the stakes. Create some concrete steps and assignments. Build in accountability.

Let’s get to the last one first: for me accountability is key to moving forward with drafting. Committing myself publicly to a project through tools like “bookending” or an accountability group helps me to keep moving forward.

Speaking of which, I’ve decided to start my own weekly AWESOME FIRST DRAFT QUIET WRITING SESSIONS via Zoom on Mondays from 6:45 AM to 8 AM Pacific time (9:45 to 11 AM East Coast). It’s a chance for me to help both you and me stay accountable!

The Zoom meetings starts next week on Monday, November 13th and are FREE for all paid subscribers.

My intention with this group is to create an environment that’s conducive to moving forward with our writing projects in a respectful, grounding, low stakes environment.

You can learn all the details here.

Find ways to lower the stakes

I am a recovering perfectionist, which means I’ve spent more than my fair share of time over the years writing and rewriting beginnings and then running out of time; or else not really getting to the things I most wanted to. Often it’s meant not finishing drafts, and thus not getting to deep revisions—the step in which you start understanding what your project might really be about. (See the discussion of “situation” and “story” below)

Over time I’ve worked to embrace some version of what Anne Lamott called, in Bird by Bird, “Shitty First Drafts.”

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head.”

Most often that means writing using the Pomodoro Method of 2 or more timed writing sessions with short breaks in between. (More about the Pomodoro method here). I find these sessions most helpful when working on difficult subjects that I suspect may trip me up.

Last week I also tried another approach that helped me generate new work. In the past, I’ve noticed I tend to get into a more “writerly” mode, or tend to “compose” more when I write on the computer.

So instead, I tried first writing all my assignments by hand.

What I noticed is that writing by hand connects me with a more visceral part of myself. I found myself making more unexpected associations, landing on unusual memories, or pushing myself to try different phrasing for things. Writing by hand also encouraged me to keep going…to let go of my left-brain, critical side and get to the end of the assignment.

One drawback: my prose is almost always much rougher when writing by hand. So there’s more work involved in separate wheat from chaff.

I also coupled writing by hand with setting an intention each day to stay focused *on this specific project.*

I found that setting this intention helped me to take my overall commitment to my project seriously even as it helped me lower the stakes as I approached each day’s writing.

Do some planning up front…

Katie’s generative memoir bootcamp was filled with exercises to help participants better understand the building blocks of literary memoir. These included assignments that helped us by:

• reviewing the elements of scene vs scene summary

• understanding the difference between “situation” and “story”

• building character and incorporating “world-building” in memoir

• sketching out a possible story arc

• developing a potential list of scenes, and more.

One big takeaway from the week is that doing some planning work even at the beginning stages of drafting can be incredibly helpful in both sharpening the focus and creating more of an arc from the outset.

…but stay very flexible, especially about “story” and structure

One of the cornerstones for understanding memoir is Vivian Gornick’s The Situation and the Story. For a longer discussion about this book I highly recommend

Maria Popova

’s excellent summary here, but in a nutshell here’s the distinction Gornick draws:

Every work of literature has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say.

Moreover, what your story is about will often dictate the final form of the book itself…these two concepts—“story” and structure—being very closely connected.

One drawback of the many writing workshops or trainings I’ve attended in the past past is that some instructors approach “story” and structure as something to be teased out and understood at the beginning of a project.

But the reality is that both elements come into focus over time; structure can change and story deepens over the course of rewrites.

So while your planning should including some sense of what you want your project to be “about,” you also want to create a writing strategy that permits this to evolve. (For more discussion on this, I also recommend reading

Jeannine Ouellette

on “aboutness”).

In a similar vein, I think it’s important to pick a memoir structure that feels interesting and maybe even playful enough to help you generate an exciting first draft.

However, having key elements including “story” and structure sketched out in advance does not mean that they will stay the same throughout your drafting.

Indeed, the process of drafting and revising memoir is the process of constantly reassessing these elements.

Go where the heat is

This is a big one for me. The truth is I don’t know how many writing sessions I’ve wasted over the years trying to get back into a scene or assignment long after the emotion that sparked it has cooled off.

At this point I’m simply rearranging sentences the way you would restack chairs. Or I fight the urge to surf online or go wash the dishes. Anything to escape the surging frustration I feel with writing. And not surprisingly, I leave these sessions feeling dejected…like I’ve accomplished little.

By contrast, learning to find the “heat” in my writing helped me hone in on what preoccupied me that day…what I wanted to understand, develop, dive back into.

Here are a couple of ways I encouraged myself to pursue the writing that felt most exciting:

• I reviewed the list of scenes I’ve drawn up for my project. Or I looked over the many planning exercises assigned. Which one(s) called out to me on this particular day?

• When I wrote by hand and found myself particularly moved, amused, or confused by a moment or idea, I asked myself if I wanted to know more.

I’ve learned I’m better served when I can honest with myself about what I’m excited to write today. This feels especially important at the crappy first draft stage.