Honesty versus loyalty in memoir writing

Last night I had one of the most vivid and disturbing dreams I have had in years. In it, my father put his hands around my throat and tried to strangle me. After an initial struggle I managed to overpower him, wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze the life out of him.

Normally, that would have been quite enough to be going on with, but, in the way of dreams, I realised that earlier in the day I had somehow also been responsible for killing my mother. In the dream I was not overly upset by their deaths, my major concern was over how to dispose of their bodies without being caught.

Jump to a moment of me chopping up bodies and putting them in a suitcase (I have recently watched The Jinx, I am hoping I can blame it for this turn of events!). Then jump to a moment of me shoving the suitcase in the back seat of the car I was using to drive me to bookstores to promote my newly released memoir.

Now I know people say that hearing other people’s dreams is about as interesting as watching paint dry, so most likely there will be very few people still reading at this point, but for those of you who have persevered, this dream feels like it is a doorway into the deeper feelings I have about putting my story out in the world.

Writing a memoir is, by its nature, a very personal experience. I am telling the story not just of my life, but of the lives of others. I have tried my hardest to do that story justice – to be honest, transparent and generous. But a lot of the terrain I have covered in my book is not pretty. And I do wonder how my Mum and Dad would feel to see themselves represented through my lens.

There’s a saying that goes, “Blood makes you related, but loyalty makes you family.”

I have thought a lot about this during the process of writing my book. So what is loyalty? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as, “giving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution.”

It also defines the word “betray” to mean, to “expose (one’s country, a group, or a person) to danger by treacherously giving information to an enemy.” Or, in another definition, “Be gravely disloyal to.”

Intellectually, I know that in family systems, especially family systems where abuse is occurring, the concept of loyalty can be extremely damaging. It can mean that children become secret keepers. That they see themselves as worthy of abuse rather than asking whether what their parents are doing is wrong. It can mean that they would rather betray themselves than their parents. It can also mean that when these “loyal” children develop into adults, they stay true to the dynamic of their family of origin, which may mean that their own children may be doomed to live within familiar patterns of abuse.

There can be big downsides to loyalty. But there are some pretty major upsides as well. For me, the biggest upside is the sense of belonging. I think one of the reasons writing a memoir is difficult, and is now giving me nightmares of myself as a callous murderer, is the deep-seated fear that I am now moments away from being thrown out of my tribe.

There is also the fact that I generally think of myself a loyal person. If I love you, I will fight for you, defend you, sing your praises, help you succeed. I am loyal to my Mum, my brother and sister. I am loyal my husband and kids. I am loyal to my friends.

But I also have a strong need for openness and honesty. If there is an elephant in the room my brain keeps shouting, “Elephant! Elephant! Elephant!” so loud that the words often end up trumpeting out of my mouth.

The people in my life who get me, love that about me (thank God, because seriously I can’t seem to shut myself up!) But not everyone is so keen on honesty. Some people think that loyalty means seeing no evil, hearing no evil, keeping quiet and toeing the line. For those people, loyalty and honesty are completely at odds.

But for me, they aren’t. I want the people in my life to speak their truth. I want them to tell me when I step on their toes or push against a boundary or say something that hurts them. And I want them to know that though the moment might feel a bit awkward and full-on, and though it may not always be handled graciously, I will always circle back, reflect on what they have said and hear them.

In making room in my relationships for both loyalty and honesty, hopefully it will mean that I have the privilege of truly knowing the minds and hearts of my nearest and dearest, so I can connect to them more deeply. That has got to be a good thing.

So maybe I can find a new way to interpret the dream. Reflecting on my childhood has allowed me to see my parents as flawed people who were doing the best that they could, rather than merely objects that failed to fulfil the needs and wants of my childhood. Maybe the father and mother I murdered was the outdated image I was held of them from the past. Maybe I needed to chop my parents into pieces so I could put them back together again in a way that made sense to me. (But don’t tell the dream police, I’m not sure they would understand.)

What do you think? Is it possible for loyalty and honesty to exist together? Would you ever write a memoir?

One of my darlings I had to kill

William Faulkner wrote, “In writing you must kill your darlings.”

So what does that actually mean? It means that piece of perfect prose or amazing analogy you have spent weeks agonizing over, the one that elevates your work to a new level but doesn’t fit with the story you are telling, must go.

It can be hard to say goodbye, but if you want to write with clarity and strength, rather than meander through a series of prettily written passages that take the reader nowhere, kill your darlings you must.

I recently had to do it in my manuscript. I had discovered an image that not only drew comparisons between my childhood story and a weapon of war, but that also hit me on a visceral level as a true representation of how the disintegration of my family felt. It was a shining beacon of perfection. But there was a problem.

This glowing passage, by its very nature, had to be written in an adult voice. And my story is written from my child perspective. So, though I loved it, still think it is a brilliant analogy, you will only find echoes of it in my book. And I am okay with that, because though I love clever writing, I love story more.

That doesn’t mean, however, that no one will ever see the analogy. You can see it right here, right now. How lucky are you! So here it is, the darling I had to kill.

***

When a bomb goes off, it causes damage in different ways – rupturing, tearing and piercing.

Firstly, the blast forces highly compressed air particles to travel faster than the speed of sound, rupturing air-filled structures like the lung, ear, and gut.

Then, more intense energy in the form of shockwaves passes through the organs and tissues, disrupting molecules and tearing at internal structures.

Moving into secondary fragmentation, the bomb casing and shrapnel is thrown violently outward piercing soft flesh and releasing more dangerous fragments when it strikes buildings and glass.

Finally, when the vacuum created by the rapid outward movement of the blast refills itself with the surrounding atmosphere, it creates a high-intensity wind that causes people, buildings and fragmented objects to be drawn back in toward the source of the explosion.

I didn’t know it yet, but Dad’s leaving had thrown a bomb into our family. In a few short days, our lives would be blown apart. I was about to spend the next six years sifting through wreckage…

I reassured myself that tomorrow Mum would be back to her old self, standing at the stove cooking chops and veges for dinner…

It turned out, I was very wrong. The highly compressed air had already blasted from the bomb. The concrete structure of rules and schedules that had defined my life with Dad was razed to the ground, and the mother I had always known was never coming back.

***

So there it is. My darling does live after all. Have you killed any darlings lately?

Stop comparing. Be kind to your writing self

When I decided to try my hand at writing a book I did what I normally do when embarking on a journey into the unknown: I researched. 

I read books on story structure, creative writing and memoir. Armed with all of this helpful information, I began the task of getting words down onto a page.

  

Once I was a ways into my manuscript, I listened to podcasts like this one and this one, and wrapped my head around the difference between plotters and pantsers, the merits of a crappy first draft and how best to utilize beta readers.

When I was nearing a stage of being ready to show my work to someone, I poured over blog posts on author platforms, the publishing process and pitching.

In the past few years have managed to write and edit a manuscript, get an agent, find a publisher, and am now on the cusp of launching my first book. Some might say that is a reasonable effort.

But during my on-line research, I read (continue to read!) many accounts of authors finishing their first book, starting immediately on their next, and continuing a cycle of churning out books at a dizzying pace. One book a year. Often two. Some people hammering them out in a few short months! I wanted to be one of those authors.

For most of my life I have pushed myself hard. Take no prisoners. Cut no slack. I am a doer who gets things done. In my work as a copywriter, I am the queen of quick turnaround. I gain great satisfaction from beating deadlines and exceeding expectations.

I planned for it to be the same with writing books. But I hadn’t counted on the way delving into my emotional world could sap my drive.

In all my years of writing copy for brochures, websites, and business plans, I can’t say I have ever shed a tear. The same cannot be said of writing a memoir covering such light-weight terrain as my deepest childhood wounds and the trauma of war. (There are funny, happy bits as well – promise!)

Still, despite the fact that some days I felt so drained I could barely put one foot in front of the other, I tried to stick to my guns. I was determined to have the first draft of my next book, a young adult fiction, completed by the time Enemy hit the shelves.

With that goal set, as soon as my memoir manuscript was with my editor, I started in. I began churning out words and managed to get about a quarter of the way into the draft. Then the edits came back, and I had to rake back over that old ground. Each time I re-worked a section I re-lived the experience on which it was based, feeling those old feelings so I could distil them into the purest emotional truth I knew.

By this time, I had started to feel tired. Deep down to my bones tired.

But I have never been one to let the mundane fact that I am human stop me from pushing myself like a machine. So when I finished that next editing process, I jumped straight back to my other manuscript.

But I could feel my blood running thin, like my foot was on the accelerator but there was nothing in the tank. Finally, after finding myself wide awake night after night with stress pulsing in my gut, and hacking up a lung each day for three months from a cold I couldn’t shake, I began to question what the hell I was trying to prove. And to whom.

I think part of my motivation was fear. I felt so lucky to have had a book accepted for publication that I wanted to prove – to myself, to my agent, to my publishers – that their faith in me was not misplaced. Another reason I wanted it done was because I had heard that writing a second book was harder than writing a first, and I wanted to see if I could do it. There was also the fact that before someone suggested I should give fiction a go, it had never occurred to me. And I was really excited by the idea.    

But though I still think about my YA book all the time, I have had to face up to the fact that I am not going to be one of those quick turnaround authors. My first book is hitting the shelves in three days time, and my second manuscript is not finished. And you know what, I am okay with that. More than okay.

I am a first-time author. I am still figuring out what my writing process actually is. So I am taking the pressure off. I am not going to fall into the comparison trap. I am practicing being kind to myself, instead of always expecting more.

Besides, I have written a book. An actual factual book that people can buy from bookshops. That is a peak life experience right there. I need to spend the next few months mooning about the place with a big smile on my face, letting the wonderful delightfulness of it all sink in.

Then, once my feet touch the ground again, I am going to get back into my YA. Not to prove anything to the imaginary critics in my head. But because the guy in it is so hot. And my lead character is so funny. And I need to figure out what happens between her and her mother. And what goes down between her Mum and her aunt…

Now that I have had a taste of writing books, I am hooked. I want to do it for a long time. That means protecting myself against burnout, and choosing the carrot over the stick. No more comparisons. Just me with a laptop having fun with my imaginary friends.

Each person's creative process is as unique as the work they produce. How do you approach your writing?

How to narrow the focus of your memoir

One of the main issues I have found with memoir writing is not lack of material, but rather too much. Each day has moments worthy of notice and attention. If you add a lifetime of days together, that is a ridiculously overwhelming volume of material to work with.

Another problem is, that although there are moments from your life that are incredibly important to you on an individual level, they may not be at all important to your memoir on a story level. So how do you narrow your focus?

I heard a piece of advice (from a podcast I listened to years ago and I can no longer find- doh!) that helped me enormously in this process. The wise person said that she saw memoir as a piece of non-fiction writing where you are making an argument for something, and your life story is merely an illustration of the point you are trying to make. The example she gave was that someone could write a memoir making the argument, ‘Life is better when you share it with a cat.’ You would then go on to draw examples from your own life that demonstrated this.

I love the way this concept stops your memoir merely being about you as an individual and broadens it into something larger and richer. When I took her idea and applied it to my own book, it took me months of driving myself bananas to come up with something that I thought really captured what I was trying to communicate. I decided the ‘argument’ of my book was: ‘If we don’t look after veterans, it is not just them, but their families, who pay the price.’

This was a very effective way to separate out the stories that needed to be included in my book from the ones that didn’t. That’s not to say it was easy. Some of the stories I left on the curb were favourites of mine. ‘Killing your darlings’ takes on a whole new meaning when the story you are abandoning is very personal and intensely meaningful… but it is necessary.

A memoir is not a journal. It is something you are writing for an audience. If you can’t make tough decisions about what belongs and what doesn’t, you will never create the clarity necessary to transform a bunch of stories into a book.

What about you? What techniques have you found helpful to help narrow the focus of your memoir?

A few memoirs to get you started

If you are new to memoirs and looking for a few recommendations, these books are well worth a look.

If you like witty hilarity and outrageous extremes, read 'Running with Scissors' and 'Dry' by Augusten Burroughs. His writing is amazing as well.

Like a beverage or two? I do not mind a drink myself, and I am now desperate to go out drinking and hanging on every word Judith Lucy says after reading 'The Lucy Family Alphabet'. To be fair I have wanted to go out drinking with Judith Lucy ever since I first saw her comedy…

One of my favourite books from childhood, 'The Story of my Life' by Helen Keller, stands the test of time. An amazing piece of writing, and an insight into living in the world as a deaf and blind person.

'Angela’s Ashes' by Frank McCourt plunges you into the wet misery of extreme poverty in Ireland. Set amongst a backdrop of Catholic guilt, and told with wonderful lyricism and humour, it was one of the books that changed the way we now think of memoir. Read this if you love a good tale, well told.

If you want to run away and live in an abandoned villa in the Tuscan countryside (yes please!), read 'Under the Tuscan Sun' by Frances Mayes

I was transfixed by A.B. Facey’s, 'A Fortunate Life', when I read it as a teenager in the Rocky High library. Such an open, emotionally vulnerable account of a child’s relationship with his mother, especially given the era. Read this if you want to learn something about Australian history and hardship and how to keep rising above the circumstances you find yourself in.

I was completely captivated by the way James Frey described his rage in 'A Million Little Pieces'.  I don’t care if he made up some of the book, his emotional truth is indisputable.

If you like Amy Poelher, you will love her part memoir/ part manifesto, 'Yes Please', for its wisdom and laugh-out-loud moments.

I wanted to become part of Ahn Do’s family after reading his memoir, 'The Happiest Refugee'. Some of his stories made me snort with laughter, others made me cry. Read this if you love a positive take on life.

If you like the idea of going on a pilgrimage from the comfort of your own home, you will like 'Wild' by Cheryl Strayed. Wonderfully written, it made me want to take off into the bush on my own, though I did spend the entire book thanking my lucky stars that it was she, not me, carrying her ridiculously heavy backpack.

I have always loved Alan Cumming as a performer, but I mostly loved his book 'Not my Father’s Son', as it is one of the few memoirs I have read that covers the terrain of a child’s experience growing up with a violent father, and the way that relationship evolves into adulthood. I related to so many aspects of his life. 

'Too Close to the Falls' by Catherine Gildiner was an absolute pleasure to read. A wonderfully quirky story of a girl who didn't fit the normal mold, but carved a niche for herself regardless. Read this if you love beautiful writing and delightful characters.

Magda Szubanski’s 'Reckoning' is a wonderful memoir. Though Magda is a celebrity, this is not the story of her public life. It is a far deeper and more meaningful search for authentic identity and a quest to understand more about her father, a World War II veteran, all underpinned by a love for her family that was palpable throughout.

I could go on, but these are a few to get you started.

Where do you work when you write?

When I initially decided 2014 was the year I was going to finish my memoir, I went to the office to work (my husband and I are business partners in a graphic design/copywriting studio, Mono Design, where we share space with architects, event managers, film makers and exhibition designers). But after a few weeks, I came to realise that while I can stand constant interruption when I am copywriting, it is not the same for me with creative writing.

When I am inhabiting a scene, tuning into sights and sounds, capturing voices, feeling the way my body is responding to the world I am creating, I don’t want company, or any other version of reality infringing on my headspace. When I am boiling down the essence of what something means to me, I might spend over an hour trying to get a sentence right. I can’t afford to have any other words in my head except my own, otherwise I might miss the click when the world suddenly shifts into alignment and everything sounds exactly the way it is meant to. So I have spent the year working alone at home in blissful silence.

Where do you work when you write?

The Shame Game

I recently read the document Change the Story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia.

It states:

Australia has a choice. We can change the story that currently sees a woman murdered every week by a current or former partner…

Violence against women and their children is not an inevitable or intractable social problem…

Although there is no single cause of violence against women and their children, the latest international evidence shows there are certain factors that consistently predict – or drive – higher levels of violence against women. These include beliefs and behaviours reflecting disrespect for women, low support for gender equality and adherence to rigid or stereotypical gender roles, relations and identities…

What this framework makes clear is that gender inequality is the core of the problem and it is the heart of the solution.

Discussing this report with some people at a barbeque the other day, someone floated the idea of shared responsibility. They suggested that if we witness a man inflicting violence against a woman, even if it is their intimate partner, and we do nothing to act, then we have to consider ourselves part of the problem.

In some ways, this seems like a valid idea. I know that when I was a child and people witnessed my father acting violently toward me, I interpreted their not stepping in to mean they thought I deserved to be treated that way. As a reaction to this, throughout my life, I have stepped in on multiple occasions and told men off for acting like arseholes. But I have to admit, in doing so, I think I probably put myself in dangerous situations that I was lucky didn’t turn seriously bad.

Since I have had kids I know there is no way I would be willing to put them at risk in this way. If they were with me, the best I could do would be to call the police. And given how stretched they already are dealing with domestic violence, would that end up being effective?

I also wonder, if I brought to a man’s attention, whilst he was already in the middle of a violent rage, how wrong he was, how badly I was judging his behavior, would that make the situation turn out better for the woman? Might he not be likely to punish her more when he got home? Would I also be in some way responsible for that?

I am a massive fan of Brene Brown’s work. (If you don’t know her, start with her Ted talk The Power of Vulnerability. Seriously mind blowing. https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en) One of the things Brene’s work as a shame researcher has revealed, is that shame is highly correlated with violence, aggression and bullying. This is the result of decades of research in the area. So I think it is safe to say that heaping shame on people who are already acting violently is unlikely to achieve the outcome we want.

It breaks my heart to read ‘in Australia, at least one woman a week is killed by a partner or former partner’. It appalls me that ‘intimate partner violence contributes to more death, disability and illness in women aged 15 to 44 than any other preventable risk factor.’

Obviously things need to change. And though I wish we could wave a magic wand and stop the violence now, I know this not going to happen. This situation has been going on for a long time. It makes sense that it will take a long time to effect real change upon it. But since Rosie Batty won the 2015 Australian of the Year, it feels like we are at last owning up to the problem. That is always the first step.

But there is one more thing we can all work toward. If, as Change the Story suggests, inequality is the ‘core of the problem’ and ‘heart of the solution,’ as a society we can work together to make it completely unacceptable to treat women as less than. This means respecting their value on every level, ensuring they have equal rights, equal pay, and access to services that allow them make appropriate decisions for themselves and their children.