I think it's about exploring the intersection with what feels safe enough to share and what feels unsafe. There are things I want to share in my writing that I feel I need to share - the truth, my truth, my voice - but which also feel too dangerous. That the repercussions might be bigger than I can handle. When a family holds many secrets and someone is left carrying the burden of those secrets and wants very much to let go of the burden for their own health, wellbeing and sense of justice, how can this be done when other family members may be hurt, damaged or in denial of the facts? It's about finding the confidence to speak when your experience has previously always been denied. In IFS therapy fir me currently it's exploring the conflicting parts who want to be seen and heard and the others who would rather hide and stay quiet. Which is 'right'? For me writing memor is what feels most true and alive and flowing. I have no idea or desire currently to write fiction but it also feels dangerous.
Danger is exactly it. It feels dangerous sometimes even to be having thoughts that are yet to make their way onto the page. That sense of story and meaning forming around ideas and memories that might throw light on others or events that are painful or long-buried. Your version of events won't be theirs, but it doesn't make anyone's less valid. The thing is to be able to step back and acknowledge this. The fallibility of memory. Of feeling. As well as the way our feelings change. I think back to the writing of my first memoir nearly half a decade ago now and I know I'd write it differently now. It's an exciting creative challenge, actually, to think how it might evolve with me, that story. Best of luck, and let's keep chatting memoir. I am here for it all!
Fabulous piece, Lindsay, that's firing up so many thoughts and feels. To echo what Layla is saying, I also think that craft, as in our craft as writers, is what carries us through to the places where our writing wants to go - craft as a small boat in a storm at night. There is no doubt in my mind that our stories, all our stories, need to be told (lest we want to keep going as we have so far!), and anyone saying otherwise is invested in maintaining the status quo. It's going to be disruptive, it's going to take tremendous courage, but it's also going to be glorious!
Craft as in our small boat in a storm at night: YES! I love this. We are journeying, aren't we, and trying to find the best route to wherever it is we're heading.
This has sparked lots of ideas Lindsay. With my current memoir project, I started writing poems about some of the key moments years ago and only felt ready to move into prose this year. Wondering if I can weave the two together to add more layers of meaning.
I’m with you - I love a good rule and tend to put different forms of writing in different boxes, and never the twain shall meet. Layla’s writing in the dark sessions sound the perfect time to practice breaking some rules!
I want to be looser in my work in just this way, Ellen. The project I'm working on at the moment doesn't have much space for this, but I found that when I wrote on Friday morning alongside you and the others in the dark that I could follow the train of my thought in a different way. I often feel a bi bound by the rules and want to develop confidence in breaking them!
Your post really inspired me into action Lindsey. Thank you! Since reading it I’ve started to organise my ‘WIP’ files to pull all the fragments into one place - (which could take some time) and also completed the Google form for MIAM (if you still have places available).
I know how I want my writing to progress in 2025 but have definitely dithered between memoir, fiction and autofiction since completing an MA in 2018.
Lily’s post below, completely captures the main conflict I’m experiencing between self protection, and not knowing how to handle the more difficult issues that writing memoir throws up (I’m so grateful to have found you both here!).
I’m also planning to take a refresher certificate course in Psychosynthesis (which itself has a backstory connected to the memoir I want to write) so I can update my knowledge, but mostly to work through the writing blocks I have at a deeper level so that I can really connect to the truth of what I want to say.
It feels like the many different paths I’ve followed are now leading me, finally, to the centre and back to my self 🙏💕
Now, I have NO idea about pyschosynthesis and would love you to enlighten me! So delighted that this has propelled you into action, Jaimie, and that we have the chance to work together in January with what's shaping up to be a brilliant group of writers. I love that image at the end of the paths. Everything is everything, and we are where we are at this moment because of it all - good and bad.
I’ll definitely do my best to answer what Psychosynthesis is over the next few weeks and months Lindsay. The course starts in early February and my work with you, Beth Kempton and Lily, is going to provide me with anchor points across the year. I’m sitting in gratitude for each of you, how everything has come together, and starting a Tarot process to prepare across the mid winter before we get started on 15th January with a head too full to say much coherently yet! Stepping into a new cycle of the unknown … 💕
Gosh Lindsay, so much sparking in me from this great piece. The 'alternative paths' is where I find it gets REALLY interesting for me when I'm writing, constantly excavating to find the way to write about something that is deeply true, but also sometimes poetic rather than literal. I find it interesting that some of my favourite memoirs of late have all been by poets - Amy Key, Doireann Ní Griofa, Tamarin Norwood ... when that 'alternate route' is found for the telling, it is exquisite.
I just read Amy Key's and LOVED the way she used Blue to structure her thoughts. What a beautiful thing. Haven't come across the others, but will be adding to my list. Lots of love above on your Friday morning sessions and the opportunity they offer us to think and write differently. There's something very free about the mind at that time of day. Can't wait for Friday x
I love that Febos quote and I agree that we should find whatever way we can write our story. I really agree with this. But I also agree narrative nonfiction is far more flexible than many realise. I did a talk recently for the MA students at Bath spa and was struck that loads of them were writing ‘autofiction’ - because they wanted to write about their lives but wanted to protect themselves behind ‘fiction’. What I took from this is that there is a real movement still - and maybe even more so - to write from life. But I also felt a bit disappointed they weren’t choosing memoir. Memoir I think still has a kind of stigma around it and I’m sorry about this, because it’s ability to get to the heart of the matter and to tell it as it is has a boldness and courage that feels essential somehow. Anything less feels a continuation of that shame. (I know there is the whole question of hurting others and this is perennially difficult to overcome). Also, as I pointed out to them, if someone wants to see themselves in what you write they will see it in fiction as well as nonfiction . Fiction doesn’t necessarily protect you from that.
"Memoir I think still has a kind of stigma around it and I’m sorry about this, because it’s ability to get to the heart of the matter and to tell it as it is has a boldness and courage that feels essential somehow." This, Lily, it takes so much courage to write memoir, and it's exactly what is required of us in these times.
Very timely for me! I'm about halfway through writing my own memoir and roughly once a week, this week it was today, I ask myself "why am I even doing this, who is going to want to read this?" And convince myself I should better stop writing altogether. I will remember this quote: "Maybe in this way you’ll allow yourself to go to the places your writing really needs to go instead of shutting yourself off to it."
YES! So glad that you've taken something of value for you this week, Sophie! Can't wait to hear how it goes. Now, get that quote on a post-it and put it somewhere prominent!
I think it's about exploring the intersection with what feels safe enough to share and what feels unsafe. There are things I want to share in my writing that I feel I need to share - the truth, my truth, my voice - but which also feel too dangerous. That the repercussions might be bigger than I can handle. When a family holds many secrets and someone is left carrying the burden of those secrets and wants very much to let go of the burden for their own health, wellbeing and sense of justice, how can this be done when other family members may be hurt, damaged or in denial of the facts? It's about finding the confidence to speak when your experience has previously always been denied. In IFS therapy fir me currently it's exploring the conflicting parts who want to be seen and heard and the others who would rather hide and stay quiet. Which is 'right'? For me writing memor is what feels most true and alive and flowing. I have no idea or desire currently to write fiction but it also feels dangerous.
Danger is exactly it. It feels dangerous sometimes even to be having thoughts that are yet to make their way onto the page. That sense of story and meaning forming around ideas and memories that might throw light on others or events that are painful or long-buried. Your version of events won't be theirs, but it doesn't make anyone's less valid. The thing is to be able to step back and acknowledge this. The fallibility of memory. Of feeling. As well as the way our feelings change. I think back to the writing of my first memoir nearly half a decade ago now and I know I'd write it differently now. It's an exciting creative challenge, actually, to think how it might evolve with me, that story. Best of luck, and let's keep chatting memoir. I am here for it all!
Thanks, Lindsey, this was a timely read for me today.
Really glad about that, Caroline. Please share what you're working on!
Fabulous piece, Lindsay, that's firing up so many thoughts and feels. To echo what Layla is saying, I also think that craft, as in our craft as writers, is what carries us through to the places where our writing wants to go - craft as a small boat in a storm at night. There is no doubt in my mind that our stories, all our stories, need to be told (lest we want to keep going as we have so far!), and anyone saying otherwise is invested in maintaining the status quo. It's going to be disruptive, it's going to take tremendous courage, but it's also going to be glorious!
Craft as in our small boat in a storm at night: YES! I love this. We are journeying, aren't we, and trying to find the best route to wherever it is we're heading.
This has sparked lots of ideas Lindsay. With my current memoir project, I started writing poems about some of the key moments years ago and only felt ready to move into prose this year. Wondering if I can weave the two together to add more layers of meaning.
I’m with you - I love a good rule and tend to put different forms of writing in different boxes, and never the twain shall meet. Layla’s writing in the dark sessions sound the perfect time to practice breaking some rules!
Yes! Already excited about this Friday!
I want to be looser in my work in just this way, Ellen. The project I'm working on at the moment doesn't have much space for this, but I found that when I wrote on Friday morning alongside you and the others in the dark that I could follow the train of my thought in a different way. I often feel a bi bound by the rules and want to develop confidence in breaking them!
Your post really inspired me into action Lindsey. Thank you! Since reading it I’ve started to organise my ‘WIP’ files to pull all the fragments into one place - (which could take some time) and also completed the Google form for MIAM (if you still have places available).
I know how I want my writing to progress in 2025 but have definitely dithered between memoir, fiction and autofiction since completing an MA in 2018.
Lily’s post below, completely captures the main conflict I’m experiencing between self protection, and not knowing how to handle the more difficult issues that writing memoir throws up (I’m so grateful to have found you both here!).
I’m also planning to take a refresher certificate course in Psychosynthesis (which itself has a backstory connected to the memoir I want to write) so I can update my knowledge, but mostly to work through the writing blocks I have at a deeper level so that I can really connect to the truth of what I want to say.
It feels like the many different paths I’ve followed are now leading me, finally, to the centre and back to my self 🙏💕
Now, I have NO idea about pyschosynthesis and would love you to enlighten me! So delighted that this has propelled you into action, Jaimie, and that we have the chance to work together in January with what's shaping up to be a brilliant group of writers. I love that image at the end of the paths. Everything is everything, and we are where we are at this moment because of it all - good and bad.
I’ll definitely do my best to answer what Psychosynthesis is over the next few weeks and months Lindsay. The course starts in early February and my work with you, Beth Kempton and Lily, is going to provide me with anchor points across the year. I’m sitting in gratitude for each of you, how everything has come together, and starting a Tarot process to prepare across the mid winter before we get started on 15th January with a head too full to say much coherently yet! Stepping into a new cycle of the unknown … 💕
Ooh this post speaks so much to where I am at in my writing and therapy at the moment. Thank you
I'd love to know more, Chloe. As you may know I have a particular interest in this!
Love this piece Lindsay, I’ve been grappling with these kind of ideas too… thank you
Thanks, Sam! Hope you're keeping well. x
Gosh Lindsay, so much sparking in me from this great piece. The 'alternative paths' is where I find it gets REALLY interesting for me when I'm writing, constantly excavating to find the way to write about something that is deeply true, but also sometimes poetic rather than literal. I find it interesting that some of my favourite memoirs of late have all been by poets - Amy Key, Doireann Ní Griofa, Tamarin Norwood ... when that 'alternate route' is found for the telling, it is exquisite.
I just read Amy Key's and LOVED the way she used Blue to structure her thoughts. What a beautiful thing. Haven't come across the others, but will be adding to my list. Lots of love above on your Friday morning sessions and the opportunity they offer us to think and write differently. There's something very free about the mind at that time of day. Can't wait for Friday x
I love that Febos quote and I agree that we should find whatever way we can write our story. I really agree with this. But I also agree narrative nonfiction is far more flexible than many realise. I did a talk recently for the MA students at Bath spa and was struck that loads of them were writing ‘autofiction’ - because they wanted to write about their lives but wanted to protect themselves behind ‘fiction’. What I took from this is that there is a real movement still - and maybe even more so - to write from life. But I also felt a bit disappointed they weren’t choosing memoir. Memoir I think still has a kind of stigma around it and I’m sorry about this, because it’s ability to get to the heart of the matter and to tell it as it is has a boldness and courage that feels essential somehow. Anything less feels a continuation of that shame. (I know there is the whole question of hurting others and this is perennially difficult to overcome). Also, as I pointed out to them, if someone wants to see themselves in what you write they will see it in fiction as well as nonfiction . Fiction doesn’t necessarily protect you from that.
"Memoir I think still has a kind of stigma around it and I’m sorry about this, because it’s ability to get to the heart of the matter and to tell it as it is has a boldness and courage that feels essential somehow." This, Lily, it takes so much courage to write memoir, and it's exactly what is required of us in these times.
Very timely for me! I'm about halfway through writing my own memoir and roughly once a week, this week it was today, I ask myself "why am I even doing this, who is going to want to read this?" And convince myself I should better stop writing altogether. I will remember this quote: "Maybe in this way you’ll allow yourself to go to the places your writing really needs to go instead of shutting yourself off to it."
YES! So glad that you've taken something of value for you this week, Sophie! Can't wait to hear how it goes. Now, get that quote on a post-it and put it somewhere prominent!