My Story - Memoir and writing from life

My Story 

A 6 week course with www.wordafterword.org.uk

Taking Word After Word’s course, ‘My Story – Memoir and writing from life’ has been my first sortie into this genre, apart from a little travel writing, and it has been both interesting and revealing. I realised early on that I hadn’t read many memoirs or biographies and therefore had a lot to learn. I signed up to the course with the idea of getting started on a new project I was planning, to write about the life of my maternal grandmother Lucy (1898-1982). Fiona, our tutor, had other ideas and I soon found I was writing about myself.

     Initially it felt self-indulgent to repeatedly use the words ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘my’ but it became easier with practice. It was liberating to be encouraged to do personal, free-writing exercises, where the words just flowed on to a page. Here we were encouraged not to edit or re-read, but to allow the stream of thoughts and memories, arising from suitable prompts, to develop without interruption. These could be private words, not necessarily to be shared, though with an option to do so if we wished. As the small group of students got to know each other we felt braver and more able to share our personal stories and it became therapeutic, even cathartic, to read out our stories in this safe environment. It could almost have been a counselling session (life-writing often being used in the counselling process) and as we wrote about our lives, our insightful tutor supported us with skilful professionalism.

         So what did I learn from the course? What did I gain?

 Th      The course was an opportunity to stay connected with people and the wider world, and I realise that is one of the reasons I write. Although the process of writing can be isolating, writers can through their work connect with others, in writing groups and communities (alongside the many online forums that also exist).

  

    I learned to value the concept of bearing witness, when writers ask readers to support or endorse an experience, so both writer and reader might reach a new level of understanding.

     I learned that truth can have many aspects; the truth (for sure), the truth as we see it (feasible), and the truth we tell others (fiction).

  

    I acknowledged the benefit of using all the senses; to try to ‘show and not tell’; to be true to myself and find my voice; and (as always) to be careful with point of view.

     I hope I will keep by me the list of opening ingredients for a story, be it fiction or memoir:

-a character

-a question

-a clear voice

-a vivid setting

-and an action.

     I will hang on to the good advice Fiona gave us at the end of ‘My Story’ about editing – to get the words down, then rest, leave them and come back refreshed, with some distance and new objectivity.

     I was reminded to try to write something every day if possible and to regularly exercise my writing muscles.

          I feel better prepared to get on with writing about my grandmother’s life, but might approach it slightly differently now. I hope I will be more respectful of whose story I am telling and considerate about how I might mix fact and fiction. It could be an interesting piece of social history, but I will write it primarily for my family to appreciate. They will be my audience and the first to bear witness but who knows where it might go from there.

Philippa Hawley

In praise of writing groups by Philippa Hawley

I was recently at a drinks party in a village some miles away. It was a lovely gathering of people, all friends of our hosts, but mostly strangers to each other.

You know the form:

‘How do you know Jack and Jill? Are you local? What do you do?’

    I considered my reply options:

‘I’m a retired doctor.’

‘I’m a writer.’

‘I’m a retired doctor and now I write.’

That last one seemed to work. We could either talk about medicine or about writing. Despite the press coverage of a struggling NHS, writing seemed to win in the small talk wars over a glass of Prosecco.

One chap in particular drew me into greater discussion with more searching questions. He was a landscape gardener who a few of years ago had done the same ‘Start Writing Fiction’ module with the OU that I had taken in 2011. He had hardly written since, even though he’d enjoyed the course very much and I asked him why not. He replied that although he had lots of time to think whilst working, he had little time to write, and didn’t really know how continue without the tutor to guide him. He was approaching retirement and felt now was his opportunity to write more, but he needed some stimulation.

I found myself prattling on about writing magazines and short story competitions as a source of inspiration and encouragement. I suggested he wrote little and often to keep in practice even if no-one ever read his words. I told him these were the things that kept me going, along with joining a local writing class and working alongside other would-be writers, who gave support and gentle critique as I built my confidence.

I told him the other thing that can help is to find a writing group consisting of people you trust – people whose opinion you value, who will share their work with you as well as listen to yours, and where any criticism given is constructive. In the discussion with my landscape gardener I acknowledged that writing can be an isolating pastime. Most non-writers are not interested in the minutiae of your writing world, whereas a fellow writer will understand and enjoy sharing thoughts, ideas and problems too. They will tolerate your moments of self-obsessed analysis or times of lack of confidence and self-doubt, just so long as you return the favour. The controlled environment of a well run writing group allows this to happen. I do hope he finds such a group.