Ever thought about writing your memoirs? We hope this article from our sister publication Writing Magazine may inspire you.
Our lives are full of memories. A multitude of experiences that have shaped the paths that led us to where we are now in our personal life journeys.
Within the trillion incidents that have created our selves, what is extraordinary is that our experiences, however shared at the same moment in time with another, are completely individual. It is this individuality and how we relate to our shared experiences that make our memories personal, our struggles interesting, and our lives unique.
Writing is a form of self-discovery. Through writing one gains a sense of self and healing. Writing demands reflection, and the more willing you are to be truthful with your self and examine the incidents in your life, the more intriguing your memoir becomes.
In this age of high-end technology and fast-paced living, what I refer to as 'the old world' is fast becoming extinct. The lives of our children are very different to that of our elders.
It is the stories of our elders that are being lost. These stories are treasures, precious insights into life that should be written for your family and future generations – before they are buried forever.
Memoir writing is not solely for the purpose of being published. Besides the desire to leave memoirs for family and friends, memoir writing is now often undertaken as a therapeutic form of medicine. It is seen as a positive method for alleviating trauma and loss, for healing life wounds. Writing is very constructive in aiding selfhealing and personal development.
Memoir of course need not be filled with only the traumatic moments, and should not be. This is why so many memoirs are labelled the 'misery memoir'.
It is our challenge as writers to find our unique writing voice and in turn find our creative expression so that we can translate our stories into a form that will be of interest to readers.
From my experiences of tutoring both memoir and fiction writing workshops, I find that when a writer gets in touch with their past through writing memoir, they seem to be able to transcend many of the tragic and heartbreaking events of their lives. It is as if revisiting those times through writing, being able to focus on them and learning how to put a theme and structure around them, somehow helps to wash away the pain.
Memoir writing seems to allow us to keep the memories without the pain. Remarkably, what also happens when we write memoir is that we tend to remember many happy events from our lives that have somehow been buried in the sadness.
As children we are inherently creative. We use our senses, we explore the world with fresh and inquisitive eyes, and our imaginations have no boundaries. As life demands more from us and as we enter the workforce and concentrate upon jobs that we don't always enjoy but have to do, we seem to lose our sense of exploration and become pigeonholed and blinkered.
In many circumstances, we forget to nurture our creativity and put aside our imaginations. We lose sight of who we once were and how we feel. Our inherent creative abilities lie dormant and we forget how to create.
Sensory and right-brain/leftbrain thinking exercises redress this imbalance. They show you how to rekindle your creativity and write from the heart. Exercises of this nature help you to express your truth and recall personal experiences that you an use as bedrock material in your memoir.
In memoir writing we are seeking to sort those life incidents that had a particularly great impact upon us, and the decisions we did or did not make. Those significant moments that changed our present and altered our future.
In reflecting upon our past we can see patterns in our history that, once ordered, can become the focus of our memoir. Up until quite recently, many people believed that to be qualified to write, one had to study the classics and have a PhD in literature. The memoir genre has changed that. There is currently a great interest in personal writing; it's viewed as an art form that can be practised by anyone.
In our society, in which we are now more open to telling the truth of our lives, we are also more receptive to listening, sharing and learning from each other's stories.
Perhaps this is the real gift of memoir – that by being able to share our own story we can help another to overcome similar challenges.
Writing memoir is fun, it does not have to be an arduous task. It provides a great pastime and an opportunity of sharing, laughing and understanding with family and friends. So start your memoir writing adventure now… be honest, and write from your heart.
* This article is extracted from Irene Graham's recently published book, The Memoir Writing Workbook, which is available exclusively from the website: www.TheMemoirWritingClub.com or by post PO Box 1, Kinvara, Co. Galway, Ireland. In 1991 Irene founded The Creative Writer's Workshop, which has become an international success in memoir and fiction writing. Irene has initiated the concept of The Memoir Writing Club to help individuals write their memoirs.