Dana Goldstein: On Writing Memoir

February 20, 2023 | By Women Writers Women Books | Reply More

On Writing Memoir

Dana Goldstein

The darkness is welcoming. The silence is broken by the ticking of the grandfather clock as the pendulum swings and by the dog snoring softly at my feet. It’s 5AM. I make a coffee, put on my frayed and faded hoodie, then settle in on the living room couch, laptop on my…lap. It’s time to write.

I don’t need to go outside to know the seasons. In winter, the silence and darkness cocoons me. In spring, the birdsong sets the rhythm of my fingers. As summer rolls around, the light inspires me to type faster. During fall, the lingering smell of the last flowers drifts through the open window.

My writing fluctuates with the weather. When snow falls, I tend to dive into research, finding warmth in the new knowledge and the spark of fresh ideas. Summer mornings are warm enough for me to sit outside on the deck, happily tapping the keys, getting my words done before the heat overwhelms. Spring and fall writing mirrors the birth and death of those seasons: by March, I am ready to bring my characters to life; by September, the first draft is done and ready to be put aside for a month or more.

I am not a fast writer. I take my time. I am easily distracted by social media. I lose interest in the project I am currently working on and shift to start something new. I revisit half-done pieces and try to bring new life into them. But it’s not like that for me every day. I am a meandering writer, unless I am in revision mode. Then I am wholly focussed on the task, working under a deadline. When I am in the middle of a new project, it’s okay for me to set that aside to focus on what needs to be done with urgency.

As any writer knows, once you reach the muddle in the middle, any distraction is welcome. I’ve washed the baseboards in my home in order to get away from writing the middle. I always come back, though. Sometimes it’s with clarity, but most of the time, I’m still struggling to figure out how to proceed. I have found that just pushing through works too. It’s a first draft, I tell myself. It doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be done.

Since I started writing in earnest in 2016, I have finished and published three memoirs. I’ve written two middle grade novels, both of which are on their way to publication. I’ve written a young adult novel which is currently in my agent’s queue.

I’m often asked if memoir is easier to write than fiction. It’s not. While the stories are already part of my psyche, I still have to dig deep, to remember the feelings, the smells, my internal reactions and the external reactions of others. The stories must have a connecting thread. Memoir requires a theme, a deep examination of humanity (the author’s) and the ability to admit when you made a mistake, face your past pain, and be willing to share it all with readers at large. Memoir is terrifying.

With every memoir I write, the process is the same. I let the idea simmer in my brain. I create a loose outline of the stories I think need to go into the book, and then I write it all. Every relevant experience gets written, but not every story makes it into the final publication. This was a hard choice for me when I wrote my first memoir, The Girl in the Gold Bikini. I thought the words I’d crafted should not be wasted, but I learned—thanks in large part to my developmental editor—the difference between serving the reader and releasing my emotions. When I dumped hurt and anger onto the page, it was clear I was writing for me. Catharsis doesn’t always make for compelling storytelling.

When I wrote Murder on My Mind, my beta reader team of eight read the earliest drafts of my memoir about menopause and shared their own experiences with me. Their stories were so compelling, I worked them into the manuscript, adding the voices of others to my own memoir. It was an easy choice to make.

When I sat down to write Spent, my goal was to relate my decade of experiences as a retail store manager. The book started as an exploration of how terrible I was at my job, but morphed into a deeper look into human behaviour – my own and that of others.

My journey as an author has not been linear. I have had my share of rejections, but I use that to improve my craft. I find myself revisiting older, abandoned manuscripts so I can see just how much I’ve evolved as a storyteller. But of all the things I’ve gleaned about writing, through reading the words of others and working on my own, there are two lessons that help me persevere.

Figure out when you are most creative and write during that time, and
Schedule your writing time, but be flexible and forgiving when life gets in the way.

Even for all the unpublished works I have sitting on my laptop, I love the freedom I have to create every day. Not every piece is worth reading, but every story is worth writing.

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Dana Goldstein started writing down her stories at the age of nine, using school composition books. She moved into a career as a journalist, writing feature stories for magazines and newspapers across North America. Dana has published three memoirs, The Girl in the Gold Bikini, a collection of stories about her relationship with food, Murder on my Mind, a memoir of menopause, and Spent, a collection of stories about her experience in retail management. Her first middle grade novel, Shift, is due to be released in August of 2023. Her podcast, What Were You Thinking, features conversations with authors about their books and their journeys to publication. Dana lives, creates and writes from her home in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.