Lessons I Learned While Writing my Memoir by Patti Eddington

Lessons I learned while writing my memoir by Patti Eddington

In January 2020, almost 60 years after the fact, I approached a probate court to unlock my adoption records. The wild, completely unexpected, secrets I discovered led me to write a memoir; a journey that was also jolting. 

In many ways I was lucky, my background in journalism helped me tremendously with research and legalities as I worked on my book. But in others it was a hindrance. For example, I was an expert at using the Associated Press Stylebook, the guide for everything from how to spell doughnut (not donut) and OK (not okay). But that knowledge painstakingly memorized over decades was useless because, unlike journalists, authors use The Chicago Manual of Style. Essentially every style choice I’d made in my early drafts was completely backward.

Using the correct style manual was probably the least important lesson I learned in the two-years after my book was accepted and before it hit the shelves. 

Here are a few other things I now know:

Try not to nitpick your editor

I think I earned a reputation early in the process of being a reasonable author. Each of my (way too many) editors told me it was nice to work with me. I think that’s because I listened one day when an editor told another writer “We really do know what we are doing, and we really are here to help you.” I could hear the weariness in her voice, and I decided to try to accept that advice. I didn’t resist killing a few of my precious darlings along the way and I think my book is better for it. 

Sometimes you need to nitpick your editor

My project manager and I suffered through the last three versions of my book together. Each time, we had the same, polite, tussle over one phrase. It wasn’t even a phrase. It was the correct usage of two words (in my opinion) and one word (in hers). We eventually frantically began pulling information off the internet to try to prove our respective points. Finally, at the last possible moment, I whined “please, please do it my way.” I was grateful, because I think that phrase would have haunted me every time I opened the book. Changing it was important to me. I’m glad I fought for it. 

Don’t listen to people who don’t like your book

My book received a lot of early, positive response. So the first vaguely negative reader review was devastating. I’d had only four and five stars and then someone jumped in there with a three and my emotional world collapsed. Even that person said the book was “beautifully written,” just not for them. “I’ll be ok unless someone says I’m a bad writer,” I told my husband. Then someone said that, as well. There is also an early reader who was disappointed my memoir (it says so on the front cover) was a true story and another who said she’d hoped there would be more drama — like a kidnapping maybe, she suggested— to jazz it up. That wistful kidnapping wish was a turning point for me as I realized just how different readers can be. Kirkus Reviews likes my book and recommended people read it. BookLife by Publishers Weekly also likes my book. My editors, publisher, and many fellow authors like my book. Most importantly I like my book. That’s going to have to be enough. 

Sometimes . . . listen to people who don’t like your book

In reading constructive criticism I realized maybe there is some truth to a few of the comments. I am still learning and need to be open to reasonable suggestions because I’m working on a second memoir. 

Don’t hire people to do what you can do

I toyed with having someone else do my social media, but realized my ideas are probably going to be better for my product than those of someone who doesn’t know me or my book. I have some hard-earned skills, so I’m using them.

Sometimes you need to hire someone to do what you can do

Life became so complicated as launch date neared, I hired someone to clean my home. I can clean my home, I like cleaning my home, but it was something I could take off my workload. 

You have to do a lot for your book

Gone are the days when authors could sit back and hope their publisher would take care of everything. I’ve written essays, done Q&As, and am active on Instagram and Facebook. I have been interviewed for podcasts and by radio stations. Launching a book can absolutely be a full-time job if that’s what you want. Which leads me to my final rule . . . 

You don’t have to do everything for your book

Once I launched social media, designed a website, hired a publicist and planned three launch parties, I took a big sigh and then thought “crap. I never did a Substack.” Everyone does Substacks these days. I know this because I get about 50 in my inbox every week. So many of them are engaging and well done and I can tell just how much work has gone into them by writers who don’t have any more time than I do. But (apologies here) I simply don’t have time to actually read them. If I don’t have time, others may not have time. I simplified, out of necessity and did not create one. I’m maybe missing out on a great opportunity but I ultimately decided to simplify.

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Patti Eddington is the author of “The Girl with Three Birthdays — An Adopted Daughter’s Memoir of Tiaras, Tough Truths, and Tall Tales which will be released by She Writes Press on May 7, 2024.

The Girl with Three Birthdays: An Adopted Daughter’s Memoir of Tiaras, Tough Truths, and Tall Tales

Patti Eddington always knew she was adopted, and her beloved parents seemed amenable enough to questions—but she never wanted to hurt them by expressing curiosity, so she didn’t. The story of her mother cutting off and dying her hair when she was a toddler? She thought it was eccentric and funny, nothing more. When she discovered at fifteen that her birthday wasn’t actually her birthday? She believed it when her mother said she’d changed it to protect her from the “nosy old biddies” who might try to discover her identity.

It wasn’t until decades later, when a genealogy test led Patti to her biological family (including an aunt with a shocking story) and the discovery of yet another birthday, that she really began to integrate what she thought she knew about her origins. Determined to know the truth, she finally petitioned a court to unseal records that had been locked up for almost sixty years—and began to put the pieces of her past together, bit by painstaking bit.

Framed by a brief but poignant 1963 “Report of Investigation” based on a caseworker’s one-day visit to Patti’s childhood home, The Girl With Three Birthdays tells the story of an adoptee who always believed she was the answer to a couple’s seventeen-year journey to become parents, until a manila envelope from a rural county court arrived and caused her to question . . . everything.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing