The Process of Writing My Memoir, by Penny Lane

I knew being a voracious lifelong reader did not necessarily make me a good writer. When I read the gorgeous prose of Arundhati Roy in “The God of Small Things,” I said to myself I can never write like that. My career had taught me to write short, concise, and to the point, but nothing about story arc or atmosphere, theme, or tone. But by publicly committing myself to writing my book, after a lifetime of somedays to myself in the privacy of my thoughts, I knew my time had come. I threw myself headfirst into learning some tools of the craft within my constraints of work, home and family. 

During a leave from work-and before COVID kept us home and on Zoom – I took a twelve-week online memoir writing course by Irene Graham. I reread a book that had been on my shelf for years, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and picked up “The Art of Memoir” by Mary Karr at Lamott’s recommendation. Forgoing everything else while my son was in school, I read, underlined, sticky-noted pages to go back to as I plotted my story.

Graham recommended a very logical approach which made sense to my linear, black-and-white business mind. One of the first things I did was map the events, people and places I wanted to write about using thought-bubbles on a blank nine-by-twelve drawing pad. This gave me a visual of the characters and topics that were important to me, and told me what I wanted to include, and what to leave out.

This exercise stirred up the part of my brain that had suppressed or forgotten things over the years, and brought to the forefront the emotions I held about these events. It brought back people, places and experiences I hadn’t thought of in decades. It reminded me that the mind is a miraculous thing. 

Next, I created a timeline of every significant event I could remember over my, ahem, many years. I left nothing out in this round. I did this while alone in the house so I could feel uninhibited and knew I wouldn’t be uninterrupted during the hard work of dredging up my skeletons and demons.

This took many hours, and spilled over into four columns of very fine print, filling up two pages, with over two-hundred entries, and had me trembling, angry, crying and in awe. I could not believe I had lived through all that. The self-effacing part of me hated self-praise, but I could not help feeling my chest swell. If I had done all that- the things on my timeline-and lived to tell the tale, then I could do this: I could write a memoir that was compelling, engaging and relatable- and lived up to the standards of my heroes, Lamott, Karr and Roy. Ok, maybe not Roy, but I would damn well try.

I walked away from my list emotionally exhausted but charged to start writing yet I had a few more steps to narrow down my mission. When I could get back to my list, I tried to label each entry with a theme. I had to figure out what was the essence of my story.

What was I trying to tell the world? Was this going to be a coming-of-age story, an abandonment story, a love story, an overcoming story or a poor-me tale? Since I had been told no one wants to read misery-memoirs, I ruled that out. Once I found my overarching theme, and the direction I wanted to take with that theme- one we can all relate to and need to hear, I could cross out the events that may have been memorable but did not apply to the theme of the story. That helped cull out the dross and keep the length manageable and the focus sharp. 

Have you ever painted a wall in your house, where the prep of patching, sanding, cleaning, taping took so much longer than actually painting the wall that you thought you’d never get to it? That’s what this process felt like. The workhorse in me was chomping at the bit to start writing, but the steps in the process slowed me down enough to think, plan and to see through a wider lens into the mind of my future reader, making me a better writer along the way.

I spent time fleshing out the major characters-how they looked, smelled, spoke, carried themselves, the emotions they triggered in me and others. I did the same for places in my story, researching names of bars, and addresses of parks and people from my past. Facebook turned out to be a wonderful thing, and a trove of people from the old neighborhood were happy to help, remarkable to me as these were events from the 1970’s. As the pages of my drawing pad filled with my notes, mind-maps, thought-bubbles and details, my confidence and the power I felt – even as it is growing now, began to rise. I was going to be a writer. I felt it in my bones. 

And then I wrote, and wrote, and rewrote. Because I was in finance but lived on the west coast, getting up early was easy for time alone. Writer’s block was not a problem for me because I had my map, lists and theme-and I’d been carrying my story in my heart for a lifetime. I wrote in every spare moment I had, forgoing walks, extra coffee and a cleaner house. I had trouble finding the right words, or the words to express the depth of experience or emotion, or making my sentences spare like Cormac McCarthy, another of my heroes, but I kept at it. 

When I thought I was done I checked in with a good friend who had written for the San Francisco Chronicle, and had published a few books to ask what I should do. She told me to hire a professional editor before I tried to get published, and referred me to hers. This was where it got real. Someone other than me was going to see- and comment on not only my darkest secrets but on my skill as a writer. 

It turned out to be the best part of writing my memoir, because not only did he teach me things I did not know about writing a good story even though I knew when they were missing in a book, he validated my experiences as worthy to be heard, and pushed me to bring up more detail, more color. He taught me to put my readers into a scene so that they experience it in real time-with only the knowledge I had at the age I was writing about, minus my present-day commentary and voice. He made me a better writer, and a much better storyteller. I owe him a lot. Many query letters later, here I am. An Author.

Redeemed, A Memoir of a Stolen Childhood by Penny Lane 

will be published June 25, 2024, by She Writes Press.

Find out more about me at www.pennylanewriter.com

Or follow me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Pennylanewriter

 

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Penny Lane is a writer, wife and mother with an insatiable passion for life and books. Originally from Jackson Heights, Queens, she loves being outdoors-cycling, hiking, traveling, and connecting to, and inspiring people. She has a BS in business and management from the University of Phoenix and an MA in industrial/organizational psychology from Golden Gate University. In her spare time, she helps underserved youth learn to read, apply to college, and find jobs once they graduate, and in food pantries and other non-profits near her home in Mill Valley, California. Find out more at her website here.

REDEEMED: A MEMOIR OF A STOLEN CHILDHOOD

Penny is just four years old when she is snatched away from her all-American home by the Hungarian father who abandoned her when she was a baby. After facing isolation and neglect in a strange, dysfunctional household where heartache, rejection, and physical abuse rule her life, she escapes—only to find herself in a relationship with a man who’s just converted to fundamentalist Christianity. Penny’s road is long, winding, and often painful, but gradually she begins to listen to her inner voice, stand up for herself, and refuse to bow to the pressures of either her family or society—freeing herself to build a life on her own terms and find her way to happiness.

A rise-from-the-ashes hero’s story of overcoming abuse, trauma, and unbearable odds, of being waylaid by both family and religion’s promise of love, and harnessing the resilience to find the way home, Redeemed offers a rare window into Eastern European immigrant culture and reads like a page-turning thriller. Especially relevant today—a time when marginalized people are increasingly finding a voice—this memoir will serve as an inspiration to women everywhere, encouraging them to overcome their obstacles and go after their dreams.

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Category: On Writing