I Didn’t Write My Book, I Felt It

By  Sarah Lavane

I think I’m a “one and done” author. Perhaps I’m wrong and there’s another book that will wriggle its way out of me in the future, but my memoir wasn’t a book I planned to write. It was a years-long feeling I couldn’t shake. It was a compulsion struggling to find its way from inarticulate feelings into concrete written words. Let me start at the beginning.

I had always liked to write. Growing up with a curriculum, where I learned to write in several languages, I was intrigued to learn that French, Spanish and Hebrew had masculine and feminine words while English did not. I’d wonder how that came about and how people remembered the gender of so many objects.

I also noted that while English was being written from left to right, my Hebrew and Yiddish class notes were written from right to left. Yiddish has alphabetical vowels, while Hebrew used the same alphabet for consonants only.

Various languages also sounded very different. On my father’s Hungarian phone chats to his family, I heard our names peppered into his staccato-sounding speech. While my mother’s French speaking sounded musical to my ears.

All of that fostered my appreciation for words, languages, spelling and vocabulary. I loved word games and puzzles. Yet being a writer in a serious way didn’t enter my consciousness. It was as remote as being an astronaut. I wrote compositions, essays, and letters. Later, I wrote stories and some poetry but it was “just for me.”

After college I continued taking evening classes like art, dance and writing. But I was never going to be a dancer or a writer. It was just for fun! Till one day I met a young man who told me he was working on a book. I was incredulous. People like us don’t write books! Invisible authors do! It finally clicked. Anyone can write or at least try to.

I took a class on magazine writing and finally managed to publish some articles here and there. It was thrilling but mostly just a fun hobby.

It was around then that my internal compulsion started. As Orthodox Jewish single women looking for marriage, my friends and I felt misunderstood within our own community. People who married at a young age couldn’t imagine what the challenges were for those who didn’t. I wanted to articulate our story in a way that would make people understand and have more empathy.

I’d buy another writing magazine or take another writing class but despite numerous efforts, the perfect words would float off somewhere between my brain and the pen in my hand. After many attempts, all I had to show for it, was a pile of scribbled, crumpled balls of paper.

Then one day a neighbor asked me if I’d seen the dating book that a young Orthodox woman had written. I had heard of it but had no interest in it because I thought “What can I learn from someone so young?” She loaned it to me. The book was as I expected it to be. It was an unedited, poorly-written bad-date-stories book. I remember thinking that anything I wrote would be better. My compulsion to write my own story grew.

I began forming the idea in my head in a more concrete way. My book would have purpose and meaning. It will be professional. It will be edited. I started verbalizing my dream to my mother. I bought a book on memoir writing. Yet every time I sat down to write, I couldn’t pass page one. So, the book took a backseat to life.

Years later, a colleague who also wrote after-hours, dared me to a writing challenge of 1500 words a day. I thought that was beyond me but he said he’d done it numerous times. Well, if he had done it, I thought I could try. He taught me to move forward and get words down instead of looking back to perfect page one again and again. With that simple lesson, the book that had lain dormant in my mind for years was jumpstarted – solid words, good and bad, finally appeared. I quickly switched from pen to keyboard!

As my manuscript grew, I wrote whenever I had the chance. There were days when I felt my story was worthwhile and other days when I doubted myself. People would see me on my lunchbreak or after work and ask me what I was doing. I shared some chapters and they’d say nice things. But it was difficult to make myself vulnerable and the manuscript grew into a massive mess.

As the book took shape, I often considered trashing the entire thing. I asked readers for feedback. My readers were different demographics, single, married, divorced, older, younger, female, male, Jewish and not. Their thoughtful comments, insights and enthusiasm kept me going. It made me realize this was a worthier endeavor than I originally thought. It infused me with the confidence to push the book forward to its final form with a professional editor.

At last, my memoir is here. This book is far better today than had I written it all those years ago. I have more life experiences to share and my writing has improved. The timing was meant to be. My goal was to bring solace and comfort to the “unmatched” as well as foster sensitivity and awareness to the “matched.” I wanted it to serve a purpose and I’m grateful to see, it has already begun to do just that.

For more information on “Unmatched: An Orthodox Jewish woman’s mystifying journey to find marriage and meaning” please visit www.unmatchedstory.com

Unmatched: An Orthodox Jewish woman’s mystifying journey to find marriage and meaning

With her sometimes funny, always intimate, uncensored memoir, Sarah Lavane puts a human face on the challenges of being “unmatched” in a “matched” Orthodox Jewish world. She takes us along on her journey. We learn how her background shaped her relationships and perceptions of God from a young age. She then delves into the ups and downs of dating, the tug-of-war she feels between men she may date and those who are off-limits, her heartfelt attempts (conventional and not) to change her fate and her poignant struggles with God through it all. Thoughtful and humorous, this page-turner draws the reader in.

Unmatched aims to bring solace and comfort to the “unmatched” as well as foster sensitivity and awareness to the “matched.” This memoir is a must-read for the currently “unmatched,” anyone who’s ever wondered, “Why isn’t so-and-so married?” and readers who enjoy memoirs that give insight into the human condition.

Unmatched in the world of Orthodox Jewish literature… in a conversational style that is refreshing… Lavane is impeccably honest about her pain, her mistakes and her resolutions to work on herself…
– The Jewish Press

Like the immersive experience of a visitor to a museum of the blind, the reader is plunged into an alien environment – the quest of a Jewish woman in search of a compatible mate, along with the raging emotions, the humility, grief, betrayal, despair and faith. The book gets an A+ for achieving the author’s expressed goal of sharing the mystifying journey of a lonely woman of faith.
– Jewish Action

Unmatched is superb in that it illustrates the quandary of the single women that most of us simply do not understand. Lavane shares her struggles and bares her soul of her frustrations and challenges, and it is a heartbreaking read. Some of the dating stories are funny and par for the course. Others are devastatingly brutal… Lavane does not play the blame game or launch irrational rants. She shares her struggles and challenges in an honest and often humorous manner. I have never read anything like this before.
– Jewish Link

Unmatched” is one of the best books on Jewish dating you will ever read, and will force you to look at single people in a new and more compassionate way.
– The Algemeiner

An important book… potentially cathartic for long-time singles and an eye-opening lesson in sensitivity for others.
– Rabbi Jack Abramowitz, author, The God Book

I never had such an experience reading a memoir. I was captivated throughout. When it ended, I mourned as though I had lost a profoundly decent, most hilarious and loyal friend. Unmatched indeed.
– Ruchama King Feuerman, author, Seven Blessings

I hung onto every last word and visualized each situation. A poignant memoir that speaks of the heartbreak and stereotypes when you are unmatched in the Jewish world. Her stories are not hers alone…
– Jodi Samuels, founder, Jewish International Connection

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing