If You're Stressed About How To Tell Your Story, Remember This

We ache to get our true story out, but what can we do when we don't know the best way to share it? If framing your story feels so overwhelming that you go silent, here's an idea to use now.

Sofia, Bulgaria, in collab w/Georgi Kalaydzhiev (Blue neon sign that says FLOW)

I’m currently writing a memoir.

For the past fifteen years, it’s been my dream to write this one, and all these years, I lulled myself into believing I’d get around to it once life stopped unfolding and revealing itself. And, when I finally (mercifully?) realized that day would never come, I began to write in earnest.

The biggest challenge I’ve faced so far has been laying out the structure and deciding at which moment I begin my story. Is it at “the beginning”? The “beginning” of what? Is it in the middle of some intense scene that hooks a reader? If you know me, you know I’ve honestly got too many scenes like that from which to choose.

For the last month or so, I’ve been wringing my hands while plotting out various starting points, then expanding hypothetical outlines which follow the timeline based on that starting point. One outline braids two timelines (the young me and the adult me), while another one starts in my childhood and follows my life chronologically from there.

And when faced with that self-imposed pressure to “get it right” from the start (lest the whole book falls apart if I haven’t chosen my starting point wisely), the natural result is…analysis paralysis.

And so, this morning, I called my writing mentor, Linda Joy Meyers, and admitted that I was stuck.

Really stuck.

To demonstrate how stuck I was, I sent her a spreadsheet before our call with the 25 major Turning Points in my life.

At the outset of our call, I explained that I’d envisioned my memoir as one that framed some events that occurred within a five-year period in my 50s, and that I struggled to structure the story so that it focuses primarily on those five years, using the 25 Life Turning Points as context and backstory. I didn’t even have go into detail about how I’d spent too many hours with Post-It Notes and a huge piece of posterboard, laying out the book’s potential scenes in one order, then another order, then another order, then another. Linda Joy has seen it all before. Among many other things, she founded the National Association of Memoir Writers and has written four books on memoir writing. She’s lived through this struggle, and she’s helped others like me who’ve gotten stuck.

While I’m paraphrasing Linda Joy’s advice, here are the three pieces of advice she offered which freed me up to write my authentic story, and her advice easily applies beyond book writing, be it a speech, graded paper, business report, eulogy, and quite literally anything we decide to write.

Don’t judge this as a book [or as the finished project] yet. Just write your story.

When I was able to let go of that pressure to do it the “right way” (again, what the hell is the “right way”?) and to just write things as they come out, I felt the stress lift. To be sure, I’m someone who relishes my creative freedom, but the idea of writing without a plan scares me. I glanced at what I’d sent to Linda Joy — a spreadsheet of 25 Turning Points that I could write about in my sleep.

I’d put that spreadsheet together in one sitting, sort of a chronological overview of where my life had begun. It had flowed out of me almost like a conversation, just quick sentences and bullet points of my life’s defining moments, including the joyful, the tragic, and the completely unexpected.

Speaking with Linda Joy, I was reminded that I don’t have to have the final structure down now. I don’t have to know the “best” place to start. I don’t have to mess around with alternating chapters or parallel timelines or the ideal places for flashbacks. All we need to do for a first draft? As Linda Joy said, “ Write your story.”

Surrender to the true fact that we’ll have different drafts of our books [and written pieces].

“This is your first draft,” Linda Joy reminded me.

“Yeah,” I said. I let that sink in and wrote down what she said next:

“Surrender to the true fact that we’ll have different drafts,” she said. “This is your first.”

Despite fifteen years of professional writing, despite never once writing something that didn’t need revision, why had I lost sight of this fundamental fact?

Maybe it’s because this is my life, and because I’d somehow convinced myself that, as a memoirist, I’ll be sharing with the world a story about which I’m allegedly an expert: me.

However, this is my first pass at documenting my *expertise*, and it’s important to remember that, as I write and reflect on my experience, my perspectives and feelings are likely to evolve — so for now, it’s okay to just write it as it comes out and stop worrying about the order or the flow or the end result. This is my first draft. Things can be shifted, expanded upon, and removed. The important thing is to put it down as it comes out.

I’m reminded of the advice that another wonderful mentor shared with me (who often demures and says she learned it from someone else): We are wise to write our first drafts like we’re standing in a burning house — writing furiously and without reservation while running to and fro, frantically grabbing at the words as they come before we risk losing them forever. Only then, when we have a draft to work with, should we take a more thoughtful, relaxed, logical approach, editing and rewriting as if sitting in an easy chair, taking our time (and our red pens), shaping the draft into something more ready for sharing.

See what comes out.

As Linda Joy explained, when writing memoir (or any genre, really), sometimes we can be surprised along the way. Moreover, we can be surprised by our reactions to those surprises. This, to me, is the power of memoir. It’s a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance, so let it be that. We serve ourselves well when we get out of our own ways, beating ourselves up for our messy drafts, convincing ourselves we’ll save time and effort by having it all figured out before we type THE END.

I thought I had it all figured out — my beginning, middle, and end — but when I sat down to write my scenes in the order I thought they’d appear, I froze. It didn’t feel RIGHT. It felt like I was forcing my words into a template (of my own creation) that wasn’t flowing. It was only when I threw up my hands in frustration and whipped out my 25 Turning Points that I let my entire story flow out of me.

It’s all about flow. If I’ve learned anything by writing my own memoir, it’s that…

• …if it feels like you’re pulling teeth, it might be time to change course.

• …if it feels like you’re forcing something, readers will sense it.

• …if it feels like you’re torn between two or more ways of writing something, listen to your gut — REALLY LISTEN — and go in that direction, even if it’s writing it on a napkin … or your steamy bathroom mirror … or in a spreadsheet … or in an empty document on your computer … or in the notes app of your phone.

This is a creative process, and I often find that I need reminding that telling my story will be, at times, messy and scary.

While there’ll be moments when I can’t help but question my words or my direction or my approach, I know there’ll also be plenty of opportunities to discover my true self. When drafting a book, our job is not to write to perfection. Our job is to write our true stories honestly and with the courage to catch and fight back our self-doubt, self-criticism, fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and shame.

As researcher and author Brené Brown writes, “If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their own lives, but will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgment at those of us trying to dare greatly. Their only contributions are criticism, cynicism, and fear-mongering. If you're criticizing from a place where you're not also putting yourself on the line, I'm not interested in your feedback.”
—Daring Greatly

Brown also said in her introduction to the book, “When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make,” wrote Brown. “Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.”

Finally, Brown often refers to this passage from a speech by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1910:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

The biggest reasons I write are…

1) …to connect with readers and
2) …to share the lessons I’ve learned.

These lessons may not be appreciated or even accepted by everyone, but I know they’ll be helpful to someone. I’m sincere in my desire to move my story from my heart to the page, so that others, if they choose, might learn about these lessons, too.

What are you writing these days? What are the biggest reasons you write? What are you struggling with? What lessons have you learned that bear repeating? What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever learned? If you’re not a writer, what questions do you have about the process of storywriting?