Caroline Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "memoir"
Writing the Story of your Ancestors
When you write memoir, you're not just telling your story, you're relaying the tales of the seven generations before you. When you're healing with memoir, you're not just mending yourself, you're restoring your ancestors (yes, even those who have passed).
It's an tremendous, sacred, sometimes overwhelming task.
Semi-autobiographical fiction also invokes the stories of our predecessors. I know this happened to me in the writing of my novel, Earth. Oh how it drew up the specters of my Missouri kinfolk.
Often you're the very first person ever to chronicle this multi-generational journey -- you're giving the women before you a voice. You're invoking their thwarted hopes and dreams. Their traumas. Their love. Their regrets.
What a beautiful weighty purpose.
I've worked with dozens of memoir writers, and have found this in my own writing -- emotions can become overwhelming during the writing process. The beauty and the poetry are there, too, but the grief can weigh heavily on a writer's shoulders.
Here are five tips for handling telling your story, and the story of your ancestors.
1. Go slowly. Really slowly. Like a snail's pace. Write just one story. Sit for a few days with the emotions. We feel our mother's repressed emotions when we're growing up. We feel her mother's and her mother's mother's. Finally these stories are getting aired, chronicled, acknowledged. You're not just dealing with your emotions -- you have ancestral emotions embedded in your DNA.
2. Don't worry if you can't verify all of the stories you've been told about your predecessors. Tell the ones you know. That's all you can do. Verify where you can. But don't shut the project down simply because you don't have written proof. It's your job as the family chronicler to tell the stories for posterity. Don't forget to write the happy tales too! Don't forget the joy.
3. Circle the wagons. Let friends and loved ones know what you're doing. Call in your healers, therapists, your self-care practices, like yoga, meditation, journaling -- I wouldn't recommend writing a memoir without a great deal of self-care. You may experience body pain. Your back goes out. Hip pain. Stomach problems. These are common. Take great care. Keep a process journal, and write out the emotions that come up.
4. Boundary your writing sessions. Open and close your writing session with a ritual, light a candle, acknowledge that you're diving into the soul of the work, and when the session is finished, blow out the candle, release the writing. Even when you do this, sometimes the pain of your people can bleed into your every day life. Keep practicing. Over time, the boundaries solidify.
5. Create an altar and invoke spiritual help. There is so much help just waiting for you to open the door. Put photos of your ancestors onto the altar. Objects they love. Light a candle. Invoke ease. Invoke help. We deserve all the assistance we can get as the chroniclers of our family lineage.
Do not underestimate the task you've agreed to undertake this lifetime. Treat it and yourself gently. Take great care. Accept help. This is a karmic, epic heroine's journey. And you've been called.
It's an tremendous, sacred, sometimes overwhelming task.
Semi-autobiographical fiction also invokes the stories of our predecessors. I know this happened to me in the writing of my novel, Earth. Oh how it drew up the specters of my Missouri kinfolk.
Often you're the very first person ever to chronicle this multi-generational journey -- you're giving the women before you a voice. You're invoking their thwarted hopes and dreams. Their traumas. Their love. Their regrets.
What a beautiful weighty purpose.
I've worked with dozens of memoir writers, and have found this in my own writing -- emotions can become overwhelming during the writing process. The beauty and the poetry are there, too, but the grief can weigh heavily on a writer's shoulders.
Here are five tips for handling telling your story, and the story of your ancestors.
1. Go slowly. Really slowly. Like a snail's pace. Write just one story. Sit for a few days with the emotions. We feel our mother's repressed emotions when we're growing up. We feel her mother's and her mother's mother's. Finally these stories are getting aired, chronicled, acknowledged. You're not just dealing with your emotions -- you have ancestral emotions embedded in your DNA.
2. Don't worry if you can't verify all of the stories you've been told about your predecessors. Tell the ones you know. That's all you can do. Verify where you can. But don't shut the project down simply because you don't have written proof. It's your job as the family chronicler to tell the stories for posterity. Don't forget to write the happy tales too! Don't forget the joy.
3. Circle the wagons. Let friends and loved ones know what you're doing. Call in your healers, therapists, your self-care practices, like yoga, meditation, journaling -- I wouldn't recommend writing a memoir without a great deal of self-care. You may experience body pain. Your back goes out. Hip pain. Stomach problems. These are common. Take great care. Keep a process journal, and write out the emotions that come up.
4. Boundary your writing sessions. Open and close your writing session with a ritual, light a candle, acknowledge that you're diving into the soul of the work, and when the session is finished, blow out the candle, release the writing. Even when you do this, sometimes the pain of your people can bleed into your every day life. Keep practicing. Over time, the boundaries solidify.
5. Create an altar and invoke spiritual help. There is so much help just waiting for you to open the door. Put photos of your ancestors onto the altar. Objects they love. Light a candle. Invoke ease. Invoke help. We deserve all the assistance we can get as the chroniclers of our family lineage.
Do not underestimate the task you've agreed to undertake this lifetime. Treat it and yourself gently. Take great care. Accept help. This is a karmic, epic heroine's journey. And you've been called.
