The Times - UK (2022-01-01)

10 saturday review Saturday January 1 2022 | the times

H

ave you always

wanted to write? You

might have drawers

full of notebooks or

have yet to put pen to

paper, but feel a secret

urge. There could be a

specific time or incident you want to cap-

ture, or perhaps you feel stuck and unable

to move on from something horrible that

has happened to you and have heard that

writing can help. Maybe you want to pen a

bestselling memoir that gets turned into

an award-winning film, or capture your

childhood memories so you can print

them out for your grandchildren, or

make a record of these interesting

times we are living through.

Perhaps you are used to writing

other things — novels, plays,

poems, essays, reports — and

want to have a crack at a memoir.

Or you have nothing but an in-

stinct that it would serve you to

get some writing into your life. You

might be full of eager desire to get to

grips with telling your story, or you

may be besieged with doubts.

Whatever your truth and whatever

your starting point, I am here to help you

with all of the above and more. I can’t pro-

mise that it will be easy — writing the self

is a tricky, slippery business — but I can

promise that it is rewarding. Think of it as

mental mountain climbing. We wouldn’t

expect to be able to climb Everest without

training and preparation. We’d accept that

we’d have to demonstrate dedication and

commitment.

I hope to help you to discover the pleas-

ure and solace to be found in regular writ-

ing. And, if you want to go further, to

encourage you into writing a memoir. It is

profoundly satisfying to wrestle a story on

to the page. I have never climbed a moun-

tain, but would imagine that standing on

the summit feels a little similar to the day

you finish your first draft and can print out

your manuscript and see the events of your

life transformed into a story.

Damian Barr, author of Maggie & Me

The “writing down” has got to be the thing

that helps you because none of us are guar-

anteed readers. And although they are,

mostly, very lovely people, and their en-

gagement and approval is generous and

joyful, you cannot write for other people.

You’ve got to write for you. When I started

writing, I imagined (foolishly) I would sim-

ply be retelling stories I already knew —

after all, this had all happened to me,

some things will be too personal or will be

stories that belong more to other people

than to you. It is your book, your reflec-

tions and memories, and you can include

as much or as little as you want. Be true to

yourself as a writer, but also be thoughtful

to others.

Maggie O’Farrell, author of I Am,

I Am, I Am

Enjoy yourself; learn to love the labour of

writing because it will show. I cannot over-

state this. Your reader will feel the joy com-

ing off the page, will sense it in the white

spaces around your words.

Musa Okwonga, author of One of Them

From my experience, the most powerful

writing seems to come when I am

Sali Hughes, author of Pretty Honest

Don’t get it right, get it writ. Worry about

how good it is or isn’t later on.

Adam Kay, author of This Is Going

to Hurt

Get to the end. Key to this is banning

yourself from going back and revisiting

anything you’ve already written, other-

wise all that happens is you get a perfectly

polished first third of your book and noth-

ing else. There’s plenty of time to make it

good/better/best once you’ve done your

first draft.

Kate Mosse, author of An Extra Pair

of Hands

Decide how much you want to put on the

page before you start and stick to it —

book extract

How to write a

memoir (by the

people who have)

Cathy Rentzenbrink offers her advice on writing, and tips

from fellow memoirists in her new book, Write It All Down

hadn’t it? A few months in, and precious

few words later, I began realising I was

going to have to do much more than try to

remember — I would have to relive, then

recount, then reconstruct my experiences

as a story using the tools of fiction. Taking

control of the past does take you away

from the present. Here’s a benefit I did not

anticipate: once you’ve got all the really

tough stuff down, lovely forgotten joys bob

to the surface: wonderful lovely things that

had been lost in depths and shadows.

Daisy Buchanan, author of The

Sisterhood

The act of writing, telling your own

story, claiming it for yourself and

learning about all of the joy and pain

you have lived through, can be pro-

foundly healing. Publishing the

story will not be the part of the ex-

perience that is healing. It’s OK to

write as though you’re screaming,

to pour all of your own darkness

on to a page if you need to, but you

also need to treat yourself with the

greatest kindness, respect and empa-

thy as you’re working out who to share

that story with. Think about what you

need from the experience, and take your

time. Write for your living, human self; edit

for your reading self. I hope writing brings

you peace, but publishing will not bring

validation, redemption or adulation. All of

the people who love you are already here.

Elizabeth Day, author of How to Fail

What you think of as the most personal

can often turn out to have the most univer-

sal resonance. If you’re fearful of writing

something, ask yourself why. It could be

that you’re fearful of being open about an

experience that has caused you shame.

Shame is a self-loathing emotion, and it

can only survive in silence. The best anti-

dote to shame is to share your vulnerabi-

lity. That’s where you make the greatest

connection with the reader. Attack

the idea that there is nobility in invisibility.

No one else is going to tell your story as

well as you’ll tell it yourself because no one

else has lived your truth. Don’t let that

truth be hijacked by a shame that is not

yours to carry.

Matt Haig, author of Reasons to Stay

Alive

Don’t try to write something that has

already been written. It is your story so feel

free to tell it your way. There is no “one”

way to write a memoir. The way you tell it

needs to feel as true to you as the story.

Enjoy

yourself;

learn to love

the labour

of writing

because it

will show

going back Daphne

du Maurier, who recalled

her youth in the memoir

Growing Pains — the

Shaping of a Writer.

Below: novelist Elizabeth

Day. Below right:

Winston Churchill,

a prolific memoirist

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