the times | Saturday January 1 2022 saturday review 11
as vulnerable as possible on the page
because that seems to be rewarded with
vulnerability in the reader: confession
inspires confession.
And so my suggestion would be: try to
find the places or the times of day where
you can write without second-guessing
yourself too much. For me, it’s between
6am and 9am: that’s before the city gets
busy, before I am aware of the sensation
that others may be watching, so that it is
just me and my thoughts.
But, wherever and however you write, I
would always suggest trying to write about
the things that make you most afraid,
the ones that you are most hiding from.
I don’t always succeed in doing that myself,
but when I do, it mostly makes for my
best work.
Marianne Power, author of Help Me!
Write like you talk to a friend or send an
email. When I wrote my first book I got
stage fright at the idea of writing A BOOK.
I spent two weeks trying to describe the
sky because I thought that’s what book
writers should do.
Eventually I cut all that out, and I am
happiest with my writing when I write the
way I’d talk to my friends. I bring out my
funniest stories when I imagine I’m talking
to them and I put things more succinctly.
So my advice (for whatever it’s worth) is
don’t try to be clever. Just be you.
Julia Samuel, author of Grief Works
As human beings we have one significant
design fault. When we are going through a
difficult time, for whatever reason, it could
be life events or with ourself, we tend to
turn on ourself harshly, with criticism.
My advice is to turn to yourself with self-
compassion. You might need fierce com-
passion as well as tender compassion to
keep going, but take out the “shitty com-
mittee” and bring in the love, and what is
hard will become more bearable.Philippe Sands, author of East West
Street
How do you keep going, even in the face of
dire horror? I always come back to the idea
that everything has a crack in it through
which light is able to get in. The solace is
inspired by a poem, Anthem; I once had a
brief but rather public conversation
with its author, Leonard Cohen, as he
prepared to sing the poem, and the
recollection of that moment, and the
line, work their magic in every
time, place and situation.Sathnam Sanghera, author of
The Boy with the Topknot
People write family mem-
oirs for all sorts of rea-
sons: for therapy, for
revenge, to make sense
of love or grief or
failure, but also to
deal with difficult
issues, draw a line
in the sand and
move on.
For me it
became impor-
tant to dis-
cover my
family story,
to reconstructthe history, but as soon as I had finished I
realised families sometimes have secrets
for a reason: you can go slightly mad if you
know everything. It is also important to
forget, and in the years that have followed
publication, I have been so good at it that
I often meet strangers who seem to know
more about my upbringing and family life
than I do, and I am startled at their inti-
mate knowledge.Lemn Sissay, author of My Name Is Why
The photograph of the past changes with
time and yet it remains the same. In other
words, a tree is a tree until you know why
it was planted or when it was planted or by
whom. Once you know, then it is no longer
a tree. It is symbolic. It is a series of stories.
It has a truth. A memoir is about trust. The
writer trusts herself. This is the greatest
struggle and also the greatest release, once
it’s done. Firstly, I thought my memoir was
about setting the record straight. I was
wrong. However traumatic a memoir may
be, I think it’s about love. You will discover
the real reason to write a memoir after you
have written it. Everyone seems to think a
memoir is about your entire life. A memoir
could be about one day in your life.Nina Stibbe, author of Love, Nina
Try your own voice. It’s not just that you’ll
sound authentic, but it will be easier than
trying to sound like someone else. When it
comes to writing about real people, in my
experience you can say awful things about
them as long as you are sure to note their
good looks, general intelligence and kind-
ness to animals.Kit de Waal, author of Without
Warning and Only Sometimes
Some chapters, some scenes will floor you
and unexpectedly so. Write it all down
while it’s still raw and messy and uncom-
fortable. All that energy will be there on
the page and it might turn out to be some
of your best writing. And don’t worry. Your
equilibrium will return, your distance will
return, and you will come back to yourself.
Allow yourself to walk away once you’ve
written it and congratulate yourself
for your bravery and insight. And if
you have to delete it later, then be
brave enough to do that too.Terry Waite, author of Taken
on Trust
Anger does more harm to those
that hold it than to those against
whom it is held. It can never
be abolished totally,
but it can be turned
into a creative
force. If your
parents or guard-
ians are still
alive, treat them
kindly while
you have time.
When you get
to their age,you may realise just what they gave to
enable you to have a start in life.Candice Carty-Williams, author of
Queenie
To be afraid of pouring yourself on to the
page is a given. But try not to push that
fear away, or tell yourself that it’s not OK
to be scared. Welcome it. To be afraid is
to feel, and to feel is to be alive.Greg Wise, author of Not That Kind
of Love
The most important time in the writing
process is not writing. What I used to call
“shelf time”: put it aside, let it gather dust,
revisit it as you would a friend you
haven’t seen for a while — remember
what it is you love about them and smile at
their foibles that madden you. Luckily, in
this friendship, you can fix the foibles.Extracted from Write It All Down: How
to Put Your Life on the Page by Cathy
Rentzenbrink, published by Bluebird,
£14.99. Rentzenbrink is also the author
of the memoir The Last Act of Love:
The Story of My Brother and His Sister,
published by Picador, £8.99ALAMY; KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/REUTERS; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/CORBIS/VCG VIA GETTY IMAGESIhdfiihdIy e C Q T p f t t G o T p “ r hleader writers wh
Michelle Obama signing
copies of her memoir,
Becoming. Below:
Sathnam Sanghera