Why I Stopped Writing My Memoir

When I left my last full-time job after more than 10 years, I kept my freelance avenues open, but I was amped to spend more time writing my own stuff, including starting work on a memoir.

I don’t have kids or siblings, and it felt like a good idea to record my story, specifically, an obsession that started in my early childhood and followed something of a narrative arc.

I dived in. The memories lit up in strings like Christmas tree lights. I cherished the recollection of each detail. I sobbed at my writing desk as I recounted the crises. I wrote and wrote, hewing as close to the truth as I could. I decided on a witty title. I got some expert advice on what I could safely say about other people to keep my story true without impinging on others’ privacy.

Reading over my first few thousand words, I was riveted. I felt like I’d nailed what it felt like to be me as a kid and young adult, running down a dream and fighting all the stuff that almost kept me from catching it. There were some harrowing moments, plenty of scandal and humor. I could see an inspirational, feel-good, you-go-girl ending. The story felt juicy, interesting.

Then, I stopped.

A memoir is good when something extraordinary happens to the memoirist and shapes her life in an interesting way. Most humans have encountered something that defines or changes their lives’ trajectories, whether it’s as commonplace as the death of a relative or as uniquely awful as living through war or violent crime. Most of us are curious about other humans respond to challenge, the decisions they make, and the consequences that result.

But before I could go another day working on my memoir, I had to ask myself a question: Why was I writing it?

Writing it for myself was OK. Journaling and other private writing helps me and other people name our demons, make sense of the world, and notice patterns in our lives. Such writing can be literally lifesaving. (The group I chose some 40 years ago to help me recover from alcoholism was big on writing it all down. But that piece of anguished prose was most definitely not for public consumption: It went into a Weber grill and was lit on fire as soon as it was reviewed with another trusted person.)

But I’d started this memoir with the intention of publishing it, sending it out into the world, into the hands of strangers. I stopped when I realized I was in no way ready for that.

The relationship between memoirist and reader is singular. The memoirs that work best understand this relationship and work to support it.

Here’s a hard truth: the reader is not our friend. She is not our parent, our confessor, or our shrink. 

Even more chilling: The reader is not rooting for the memoirist. She does not care if we are good or bad, guilty or innocent, or whether we succumb or succeed. What she wants is for the story to succeed. 

My story wasn’t succeeding. Halfway into writing the memoir, I saw myself dwelling on tangential stuff that was fun to recall and describe. Worse, I was applying way too much elbow grease on passages that made me look cool and brave, as if I were trying to get the reader on my side and agree that I was a good person and a victim of those who’d done me wrong. It’s altogether human to want to touch up the selfie a bit, but I have never read a good memoir where I could sense the writer trying to ingratiate herself with me or arouse my pity.

Writing is funny in how it tells the truth even when the writer isn’t looking for it. One of my memoir’s premises was that I’d been kept from realizing my dream solely by outside forces. But the deeper I got into telling the story, the more impossible it was to deny: my laziness and bad decisions were responsible, too. I started to sense a gulf between what I was saying about myself and what my actions revealed about my true nature.

I may go back to the memoir someday when I can devote myself solely to spinning a good, true yarn. In the meantime, I don’t feel like my first foray was a waste of time. I learned something about my life I hadn’t faced before. Writing always does its job, even when I’m not yet ready to.