The Secret Entrance into the Lair of Memoir: Finding Your Authentic Voice by Dorothy Sander
Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Dorothy Sander/@AgingAbundantly
Memoir writing requires that we dig deeply into our memory. Writing from our heart and soul requires that we are willing to be vulnerable. In order to connect with our readers, we need to find and speak from our authentic voice. I am thrilled to feature author and blogger Dorothy Sander in this guest post about finding your voice as a creative writer.
Welcome, Dorothy!
The Secret Entrance into the Lair of Memoir: Finding Your Authentic Voice
Finding one’s voice as a creative writer, requires finding a meaningful point of entry into the very center of ourselves. Many writers write from their heads using a dash of personality, but in order to write an effective memoir it is necessary to go into our heart and soul and discover, at the very least, the edges of our authentic self.
This is not an easy task. It requires jumping into dangerous territory, into the place where our deepest hurts, sorrows, confusion, loss, trauma, and even joy, once lived and continue to live in some fashion. We know it will hurt to go there and our instinct for self-preservation stirs the fight or flight response and we find ourselves resisting or running away.
There is, however, a way to sneak in the back door that will help a writer get their feet wet and begin to trust the process. Once we meet ourselves in this place, the heart place of our writing, the sweetness of the process begins to give us courage. It is a place of transformation and change. We discover that there is not just hurt there, but that it is also a place of unburdening and release. It is a place of becoming and expansion.
To write in our own voice, we must enter the place where our experiences, past and present, live in full color. It is a place that is far different from orderly thought forms, mental images or reflections on the past. It is, by contrast, the messy unfinished business voiced by our feelings, emotions and the unanswered questions that are still very much alive. To enter this place requires experience, courage, strength, commitment and resilience and is perhaps precisely why the best memoirs are written by people in their senior years.
How I found my authentic voice…
Turning fifty was a profound signal to me, albeit to a degree unconscious at the time, to move in the direction of living a congruent life, that is where my insides match my outsides. I knew I needed to change my life and the direction it was headed. I took a bold step and signed up for a writing class. Until then I had not had the courage or good sense to follow my heart. I believed I did not have the “talent” to write and let my dream go, again and again. I lived on the edges of my true passion. I wrote poetry for myself; I journaled through difficult times; I worked in Marketing for a Publishing company, all the while longing in the silent place within me to be one of the writers I promoted. I worked for ten years marketing my husband’s business. Midlife came knocking and I knew it was now or never.
I signed up for a Magazine Article Writing class online, once again side stepping my truest self. Writing from my head for money, was a socially acceptable and practical avenue to take and the only one I could justify spending money on.
At the time, my mother was ninety-five and living alone three hours away. I made frequent trips to visit her, adding to my already overflowing life. After one such visit, while driving home on a Sunday night exhausted and riddled with anxiety, I remembered that I had my first writing assignment due that night. I was to submit a first draft of an article written for publication and several magazine editors and addresses where I might send it. Overwhelmed by the assignment, I pushed it to the back of my mind throughout the previous week. I didn’t have a clue what to write about. I didn’t think I knew enough about any one thing to write a decent and knowledgeable article.
When I got home I shared my concerns with my husband. He suggested I go to our bedroom with my laptop and just write. “Something will come”, he assured me. Yeah, right, I thought. I did as he suggested, as much to have some peace and quiet after a stressful weekend, as anything else. I really did want to write something for the class, but I didn’t think I could. I made myself a cup of tea, grabbed my laptop and headed to our bedroom. The minute I closed the door I could feel my body begin to relax. Instinctively I drew in a deep breath and leaned into the silence.
Alone and without any demands, I sipped my tea and opened up a word document. I began to write. I wrote the words that came to mind. I wrote from the place where my journaling took place. I wrote about what was going on inside of me, beneath the surface and as I did it was as if the space inside of me opened up and a direct line was created from my heart to my fingers. I wasn’t thinking about the class or the assignment. I wasn’t thinking about anything but what was flowing through me. I was simply expressing all the unexpressed.
What I wrote that night was apparently not just for me, because it became my first assignment and my first published piece. It was not an article at all like I had envisioned articles to be. I did not do any research. I did not put any great “thought” into it.
The piece I later named “Caring for Mom”, was a reflection on my experience in dealing with my family’s dynamics as we struggled to care for my mother in the last years of her life. It did not come from my head, although I drew on what I learned in college and graduate school about psychology and family dynamics, it came from somewhere larger, my heart. I had found my entry point. I realized later I had found my voice.
I did not think the piece qualified for the assignment, but by the time I had finished I had run out of time so I submitted it just to have something to submit. I received a note back from my teacher a couple of days later that said, “This is excellent! You must submit it for publication”. I fell on the floor in a heap and the tears flowed.
All authentic expression, whether it be in the words we write or the life we live, comes from deep inside of us. It does not come from our head, our reason, or our education, although all these things add to breadth of our craft. Each time we sit down to write, especially our memoir, we must look for a thread that comes from this place and pick it up. A memoir written using threads spun from our heart become a reflection of the tapestry of the lives we’ve lived.
As we spin and weave we not only create something of beauty for others, we are changed in the process.
“Writing, real writing, should leave a small sweet bruise somewhere on the writer . . . and on the reader.” Clarissa Pinkola Estés
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Thank you, Dorothy for your beautiful reflection and for sharing how you found your authentic voice. You remind us that we already have all we need to write from our heart. We only need to believe in our own gifts and then commit to writing.
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Author Bio:
Dorothy Sander is the voice of AgingAbundantly.com, a website and social media presence that focuses on aging as a transformational process. She writes extensively about the problems and possibilities inherent in this process and offers readers an opportunity to look beneath the surface of their lives and grow with each new challenge and change. She draws on her background and continued studies in psychology and spirituality. Her books, Caring for Mom – Midlife Reflections and Finding Hope – Inspiration for the Midlife Journey are available on Amazon and via her website. Her articles have been published on iSeniorSolutions, Huffington Post, and numerous local Senior Publications. Dorothy is also the founder of InspiringQuotesbyWomen.com.
Book Synopsis:
Caring for Mom is a touching collection of reflections that speak to all who have, are or will care for an aging parent and facing all the challenges of being a member of the sandwich generation. While describing the process of care giving and all that implies, Dorothy Sander has left her heart on every page of this important book. This is not a standard or sugar coated instruction manual. Dorothy tackles issues concerning every aspect of aging-our own and those for whom we care. Dealing with stress, money, family, how to say goodbye, exhaustion, and coping with grief all find pages in Caring For Mom. Dorothy’s experience is invaluable. Her style resembles a chat with a good friend. Those who read her account will find wisdom, comfort, and support. She writes with compassion, honesty and a deep commitment to all that is good in life. Caring for Mom is a book you can read again and again.
Amazon Author’s Page: http://www.amazon.com/Dorothy-Sander/e/B004W4KOAQ/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1465156103&sr=1-1
LuLu Author’s Page: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/sanderdoe
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How about you? Do you feel you have found your authentic voice? Do have any tips to share or questions for Dorothy?
Dorothy has graciously offered to give away a copy of her book, Caring for Mom Midlife Reflections, to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing of commenters.
We’d love to hear form you. Please leave your comments below~
ANNOUNCMENT:
Congratulations, Marilea Rabasa! Your name was selected to receive Denis Ledoux’s memoir, A Sugary Frosting: A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage.
Next Week:
Monday, 6/20/16:
“Past or Present Tense in Memoir?”
