Why Did I Write My Memoir? by Fran Macilvey
Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Fran Macilvey/@franmacilvey
I spend my life living as if poised astride a fence, with one leg in the world of the “able bodied,” the other inhabiting the world of the “disabled.” Because I have never felt “disabled,” when I was a child I believed that one glorious day I would get to do most of the ordinary things that you do. Instead, growing up became a slow, heartbreaking awakening to the understanding that choices which others seemed to take for granted were forever destined to remain one tiny inch beyond my reach. To cope with my disappointment, I learned to adjust the brightness of my expectations so that they would not always blind me with tears.~ Excerpt from Trapped: My Life with Cerebral Palsy, Fran Macilvey
Photo Credit: Pixabay Free Image
I am very pleased to feature memoirist Fran Macilvey who will share her reasons for writing her first memoir, Trapped: My Life with Cerebral Palsy. Fran and I met through a Facebook group called We Love Memoirs, a great place meet and chat about memoir with writers from all over the world.
Welcome , Fran!
Scottish writer Fran Macilvey, pictured in her home city of Edinburgh.
Why Did I Write My Memoir?
When someone announces, “I’m gonna write my memoir”, I usually envisage that they have in mind several thick volumes running to several hundred thousand words.
So, when I started writing seriously – in 2007 I would have been only forty-two – maybe I felt I hadn’t yet lived long enough to justify anything particularly expansive. But something in me wanted to try and write about my experiences, both to help me reconcile myself to the life-hand I have been dealt, and to reassure others that they are not alone: As a timid, introverted woman still coming to terms with a birth diagnosis of cerebral palsy caused by medical negligence – yes, that took me decades to accept – I was deeply wary of boring people with my ‘personal problems’. I could barely get beyond first base: “My name is Fran, and I have CP”, a singularity which I hated mentioning. I felt at times like a metronome, unable to decide whether it would be very grown up and dignified to mention my impairment (and ‘get it out of the way’ as one of my friends put it) or to opt for silence and discretion.
I rarely talked about what I felt, taking solace in reading thousands of books – I don’t despair at that, it taught me how to write – and in penning short stories about girls who were as angst ridden as I was. So far, so teenage, but even then, I suspected that writing would be my way forward, my way to explain what I hardly talked about. And by writing Trapped: My Life with Cerebral Palsy I did indeed become more reconciled.
As I’ve grown, I’ve also had to acknowledge that people deserve to know me better – I deserve to give myself a chance too – and that I can write; so I should write about the challenges of being impaired, and living in a world that still makes so few real concessions to the additional challenges that poses: “Hero crip” and “tragic crip” are two models that we are allowed to apply for. For the rest? Socializing, getting through life, earning money, finding a life partner, having kids? We are left to negotiate most of that for ourselves. As I have previously said in my blog:-
There are millions of people in the world who suffer in silence, who endure cruelty, exclusion and neglect, and who have no-one to speak for them: millions of children who are misdiagnosed, misunderstood, pigeonholed, forgotten and overlooked: millions of adults who can do nothing about the places they find themselves in.
And since I can write and talk about that now without feeling embarrassed or ashamed, I will keep doing so.
In the course of navigating through the writing of my first book, Trapped I realized I would have to find a passage beyond mere acceptance and survival to something better, so put into order a book that took, in total, ten years to write. Happiness Matters brings together the spring-board of lessons that taught me how to move, offering ideas to help us make something positive and tangible out of hardship. As a mentor of mine once said, “You know all about the theories of happiness, but you’re not living it.” Happiness Matters has been both a teacher and a challenge: to stop merely reading about the theories of happiness and start living joyfully.
Making Miracles, my third book, was brought into focus by my dream journal, which, again, showed me many patterns in dreams that I simply couldn’t ignore. There are consistent threads of meaning in all our dreams, that I was asked to share, and so I have. I hope you enjoy reading my books.
Thank you so much for inviting me onto your blog today, Kathy, I’ve really appreciated to opportunity to reach out to you and your readers. I bless the day I met you, and thank you for your faith in me.
Fran Macilvey
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Thank you Fran for sharing your journey to memoir. Your ability to overcome shame and find happiness despite life’s challenges is a source of inspiration and hope for all of us. You have transformed your pain and suffering into gold nuggets of wisdom. I’m happy you have found this peace.
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Author Contact Information
https://www.facebook.com/fran.macilvey
https://www.facebook.com/Fran-Macilvey-Author-705688986170564/
https://twitter.com/franmacilvey
About the Author:
Fran Macilvey is an author and speaker based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Her memoir, Trapped: My Life with Cerebral Palsy (Skyhorse, New York) is a gold medal winner and an Amazon international best-seller, described by John Pring, Editor, Disability News Service, as ‘a tough, bleak book, beautifully written and unremittingly honest…an important addition to the field of disability studies.’
Fran has written a radio play of Trapped and is writing the stage play.
Fran’s second book Happiness Matters and her third, Making Miracles explore how we can all find more happiness in challenging times; what Fran calls, ‘gleaning something valuable from forty years of making mistakes’.
Inspired by her time as a solicitor, Fran is writing a series of three novels about women and the law, the first two of which, Lisa Somerville and The Seduction of Susan Scott are complete. The third, Pip is underway.
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This Week:
Monday, 2/25/19:
February 2019 Newsletter: Updates, Memoir Musings and Max Moments:
“Creativity Challenges”
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Monday, 3/4/19:
“Deciding on a Book Cover”
