Blame It On Serendipity: Rewriting My Memoir by Doreen Cox
Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Doreen Cox/@DCoxAuthor
In reality, serendipity accounts for one percent of the blessings we receive in life, work and love.The other 99 percent is due to our efforts.”~ Peter McWilliams
Revising a memoir after it has been published is a common thought among memoirists. You know, the minute you push the publish button and immediately think of several scenes you should have included. Or maybe a reader review makes you stop and think about how you can improve your story. I think most of us let it go and accept the fact that it will never be perfect or we feel our book is our best effort and we want to let it stand. But sometimes the urge to go back and tweak and change overcomes the desire to leave it as it is. This is what happened to our guest, Doreen Cox. Doreen has been a guest before in a post, “Finding My Way From Memoir to Fiction”. Yes , Doreen is the author of a memoir, Adventures in Mother Sitting and a a novella, A Sacred Journey. After she published her novella, she revisited her memoir, now in its revised form. I hope you will enjoy her story-behind -her-story as much as I have enjoyed it.
My reviews of Adventures in Mother Sitting can be found on Amazon, Goodreads, Shelfari, Riffle and LibraryThings.
Welcome back, Doreen!
Author Doreen Cox
Blame It On Serendipity: Rewriting My Memoir
Around the time that I graduated from college, I became intrigued by the concept of serendipity—influences from random encounters and accidental events. Yes, there was a major event that triggered my interest, but that’s a story for another day. Because of my fascination with serendipity’s mysterious nature, however, my life never feels boring. Rather, it is enriched by many synchronous occurrences, by unexpected encounters with others and situations that do not follow an expected script. Even now, the obvious explanations for my choices rarely satisfy me.
During the spring of 2014, several serendipitous experiences occurred that, for a while, kept me feeling discombobulated. The urge to change my plans emerged gradually; each influence seemed to come flitting out of nowhere. A combination of situations and encounters, however, ended up merging at just the right time: the noise in my head, a review, a novel, and a new friendship.
The shifting of my plans began with an intermittent stream of thoughts in my head. Although I tried to begin work on a story that I’d put off finishing during Christmas, it got sidelined once again. The few times that I sat at my PC to work on it, one reverberating thought rendered my efforts useless: rewrite Adventures in Mother-Sitting. I did give this idea some attention, but honestly, I was proud that I’d fulfilled my mother’s dream: for me to write a book. Plus, I had bared my soul to the world in this memoir, and the reviews were good ones. No one had ever mentioned the writing itself—until one day during that spring.
A new review showed up on Amazon. Although this reviewer gave my memoir four stars and a recommendation to her book club, she offered some suggestions that made me sit up and take notice:
“Three things that stood out to me in a less positive way are: 1. I have never read anything where the author used quotation marks as freely as in this book. 2. It felt as if chapters 11 and 12 yanked me right out of the story and were not necessary. 3. Some repetition seemed unneeded as the reader can understand what was said and will likely remember most of it from before when encountering things that relate back.”
The reviewer’s points were sound ones and echoed some of the thoughts I’d been trying to ignore. Since its initial publication in 2010, I had barely looked at my memoir, but after receiving this review, I began to carefully peruse each chapter. This was not easy to do, for I still felt emotionally raw with grief and did not want to revisit the toughest moments I’d had while a caregiver to my dementia-addled mother. That happened often enough, especially when a memory of her in a child-like state would hit me out of the blue. After that day of perusal, however, I had to agree with this reviewer’s points. To be candid, my confidence plummeted; I felt deflated, like a balloon that had been punctured by a needle. Instead of enjoying music on my long drive to work, a cacophony of internal arguments kept me company. You’ve learned a lot more about writing, Dody. Your book can be so much better now, and the cover…sheesh. It does need work. That was one side of the argument. The other was just as incessant: Why are you going to waste time by rewriting your memoir? It’s good enough. Instead, why don’t you finish that story or write a sequel regarding life after caregiving? Don’t waste your time! Fortunately, my part-time job as a GED teacher helped me handle them. We were at the end of a term, and getting some new students settled into their studies provided a refuge from the noise, at least until serendipity decided to save me, come at me from several new directions.
Reading has always been a passion; sometimes it is purely an escape, but more often, some author’s story revitalizes my own perspectives in some interesting way. Because Twitter is the main stream of social media that I enjoy, both to promote my stories and discover new books to read, I was on it daily. The tweets of a particular author, unknown to me at the time, kept catching my eye. It wasn’t long until my curiosity took hold. After going to her author page, I read the synopses of each of her novels. One in particular nabbed my attention right away, so I purchased a Kindle version and began reading that night—the story captured me from page one. Crooked Moon by Lisette Brodey moved me so deeply that I read it slowly, wanting to savor each nuance. It felt as if I were there, living in the story along with the characters. During my read of this novel, another urge took hold: a passion to learn to write as well as the author.
To some extent, it’s still a mystery as to why the author made contact with me at that time, inviting me to do a guest interview on her blog. She hadn’t read my memoir but had certainly seen the flaws in the cover and read that last review. It had to be serendipity at play, for as our friendship developed, my passion to rewrite my memoir solidified. So three years after the initial publication of Adventures, it took only a few emails and a soul-baring conversation with my friend to realize there was an unrest in me that had heretofore been blocked: I wasn’t altogether happy with my memoir. I had to take action. If I had resisted my gut’s urge to do a rewrite, disappointment in myself as a writer would have stifled my confidence—hovering over me like a dark cloud whenever I attempted to write something else.
With my decision made, serendipity continued to serve me well. I was introduced to an artist/graphic designer who gave me a precious gift: Charles Roth created a beautiful new book cover. It served as a talisman while I finished the rewrite and continues to comfort me today. Whereas before I’d written Adventures by my lonesome, during the rewrite, I had two friends to advise me and make editing suggestions. I’m indebted to Lisette Brodey and Julia Hughes, authors whose own stories are ones that I highly recommend; their novels reside on the top shelf of my bookcase.
The reward for rewriting Adventures was priceless on an intrinsic level. The release of pent-up tension and residual grief provided me with an unexpected breath of fresh air. From the time I began rewriting, my confidence as an author grew. When the second edition was complete and published, the surge of freedom I felt was powerful. I’m still experiencing the updrafts from that surge.
Though it would not have been easy to ignore my gut feeling regarding my need to create a better book, I could have done so. Rewriting my memoir took time away from other projects and was a lot of work. For me, however, to ignore this urge would have been too high a price to pay. Whenever I tweet or see a friend’s tweet of Adventures, my confidence as an author feels authentic.
Acting on urges or gut feelings to rewrite a book so as to make it better, enliven the story in some way, is a rewarding challenge. I highly recommend the experience. The sense of accomplishment is an incredible tonic.
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Thank you Doreen for sharing your personal story of revising your published memoir, three years after its publication. It seems you could not rest until you completed this. You show us how listening to your voice has not only improved your story but has enriched your life as a writer. Brava and best wishes with the newly revised addition of what I thought was a great book to begin with!
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Author Bio:
Born with a sense of wanderlust, Doreen (Dody) Cox had a somewhat convoluted career path, working in various business-related and mental health occupations. When dementia began to debilitate her mother, Dody resigned from her job as group counselor at an alternative school in order to take on an unforeseen endeavor: become her mother’s care bear. It was after her mother’s death that Dody’s path took another unexpected turn. She chose to honor her mother’s long-held wish: for her to write a book. ADVENTURES IN MOTHER-SITTING is Dody’s first publication, a memoir that emerged from the pages of her journal. Writing was a steadying outlet throughout the three years that dementia took her and her mother on an unpredictably tumultuous, yet heartwarming adventure.
Currently, Dody lives in her native Florida and works part-time, teaching a GED class comprised of multicultural adults in one of her favorite places: a library. She continues to write and has recently published A SACRED JOURNEY, a fictional short story with themes relating to nature, spirituality, hope, and dignity in death.
Amazon link: http://amzn.to/1ysKLyq
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DCoxAuthor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mothersitter
How about you? Have you ever felt the need to re-write a published book?
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week:
Monday, 06/22/15: “First Anniversary Letter, 1944: A Father’s Day Memoir Moment”
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ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The Goodreads Giveaway is over and ten signed copies of my memoir have been mailed to the winners. There were 602 entries and 300 marked it to-read. Thanks to everyone who entered!
On Thursday , July 2 between the hours of 5am (PDT) and 12 pm (PDT), Memoir Author Dana Goodman is hosting the Inspirational Author Facebook Event . I will be available to discuss my memoir, Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse between 5:00 pm-8:00 pm (EDT). Hope to see you there!
I am doing a pre-event giveaway of (3) ebook copies of my memoir between 6/15 and 7/1. You can enter here:
