Are you feeling fear when you write your story?

“In some ways, writing a memoir is knocking yourself out with your own fist, if it’s done right.” - Mary Karr

I work with many folks who write memoirs, which I believe is some of the bravest and hardest material we could write. Why? Well, there is an art to writing memoirs. Writer and memoir queen Mary Karr believed this so much that she even titled her book The Art of Memoir.

She writes, “I’ve said it’s hard. Here’s how hard: everybody I know who wades deep enough into memory’s waters drowns a little. Between chapters of Stop-Time, Frank Conroy stayed drunk for weeks. Two hours after Carolyn See finished her first draft of Dreaming, she collapsed with viral meningitis, which gave her double vision: “It was my brain’s way of saying, ‘You’ve been looking where you shouldn’t be looking.’” Martin Amis reported a suffocating enervation while working on Experience. Writing fiction, however taxing, usually left him some buoyancy at day’s end; his memoir about his father drained him. Jerry Stahl relapsed while writing about his heroin addiction in Permanent Midnight.”

As many of you know, my background is in trauma and the body, the stories our bodies tell. I came to this thesis work because my own body started speaking through the somatic, and I couldn’t help but listen. When I began writing my memoir, it felt like I was plunging into the ocean, feeling the weight of a whole world I’d forgotten or at least wanted to forget. So, these words of Mary Karr are, for me at least, undoubtedly true.

A lot of my writing clients come to me thinking writing a book will be easy. They sign up for coaching with a gleam in their eye, and I always have to begin by breaking their hearts just a little.

This is going to be hard, I say… Like you are going to go to war with your words, with the stories that rise up in you. They usually smile and go, ‘Yeah, totally, I know…,’ but they don’t really know. A week or two later, neck deep in their writing. They reach out… ‘Megan, I totally see what you were saying. I didn’t know how difficult this was going to be.’

Writing, no matter what genre you go for, will bring up a lot for you, but memoir specifically is not holding back from the truth, not in the least.

Here’s another quote to drive it home:

“In some ways, writing a memoir is knocking yourself out with your own fist, if it’s done right.” - Mary Karr

Okay, so I don’t say all this to scare you away from the process, just to be honest. This is sacred work, so there should be a bit of fear in you; otherwise, what are you writing for? There is an important question I return to and invite my clients too often.

“What would you write if you weren’t afraid?” Mary Karr write in her book, The Art of Memoir, and I knew the answer immediately. I was supposed to write about my life, about trauma, about hurting, and ultimately about healing. Knowing that answer didn’t bring immediate action, though. Instead, it brought avoidance. We can know in our core what we are made to do, write, create, speak, and so on, but putting movement behind that idea is the actual work.

I can always tell I am onto something important when I am avoidant as hell. My old anxious attachment style kicks in, and I begin playing hide-n-seek again–behind busyness, brainstorming, new projects, anything really, to keep me from showing up that glaring blank page. For example, before I showed up to the page today, I created a new website, edited a client’s manuscript, created social media content, and even wrote writing prompts about writing, but NOT actually writing. When resistance shows up in all of its avoidance, we know we are being called to write what we’re most afraid of.

The resistance is here to teach us, working like an alarm, signaling us back to our truth. Sometimes, that resistance is loud, but more often, it is a subtle beeping reminding us to return back to the very thing that scares us. If you feel unclear about what to write, uncertain in your voice, and trembling at the thought of putting pen to page– congratulations! You are one step closer to breaking through the resistance and the past and awakening your transformation.

So, returning to this question, what would you write if you weren’t afraid? What would you create if you weren’t afraid? Who would you be if you weren’t afraid? Would it be a memoir? Would it be a creative project you’ve put on hold because it was “too weird”? The answer is within you; you only need to listen.

Does this resonate? My book, Brave The Page: How Writing Our Hard Stories Brings Healing and Wholeness, speaks to the heart of this and is now available for preorder! Get your copy and begin writing to heal your life.

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