Thank you Lily, I’m glad my response has given you some food for thought - and hopefully others too. Really looking forward to reading your reply next week. 🙏🏼❤️
"But what about when we want to examine the relationships – the connections – we had with people who are still living? How can we avoid that ugliness especially when that living person might prefer us to? That is impossible, and to me, dishonest. Yet to avoid it is not to write at all and that would feel like a dishonesty to myself. If we weren’t mothers would it be easier? How do you reconcile being a mother and a writer? How do you look back at both the beauty and the ugliness in your own relationships with honesty, both to yourself, your reader, and the family that once was? This is a dilemma to me."
Your closing thoughts sum up the discomfort I have with writing memoir: How can you be truly honest without hurting someone - your kids, your parents etc.? When I was going through a bitter and ugly divorce the court child psychologist warned my ex and I never to speak badly of the other because that would deeply hurt the children. That stuck with me even though I know he and I both did.
Words are a form of art, and just as painting can be literal or abstract. I worry about the pain I could cause my children and upon deeper reflection I don't wish to see them in writing either (perhaps there lies my issue?). I also worry that once they are in the public space they can never be retracted.
It would seem I'm not brave enough (?), ready (?) to write my memoir, but I absolutely love your letters so far and can't wait to keep reading.
I think it’s a very personal decision, but you can still write to process things for yourself, your words do not have to have a reader... or a wider audience. You might just want to write to make sense of your world. But these are all good points that I’m sure resonate with many people, and I am sure Lily will write back with her own thoughts so be sure to follow her too.
I’m so pleased to hear you are enjoying the series. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
I think there are ways of writing about people in our lives that don’t point the finger or make it seem like blame. I’m reading Splinters by Leslie Jamison at the moment about a failed marriage with a difficult man but she works hard to show the whole of him, good and bad. Good writing and good memoir does this. It’s also important to show your own faults on the page. To interrogate the self. In terms of your children, it’s all about timing I think. When they are older it may be easier. Plus they may never read it.
I found this so poignant - thank you, Anna. The tension between looking at an experience from the outside and feeling if from the inside, as you so beautifully express in your description of these photographs, is so resonant for me. It feels like one of the major themes of our lives and times.
You ask: 'But what about when we want to examine the relationships – the connections – we had with people who are still living?' I struggle with this too. It has prevented me from publishing many things that I've written in the last few years. I am in awe of Mary Karr who writes in The Art of Memoir 'You own everything that happened to you. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.'
I keep thinking that fiction is an easier way for me to do this. In my novels, I wrote about these relationships aslant. But isn't all life writing a kind of fiction in the end and all fiction a kind of writing from life? Thank you, Lily and Anna, for your beautiful writing and your opening up of these important questions.
This is such a lovely response to my letter, Anna. Thank you so much for taking the time to think this through, and of course you are right that we are all connections. That relationships are what matter in our writing as well as our lives. I also love how you capture the beauty and the ugliness because it is never one way or the other. There is so much to think about here and I will pen my reply this weekend. So great to be on this journey with you ❤️
Anna, gosh. Another great letter. When it comes to reconciling motherhood, I’ve thought a little about it after reading this and I honestly don’t think you really believe that. What I see in your work - even this letter - is you using motherhood to propel as if it were a launchpad. Perhaps you have some anxiety about what might come out if you were to pen a memoir - but I don’t believe e that to you that would be a restriction. It would be an anxiety that you can think over - and overcome. Would writing this be different if you were not a mother? Well, maybe. But wouldn’t every single thing we say or do look different too? There’s nothing quite as huge as motherhood to change a person forever, in my opinion. It’s biological; an innate change. But prevent you from writing what you simply must, I really do not think it does. What are you worrying about?! It’s a YOLO thing. You have to start the memoir. In whatever shape it comes out, just start. Start with a series of photos just like these letters if that feels right. Excited to see what comes next. Brilliant post.
Such interesting points and I think you’re right, perhaps even the urgency to write and make sense of things comes out of being a mother too. You’re right, why shouldn’t it be seen as the launchpad, rather than the restriction. I’m going to share your comment with Lily.
“But isn't all life writing a kind of fiction in the end and all fiction a kind of writing from life?”... such a great comment. And I also tend to agree with Mary Karr, I do believe that we own everything that happened to us, and if those experiences hadn’t happened to me, I’d have nothing to write - like you wouldn’t. Fiction doesn’t feel write to me personally as a way of exploring, though I can understand why it would for you, and others. Weirdly I feel like creating a world for those characters to exist in feels more traumatising than just going back and looking at what happened to me in my relationship from a point of safety and freedom. Does that make sense?
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, and I’m so pleased to hear our letters are resonating for you too.
I'm having that experience right now, Anna, working on my second book which is a novel. Somehow it feels even more revealing of myself than my memoir. The characters may have taken over, and I may be surprised by the words that trip off off my fingertips yet I find myself wondering whether readers might imagine that it's really 'me' I'm writing about? It's not, but at least the question isn't there in memoir.
You've asked how we protect the living from the stories we need to tell, and I don't have the answer. I worry about this, particularly in relation to vulnerable individuals (my children, my mother...) but accept that in order to tell a story that really needs to be told, I have no choice.
I hope that, seen in the round, the portrayal of each of them is fair, rounded and (in the case of my girls) goes far enough to protect them. For as much as I have written, there is a hell of a lot I've decided to leave out. Not to be dishonest, but because it doesn't serve the narrative to be more revealing. Ultimately, it is me who is exposed, I suppose. Others are free to tell their own story, or choose not to read mine and that's probably about as much as we can offer as comfort.
I am so enjoying these letters, and sensing already the replies I'd love to write to you both.
How interesting that you are facing these dilemmas right now, as you write, and that you understand what I mean when I say it feels closer to the bone. Some people say ‘turn this into a novel’ and I can’t inhabit that place again, which is what we need to do as novelists, we live on that parallel plain and why would I return when I fought so hard to get away from it?
But I think you’re right, only we know what we have chosen to leave out, and that is part of how we tell stories, choosing what laundry we hang on that great narrative washing line, how we help our readers to get from a to b to c...
I wonder if fathers face the same dilemmas that we write of, I would love to know...
I would wager no... But then fathers who are writers are so seldom interrogated as to whether characters or events in novels are based upon life. When they are (just remembering an interview with Robert Peston I heard recently about his new novel which has a harried political journalist as protagonist) it causes them to bristle.
I've just read this Anna and felt a chill at some points. So if it was like that to read, I cannot imagine how it was to live it—and then to write it. It should make me feel uncomfortable; I'm glad it did. There's so much to say about it, so many thoughts and half-thoughts swirling. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you Lily, I’m glad my response has given you some food for thought - and hopefully others too. Really looking forward to reading your reply next week. 🙏🏼❤️
"But what about when we want to examine the relationships – the connections – we had with people who are still living? How can we avoid that ugliness especially when that living person might prefer us to? That is impossible, and to me, dishonest. Yet to avoid it is not to write at all and that would feel like a dishonesty to myself. If we weren’t mothers would it be easier? How do you reconcile being a mother and a writer? How do you look back at both the beauty and the ugliness in your own relationships with honesty, both to yourself, your reader, and the family that once was? This is a dilemma to me."
Your closing thoughts sum up the discomfort I have with writing memoir: How can you be truly honest without hurting someone - your kids, your parents etc.? When I was going through a bitter and ugly divorce the court child psychologist warned my ex and I never to speak badly of the other because that would deeply hurt the children. That stuck with me even though I know he and I both did.
Words are a form of art, and just as painting can be literal or abstract. I worry about the pain I could cause my children and upon deeper reflection I don't wish to see them in writing either (perhaps there lies my issue?). I also worry that once they are in the public space they can never be retracted.
It would seem I'm not brave enough (?), ready (?) to write my memoir, but I absolutely love your letters so far and can't wait to keep reading.
I think it’s a very personal decision, but you can still write to process things for yourself, your words do not have to have a reader... or a wider audience. You might just want to write to make sense of your world. But these are all good points that I’m sure resonate with many people, and I am sure Lily will write back with her own thoughts so be sure to follow her too.
I’m so pleased to hear you are enjoying the series. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
I think there are ways of writing about people in our lives that don’t point the finger or make it seem like blame. I’m reading Splinters by Leslie Jamison at the moment about a failed marriage with a difficult man but she works hard to show the whole of him, good and bad. Good writing and good memoir does this. It’s also important to show your own faults on the page. To interrogate the self. In terms of your children, it’s all about timing I think. When they are older it may be easier. Plus they may never read it.
I found this so poignant - thank you, Anna. The tension between looking at an experience from the outside and feeling if from the inside, as you so beautifully express in your description of these photographs, is so resonant for me. It feels like one of the major themes of our lives and times.
You ask: 'But what about when we want to examine the relationships – the connections – we had with people who are still living?' I struggle with this too. It has prevented me from publishing many things that I've written in the last few years. I am in awe of Mary Karr who writes in The Art of Memoir 'You own everything that happened to you. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.'
I keep thinking that fiction is an easier way for me to do this. In my novels, I wrote about these relationships aslant. But isn't all life writing a kind of fiction in the end and all fiction a kind of writing from life? Thank you, Lily and Anna, for your beautiful writing and your opening up of these important questions.
Mary Karr is a dude. I think she also said if they don’t agree with what you’ve written - they should go write their own book.
This is such a lovely response to my letter, Anna. Thank you so much for taking the time to think this through, and of course you are right that we are all connections. That relationships are what matter in our writing as well as our lives. I also love how you capture the beauty and the ugliness because it is never one way or the other. There is so much to think about here and I will pen my reply this weekend. So great to be on this journey with you ❤️
Anna, gosh. Another great letter. When it comes to reconciling motherhood, I’ve thought a little about it after reading this and I honestly don’t think you really believe that. What I see in your work - even this letter - is you using motherhood to propel as if it were a launchpad. Perhaps you have some anxiety about what might come out if you were to pen a memoir - but I don’t believe e that to you that would be a restriction. It would be an anxiety that you can think over - and overcome. Would writing this be different if you were not a mother? Well, maybe. But wouldn’t every single thing we say or do look different too? There’s nothing quite as huge as motherhood to change a person forever, in my opinion. It’s biological; an innate change. But prevent you from writing what you simply must, I really do not think it does. What are you worrying about?! It’s a YOLO thing. You have to start the memoir. In whatever shape it comes out, just start. Start with a series of photos just like these letters if that feels right. Excited to see what comes next. Brilliant post.
Such interesting points and I think you’re right, perhaps even the urgency to write and make sense of things comes out of being a mother too. You’re right, why shouldn’t it be seen as the launchpad, rather than the restriction. I’m going to share your comment with Lily.
“But isn't all life writing a kind of fiction in the end and all fiction a kind of writing from life?”... such a great comment. And I also tend to agree with Mary Karr, I do believe that we own everything that happened to us, and if those experiences hadn’t happened to me, I’d have nothing to write - like you wouldn’t. Fiction doesn’t feel write to me personally as a way of exploring, though I can understand why it would for you, and others. Weirdly I feel like creating a world for those characters to exist in feels more traumatising than just going back and looking at what happened to me in my relationship from a point of safety and freedom. Does that make sense?
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, and I’m so pleased to hear our letters are resonating for you too.
I'm having that experience right now, Anna, working on my second book which is a novel. Somehow it feels even more revealing of myself than my memoir. The characters may have taken over, and I may be surprised by the words that trip off off my fingertips yet I find myself wondering whether readers might imagine that it's really 'me' I'm writing about? It's not, but at least the question isn't there in memoir.
You've asked how we protect the living from the stories we need to tell, and I don't have the answer. I worry about this, particularly in relation to vulnerable individuals (my children, my mother...) but accept that in order to tell a story that really needs to be told, I have no choice.
I hope that, seen in the round, the portrayal of each of them is fair, rounded and (in the case of my girls) goes far enough to protect them. For as much as I have written, there is a hell of a lot I've decided to leave out. Not to be dishonest, but because it doesn't serve the narrative to be more revealing. Ultimately, it is me who is exposed, I suppose. Others are free to tell their own story, or choose not to read mine and that's probably about as much as we can offer as comfort.
I am so enjoying these letters, and sensing already the replies I'd love to write to you both.
How interesting that you are facing these dilemmas right now, as you write, and that you understand what I mean when I say it feels closer to the bone. Some people say ‘turn this into a novel’ and I can’t inhabit that place again, which is what we need to do as novelists, we live on that parallel plain and why would I return when I fought so hard to get away from it?
But I think you’re right, only we know what we have chosen to leave out, and that is part of how we tell stories, choosing what laundry we hang on that great narrative washing line, how we help our readers to get from a to b to c...
I wonder if fathers face the same dilemmas that we write of, I would love to know...
I would wager no... But then fathers who are writers are so seldom interrogated as to whether characters or events in novels are based upon life. When they are (just remembering an interview with Robert Peston I heard recently about his new novel which has a harried political journalist as protagonist) it causes them to bristle.
So true... maybe some of my male subscribers could enlighten us!
I've just read this Anna and felt a chill at some points. So if it was like that to read, I cannot imagine how it was to live it—and then to write it. It should make me feel uncomfortable; I'm glad it did. There's so much to say about it, so many thoughts and half-thoughts swirling. Thank you for sharing.