Saved by a Woman
Sharing the process of writing my second memoir.
Writing my second memoir
I’m sharing the process of writing my second memoir. If you wonder about writing your own memoir, this could be helpful to you. I keep track of my progress, challenges, unexpected detours, moments of exhilaration, insight, reflection.
I do that already, privately, in a ‘captain’s log’ of my journey. I thought it could be interesting for others to read it too as I write it. Might help me to be more accountable too. It’s one thing to track progress privately. But if a whole community were interested, or peeping, heck, I might get more done quicker and better.
The review of my first memoir, In My Gut, I Don’t Believe, available on Amazon and Audible, told my story from childhood to doubting my life path, aged 27, and breaking out of an imaginary glass cage in which I’d imprisoned myself. But reviewers and readers asked me: what happened next? For instance, Tim O’Brien’s review in The Irish Times finished: ‘Volume 2, please.’
Other significant people in my life have also egged me on for a second volume. Writers and creatives often doubt themselves. So I’m very lucky to have a few people in my life who have encouraged me to keep writing. You know who you are. Thank you, from my core.
Daring to be me and sharing it
I’m new to Substack. But I feel it will suit me. I’ve kept journals all my life. Private journals, writing stuff that I never thought I could share with anyone. And yet, writing my first memoir, I realized I needed to share honestly and openly. I needed to be vulnerable and true.
The joy I felt when I finally published my story - my first memoir - was indescribably good. I felt I could die happy. My story was told. I had dared to be me on the page. I’m also discovering that I exist through writing. Like I become myself, recognize myself for the first time, when I commit myself to the page.
I need to write. And it is a joy when my writing finds a reader. It’s intimate. Like when you’re talking on the radio. There’s only ever one listener. As you’re reading this, you’re the one! Thank you.
You’re invited!
I invite you to join me as I continue to write my second memoir. I write it first and foremost to understand myself. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I really believe that. So, I want to continue to examine my life.
Writing this second memoir, I feel like an archaeologist on an ancient site, digging up bones and fragments. Finding stuff on the page or in files or buried in my memory.
I’m 60. My second memoir - Saved by a Woman - deals with a six-year period of my life, from age 27 to 33. Pretty much 30 years ago! I’ve a freedom in writing about it because it was, literally, half a lifetime ago. I can share things from that time because it’s like writing about someone else. And yet of course it’s about a younger me.
I aim to post once a week by Friday evening. You can expect an update on what I’ve achieved or learnt or written (or failed at or been flummoxed by or not written!)
