Saved by a Woman
Friends, Confidentiality & Pseudonyms
Reconnecting with friends
I spent over an hour last night chatting on zoom to an old friend. We hadn’t talked for years. I had sent her extracts from my emerging second memoir, Saved by a Woman – bits that referred to her.
We reworked sentences together, improving them. She was delighted that I asked her view before publication. It’s not always possible to do this. But since starting on the second memoir, I’ve tracked down several dear friends that I hadn’t been in touch with for years.
It’s a lovely aspect of writing a memoir.
Protecting confidentiality
Last night’s conversation was wonderful. Zoom is great like that. My friend lives in England. I’m in Ireland. I shared my screen and we could go through everything.
She’s a modest woman and so preferred fewer explicit references to herself in the book. She was also concerned to protect the confidentiality of group discussions. With that in mind, I rewrote sentences so that she was happy that the confidentiality of meetings we had had with other people was protected.
Tracking people down
Finding people from years ago can sometimes be tricky. Like finding a needle in a haystack. One good friend from my 20s was really hard to trace. Turns out, lots of people share his name! I had nearly given up when I remembered a friend of his. But I couldn’t remember this other guy’s surname. He was at our wedding. He got on great with a girl I have kept in touch with. I asked her and she remembered his surname. A quick check on Facebook and I found him. But he didn’t reply.
Meanwhile, I broadened my search, asking another great friend, Mary, if she had any ideas. Within a half-an-hour, by an online search, Mary had discovered where my old pal worked. And she found his email!
Pseudonym
I shot him an email and he soon replied. We caught up on each other’s lives and I ran by him his cameo appearance in Saved by a Woman. I’d quoted a clever, witty note he’d written me in his twenties, with a male banter punchline. He was fine with it but asked me to use a pseudonym in case it was brought up in a future job interview! So I’ve rechristened him in my book!
Keep everything you write!
The last couple of days I’ve also been keying into my memoir extracts from an unpublished booklet I wrote almost 30 years ago. It adds texture, a new perspective and collaborates facts in my emerging book. Glad I kept it and now it’ll find new voice in my forthcoming work.