Sources for your memoir
Journals, letters & vulnerability
Journals
My primary source for writing a memoir is my journal. I ground myself most days by writing my spontaneous thoughts and feelings in a private journal. I write it for my eyes only.
I dare to express myself there, uncensored. By committing stuff to the page, I gain some distance from it. It’s a poultice for my feelings, helping me see what’s real and what isn’t. Having written my journal, I find it easier to see what I must do.
Reading journals I wrote years ago reminds me of my mindset at any given moment. They show the emotional flow of my life.
Letters
I kept letters received decades ago. And I have copies of many letters that I wrote. Letters can be so revealing when writing a memoir. They confirm dates, happenings, joys and sorrows. They can crystalize stuff from journals, and offer a different perspective.
Combined, journals and letters are the best primary source material for any memoir.
Unlikely sources
While financial records aren’t sexy, old bank statements and receipts can remind you when you visited places, what the emotional feel of the visit was and why you went there. Seeing Paris, Galway or the Lake District on a financial record can stimulate emotional memories.
Live forwards, understand backwards
Our lives move forward. But we understand ourselves by looking backwards. It is why people write memoirs, to understand ourselves better.
Deadlines!
I spent the last couple of months researching the final third of my second memoir, Saved by a Woman. Deadlines are important. I’ve set myself the deadline of next Tuesday to complete my research.
Vulnerability beckons
So I’ll be getting back to writing from next Wednesday. I’m looking forward to it. I find that it’s only in putting words on the page that I discover myself. By finding the words to tell my story, I become myself. I exist by writing.
I also feel some fear. Some of the stuff I have unearthed is difficult. In a good memoir, the writer dares to be vulnerable. Vulnerability isn’t easy. But without it, the book would be useless. It is only by being vulnerable, by daring to be me on the page, that my reader will want to keep reading.