Dirty Secret: Writing Through the Mess

Dear readers,

I have enjoyed this blog and very much appreciate the comments and emails I’ve gotten, so this wasn’t an easy decision, but I’m afraid I’m so swamped with deadlines and other personal and professional commitments that I need to take a hiatus. I will reassess this fall … in the meantime, always feel free to email me: jessie [dot] sholl [at] gmail.com, or find me on Facebook or Twitter — the links for both are to the left — and that’s my geographical dyslexia kicking in — sorry, links are to the RIGHT.

Thanks for all of your support for Dirty Secret and for me, personally.

Jessie

Rebecca K. O’Connor is an author, animal trainer, and conservationist. She’s the author of natural reference books, a parrot training manual, a romance novel, and most recently, a memoir. It was this memoir, Lift, that caught my eye last year. I love birds, which is why I was originally drawn to Lift, but it’s about so much more. It’s a beautifully written tale of a mother-daughter relationship, a love story, and the fascinating sport of falconry. I found it unputdownable. (Yes, that is a word.)

I read this quote by you: “There are two journeys when you have a memoir. There’s the journey of the memoir itself and the journey of writing the memoir. Writing the memoir is the harder, deeper journey than what actually happened.” I couldn’t agree more, from my own experience. Can you tell me a little about the process of writing Lift, in terms of that harder, deeper journey?

In the books I love the most characters evolve, because in life people grow. I was the main character in Lift and I wasn’t entirely sure what had changed in me. So I started asking myself the hard questions about my motivations, my stumbles, my fears and hurts. I had only lived the story in the book. When I wrote it I had to find the meaning in it. Some of things I decided about who I was or had been were a surprise to me. A lot of them were painful. In fact some of the hardest things I wrote about didn’t even make it in my final edit of the book. I went to the dark places though and I think that still bubbles up through the text. Whether that work I did makes it a good book or not, it did make the writing of Lift a life-shifting experience and I am grateful for that.

What about the logistics of writing — do you believe in outlines? Do you write every day or in spurts?

I write in some way most every day – in morning pages or in inspired bursts or methodically on a piece or book that I’m determined to finish. I start and stop on projects and try to forgive myself when I stall and get back at it a page at a time. I believe strongly in outlines, but I’m always rewriting them. It’s like life. I can’t stand not having a plan, but I’m willing to constantly change the plan as I go.

Did you read other memoirs when you were working on yours? Are there any that you’d recommend? What are some of your other favorite books?

I read stacks of memoirs when I was writing and looked for opportunities to work with the authors of the books that resonated the most with me. Kim Barnes was one of these writers and her affect on my work was huge. Some of my favorites are here. My all-time favorite novel is Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale. I’ve always loved magical realism. I think Aimee Bender is wonderful too. The literary book that I most recently adored was Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin. I don’t normally fess up but I love good fantasy, horror and adventure too. (Gillian Flynn, Joe Hill, Cherie Priest.)

What advice do you have for aspiring memoirists?

Memoir isn’t so much about the author’s life as it is about the reader’s life. I didn’t understand the totality of this until Lift was published and readers started telling me what they thought it meant in the context of their own lives. So don’t write memoir to tell the world about yourself. (The world won’t listen.) Write memoir to explain the world to yourself. (Everyone is looking for an explanation of this mystifying place.)

What are you working on now?

I am halfway through and struggling with a post-apocalyptic wilderness novel with a strong young female protagonist journeying across a re-wilded but uninhabited west. (Think Jurassic Park meets Castaway with maybe a bit of Hunger Games thrown in.) Funny thing is I thought it would be a relief to get away from memoir for a bit, but I find myself asking hard questions again about who I am and what this book means. Every time I think I’ve made huge strides in this journey of writing, I realize I’ve really only made baby steps. Like I’ve often heard it said though, writing is cheaper than therapy…

Thanks so much, Rebecca! Readers, for more information please visit Rebecca’s website. And good news: July 1st Lift will be released as an eBook, along with Rise, a companion book of essays, poetry, and short stories. Here’s the trailer for Rise.

Okay, if that last blog post was lazy — and yes, I admit a round-up of links and a photo of my shadow in a bookstore window is a VERY lazy post — well, get ready because this one is even lazier!

Because, to put it bluntly, I’m burnt out. I’ve just spent the last month as a juror on a complicated and frustrating federal drug conspiracy trial. Part of me wishes I’d tried to get out of it when I was interviewed in the jury box; I could have lied and said I couldn’t serve on a drug case because I think they should be legalized — actually, that’s not a lie. I am in favor of legalizing drugs, at least some of them.

Here’s the case. Another reason for my lack of posting (side note: how many blog posts are about why someone hasn’t blogged in so long?) is that I’m trying to make sense of my feelings about the case and more specifically, the verdict, by writing about it. I’m at 2,500 words of pure mess right now, but it’s feeling good to get it down on the page.

In the meantime, thank you for reading. Oh, and let me ask this: Have you ever been on a jury? Have you ever had to render a verdict that you didn’t want to, even though technically it was the right thing to do?

I’ve written gushed about Janice Erlbaum’s two memoirs before. But now, for the first time in Dirty Secret history, she is going to speak for herself. Right here! Right now! Read on and I guarantee you’ll become as big a fan as I am.

Your first memoir, Girlbomb, chronicles your experience, as the subtitle states, as a “halfway homeless” adolescent. How did you feel after writing the book as opposed to before you began? Did anything change for you through the process of writing it?

YES. I found so much empathy for people like my mother, my friends, my old roommates, ex-boyfriends — even my stepfather, whose violent temper caused me to leave home at fifteen. He didn’t ask to be born with bad chemistry; underneath his mental illness, he was a very intelligent man with a sardonic wit. I realized that my mother was thirty-six around the time she was first trying to leave him; she had a two-year-old son and an emotionally disturbed fourteen-year-old daughter to care for, and she was self-employed. Meanwhile, I was thirty-four, I had neither kids nor a violent spouse, and I still could barely keep my shit together on a daily basis. So I had to start seeing my mother as a frightened young person, and not a mean old one. And my friends, even the ones who deserved air quotes around that word — they had it just as bad as me, I just didn’t recognize it at the time. The first draft of the book was, like, “They all sucked and I was great!” By the second, I realized that I sucked too, and that sucking is the universal condition because it’s basically everyone doing the best we can do.

What advice would you give to the 15-year-old Janice now?

“You don’t have to actually have penetrative sex with all those guys — if you spit in your hand, you can get away with a handjob.” Also, “Only do half as many drugs as I did, which still leaves you a hefty half, but hopefully keeps you from nearly dropping dead.” Oh, and, “Don’t steal.” Otherwise I’d pretty much do it all the same, or so I think now, from the safety of my (really nice and comfortable) apartment.

Was the writing process different with your second memoir, Have You Found Her, and if so, how?

The process was much different. In the first book, I was writing about stuff that happened eighteen years before, stuff I’d had a lot of time to process. The second book was written while it was happening, while I was still an emotional mess over it, with no perspective on it at all. If I thought the first book was emotionally taxing, I was soon to find that the second was even worse. There were times while writing that I was so overcome with sadness or anger or adrenaline that I had to go into the bathroom at my public workspace and cry it out for a minute. (Actually, that happened with the first book too, but I worked alone from home back then, so I just cried at my desk.)

Have You Found Her takes place in the same shelter you stayed in as an adolescent, only now as an adult you’re volunteering there. Do you still volunteer (either there or other places) and if so, has anything changed in either the way you approach volunteering or your expectations from it, as a result of the events in the book?

I do volunteer! I decided, after the Unfortunate Incidents described in the second book (which I usually call “Flounder,” for brevity’s sake), that I should stay away from the place that reminded me so much of my past, because volunteering wasn’t supposed to be about me. Since then, I’ve worked with organizations like Girls Write Now (girlswritenow.org) and GEMS (gems-girls.org), where I’ve had the chance to talk with young women about writing and its role in creating a better life for yourself. I’ve also done some fundraisers, which I recommend to people who are looking to volunteer — start with a fundraiser, a small thing with friends even, and drum up some donations. Some organizations need money more than they need bodies, and this way you can start small and not overcommit.

Both of your memoirs, but especially Have You Found Her, read like novels. Have you written novels before this? Do you plan to write one?

Oy. I could write a novel in response to this question. I have written a few novel drafts, but nothing has panned out yet and AUGH it pains me. Trying, trying, trying. We’ll see.

Thank you, Janice, for participating! Readers, please visit her at www.girlbomb.com.