Ten Things I learned About Memoir Writing in 2009

The wonderful site, She Writes, asked for blogs about this topic. So this is what I wrote!

1. That persistence can work--I mean over ten years of writing, rewriting, changing point of view twice and almost giving up. I learned that the book sold on Valentine's Day, while I was at the AWP conference in Chicago--the phone to my ear inside a Kinko's as the wind blew outside. It was heaven, even in the chill.

2. That even though a part of me would have loved to share my finished, published book with my parents when they were alive, that their deaths(at 91 and 93 after good, long lives) gave me a certain freedom. Plus, I didn't want to hurt them. Some of the book might have done that. I now talk to them and feel their protection and love in a more pure way.

3. It's important to be grateful and acknowledge all those who helped you along the way. In my case it was a virtual army of people. I sent lots of thank you emails with my news and when I think of someone I've forgotten, I try and thank them and keep them in the loop.

4. That the book is bigger than my life. I'm hoping it can help people who have family members who have been burned, or had panic attacks or ever been separated from their parents when they were children.

5. That I'm proud of how hard I worked on the language. As a poet the words mean a lot to me. But it might not be perfect and that's okay.

6. That remembering that the book is bigger than just my life will help me talk about it when the old feelings surface.

7. That a whole new life is opening up for me.

8. That I can't quit my teaching job yet—and I can focus on what I love about my job and my students who are big supporters of my writing as well. Talking to them about my process inspires them.

9. That working with an editor is a give and take. I was fortunate to find a wonderful, amazing publishing house—Atlas and Co.

10. That I need to take care of myself during this time--both for myself and my family--like enjoying quiet moments at home or taking a hike to recharge or just sitting on the couch with my precious dog in my lap.

East Village Christmas in the 1970's

I'm a bit fuzzy about the exact year--whether I was a new college graduate--or what exactly my sister was doing. At that time in our lives, we had multiple addresses crossed in and out of address books for each other--but we spent Christmas eve together in her fifth floor walkup on 6th Street and Avenue C. There were lights strung on a vacant loit across the street. Homeless people crouched in doorways asking for spare change and trying to keep warm under thin blankets.The day before we went to a thrift store and got small gifts for all of our friends. We spent that evening(x-mas eve) wrapping them with colorful paper, tied with ribbons and on each present, I wrote a small poem --like William Carlos Williams or Pablo Neruda--whatever mood overtook me. If it was a pair of gloves I might have written, "warm/wooly/gloves/wear /where to find solace" or if we were giving a coffee cup perhaps I wrote "Cup/of/dreams." I was particularly into one word on each line type of poems. But I don't really remember exactly what I wrote except that we had bought a very small, inexpensive x-mas tree and loaded it with tinsel and a few ornaments and lights and put all our wrapped poem/presents underneath the tree. The thrift store seemed to provide something for everyone. Our friends were mainly artists, mostly marginalized economically and in many other ways. Some didn't have families to go to; others would drop in for the evening and go to their parents' homes the next day as we would do. We served hot cider and after the guests left, my sister and I walked down 2nd Avenue and went into a small church. The service was simple. Something about a baby being born, not a specific baby but all of us.

The next day we would make the walk from 6th Street and Avenue C to 12th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, a whole other world where the presents would be new----bought with love as well--but for some reason the love seemed more complicated then the love that night of a family of orphaned artists, unwrapping small gifts from the local thrift store, eyes wide with astonishment when they saw a poem written just for them.

Sanity

When my father was beginning to wane at the age of 92, on the skilled nursing floor and later in the hospital, he suddenly went into a psychotic break. His body seemed to be on super-drive. He saw Latin poetry floating in the air; he recited poems he memorized in German. He didn’t recognize either my sister or me when we came to visit him. Once, though, he said to my sister, “You look sad” and she burst out crying. Sometimes he saw music floating through the air, an Oliver Sachs moment. They tied his hands down. They were going to move him to a psych ward where he would be whare housed and die.

My dad was a beloved doctor of many in NYC. He spent time with his patients. He tried to figure things out, get them the best care. When my sister and I tried to contact my dad’s psychiatrist, he didn’t return the call for a long three days. Another five days went by without any visits. Frantic, we talked to the nurses. One nurse said, “Take him off all his medications, but don’t tell anyone I told you this.” It took another five days to plead with the doctors and the psychiatrists to try this. Meanwhile, my father’s eyes were glazed. He no longer was having flights of fancy. The Latin poems were replaced by nothing. The medication was doing its job. He was sinking into the world of the insane, possibly never to come out.

Finally, all medications were stopped. The next day he came back. He sat up in bed, asked for his breakfast. He remembered nothing. He recognized my sister and me and wondered what all the fuss was about?

Like all of us who are “temporarily able bodied” I believe many of us are temporarily sane except for the grace of a higher power. Perhaps artists of all sorts have more of a thin line between the sane and the insane.

Yesterday, I went to Border’s bookstore to sit in one of their cushy armchairs and grade final exams. Next to me was a young man with mental health problems. He kept asking the time, actually shouting out to people “What time is it? What time is it?” Because my husband worked for over thirty years with developmentally disabled seniors, and since I taught poetry classes at that senior center, I was familiar and not too bothered by this rather gentle but needy soul. I told him, quite directly, I have to get these papers done. So I need some quiet. He was very nice and couldn’t help himself every once in a while by asking, “How are your papers? How are your papers?”

But to the left of me, a well-dressed woman, probably in her thirties, was talking to herself. She must have had multiple personalities because her voice often changed, Sibyl-like, from female to male, young to old. She seemed particularly stuck in a child’s voice and when she started saying, rather loudly, “I have to go diarrhea” and then giggling hysterically. Two older people, separately, came up to her and firmly said, “People are trying to work here—to concentrate.” As I suspected, that only made her more angry. “What’s wrong with talking about diarrhea and urine?” Do you have a problem with that? Then she began saying, “I’m so embarrassed. “ Her face turned beet red. She was in a moment in the past. “What’s so bad about urine?” she shouted out again. The older people left. The other people were all plugged in to Ipods and looked up every once in a while but didn’t seem to care.

I stayed for quite a while, though her constant rants, crying, giggling did begin to bother me. The baristas looked on, not quite knowing what to do. She looked so beautiful, a white silk blouse, red skirt, long dark hair.

I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to these people? Perhaps for the "What time is it” man, a congenital brain injury, or a fall from a high chair(that happened to one of the beloved people in the senior center). For the woman—early abuse? Early loss? Or no one taking the time to listen, to help, to do what my sister and I were able to do for my father?

It’s amazing to me sometimes, that more of our brains don’t fragment—and important to make sure that everyone you love, at all times has someone to talk to, to help them through rough patches. And perhaps, especially in this season of “peace” that we remember, also, to fight to end all wars—so more young men and now young women don’t fragment before our very eyes.

I’m almost finished grading papers. My sweet white dog, Penelope is sitting next to me. I’m grateful for family, friends as we light up the darkness in this almost solstice night.

Self-hypnosis and panic attacks

I remember when I was in my middle twenties, going out to lunch with my mother. I had just read an article in a self-help book about how every morning you’re supposed to look in the mirror, say, “I love myself completely” and see what miraculous effects it can have on your life. My mother, who was facially disfigured as an adult said to me, “I love myself completely but I don’t like how I look.” I didn’t know how to respond as she rarely revealed her feelings, so I was quiet. I stopped talking too much about “self-healing” to her. She was famous in my mind for one line during the sixties. “What is all this communication nonsense anyway?” She was from English stock and more about action than pouring out your heart. Though my need was more of the heart pouring variety, from the lens of time, I think she had a point. But that wasn’t going to help me in my time of need.

I was no stranger to some of these self-healing techniques: a dear friend I met while I was in graduate school gave me a round mirror. With deep red lipstick she wrote “I trust myself completely.” The trunk was packed too full and by the time I drove from Buffalo, New York to San Francisco in a ’68 Camero(God knows why I bought that car) the mirror had cracked. I tried not to take it as a sign that I wasn’t trustworthy and continued on my way to figuring out who I was—through life itself and plenty of therapy, all varieties(especially available on the West Coast). I still had my New York skepticism, though, so even though I went to one “rebirthing session” where people were put into a tub of water, I didn’t quite believe that their momentary “spacing out” was really that they were reliving their anesthesia in the womb. They were trying to reclaim that time as if it would be a key to future happiness. That was too much for me. I never went back to be rebirthed(once was enough).

But even though I stumbled on all sorts of techniques, some helpful and some not, to help me deal with childhood trauma, when I was having panic attacks in my forties, Isabel Gilbert helped me immeasurably. A hypnotist who worked all over the world she had me write a letter to her with my particular story and what I wanted to work on. Then I met with her twice. She made a series of tapes for me: one was for sleep, one was for relaxation and the crème de la crème tape was directed specifically at me—She talks to me, “Louise, you are now…..” Basically, she had me visualize myself taking care of myself as that traumatized child. I was to hug myself each night before sleep and say, “I’m happy, safe and healthy.” She also used words like “deserve” and had me see myself with a finished book, accepted by a publisher, happily walking down the street.

She taught me “three minute” self-hypnosis techniques and said that some of her patients said they didn’t have three minutes in their day. “Can you believe that?” she said. I religiously did self-hypnosis every day, even with my hands shaking from panic and my breath short. Over time, I believe that along with other help, the self-hypnosis worked wonders. I still listen to the tape every day. I’m much older than the woman on the tape and much stronger. I have a book about to come out. Many of the things I’ve wanted in my life have come to fruition. I don’t think anyone “deserves” anything more than anyone else, but I did believe that her words—which get integrated into a part of the brain I know little about, have helped me bit my bit—in small and big ways.

My mother has since died—and my relationship with her has grown. She appears as a helpful ally, now, annoyed with some of my emotional needs but understanding. And she now completely accepts how she looks and loves herself completely.

I’m happy to tell people more about my self-hypnosis techniques and how it worked for me.


My book, Burned: A Memoir about a family tragedy will be published in April, 2010 .
Visit louisenayer.com for more info.

A Memoir is like a quilt

Writing a memoir is like stitching a quilt together. I started with small patches, scenes from the past and the present. A memory of an explosion in Cape Cod. Ice skating on a pond in upstate New York while my parents were in the hospital. A phone call. A black telephone chord on a brown table. Cradled in the warmth of my aunt, uncle and cousins. My sister’s tears. Her asthma. Returning to New York. A family reuniting.

But these were all scraps of memory that took years and years to sew together. I was afraid to go deeper. I woke up scared about remembering. I had dreams of fire. I couldn’t cross bridges. I had a husband and small children. I wanted their memories to be of the zoo, swinging in the park, reading books. But I seemed to tell too much because the telling became obsessive like sanding a table and wanting to get past the old paint and scratches down to the grain. But I learned to balance the past—that memoir—with present joys. The book still was not ready, though. It would take more years to bake and the death of my parents to free the parts of the story that I didn’t want to tell when they were alive.

It was only after working with an editor/friend in Montreal that the book took shape. I made timelines for each character. Everyone has a story from beginning to some sort of end. The stories were separated. The characters were developed—what they liked to eat, what they liked to wear. What flowers might they choose to place on the table. Then the stories were put together, like vanilla and chocolate batter that is swirling together so the swirling is just right. That took a couple of years, to write the sketches, to merge the stories. To go back and forth as life does like on a sea saw. Not one moment but past, present and future like the sun dipping at the same time as the moon rises. Or how all the stars, even the ones light years away are illuminated.

The story was finally told and sold. It started as a patchwork quilt, small patches of remembering.

Peace

I wrote this for Red Room for authors--Peace can certainly help all our bodies and minds recover.

When I think of peace, I think of different moments. At my daughters’ pre-school, the children were taught to use “words” instead of hurting each other. I taught there for one summer and remember hearing tiny voices in that sunny one room school in the Richmond District of San Francisco, upset over who could claim possession to a red truck, be told to put the truck down and speak to each other: “I had it first and I’m mad you took it from me.

“But I wanted it. You had it so long.” At the end of the conversation, mediated by a teacher from the sidelines, a truce was formed, the truck was transferred for a few minutes to the little boy who wanted it and then politely given back. Voila. A war was stopped!

I also think of 1968 at the University of Wisconsin. I was protesting the Dow Chemical Company who was then making napalm, burning the skin even of innocent children in Vietnam. I sat in the Commerce Building, scrunched in with hundreds of others and suddenly got claustrophobic. I also felt something really bad was going to happen and I quickly excused myself and ran out of the building and stood in my long black coat on top of a grassy knoll again with hundreds of others. A few minutes later, police officers stormed the building, beating students and dragging them out. There was screaming and crying and blood. Outside, young men, the same as age we were—19, in the National Guard came towards us with pointed rifles and then tear gas appeared like rain. I had something in my eye or just wanted to be blinded from seeing friends put into ambulances and I ran down toward Lake Mendota with my friend Joanne. I found a water fountain and put water in my eyes. That night we all gathered together, found out about who was hurt and who was recovering and I aged considerably from a middle-class college student to a protestor who had been tear gassed and seen friends hurt for wanting an end to war. We chose to speak in one voice and there were a lot of us. We took the consequences, some much more serious consequences than others. Ultimately, we wanted peace in the whole world.

I also think of “fighting” for a Black Studies Department(as it was called back then) at the University of Wisconsin and picketing classrooms for two days. It seems absurd now as many Universities have African American Studies Departments that students take for granted. It was winter and well below freezing. I had a huge pink scarf from India wrapped around my whole face so only the slits of my eyes showed. People alternately made coffee and donut runs and we marched for hours. I also remember that there was no violence, and that we were successful. I’m not sure when or how, but our efforts were part of the success of the program.

I also remember last semester at City College of San Francisco where I teach—in my class Trauma and the Arts, I assigned an “anti-war poster” after students studied Picasso's Guernica and the Spanish Civil War. A few of my very vocal students said they’d prefer to do a “pro-peace” poster and we discussed the linguistic difference and all decided on pro-peace. Thought the posters had some scenes of war, what I remember are fields of flowers, deer running through tall trees, and the guns and the violence just a whisper, slowly disappearing from the foreground to the background. So that’s what I would like: that negotiations prevent war; that people stand up for human rights; that schools are built before bombs are dropped and that somehow, some way we can put an end to wars.

Louise Nayer is the author of Burned: A Memoir to be published in April 2010.

The Day I Sold My Memoir

My memoir was sold on Valentines Day when I was at the Associated Writing Program in Chicago. I was relishing some time away from the computer, enjoying the windy city--jazz on the street corners, the spectacular art museum, ice sculptures of Ghandi and a couple dancing--My agent had tried to sell my book to a number of big houses. No one had wanted it, and I was devastated, again, as I had been trying to sell the book for over ten years, four revisions, three agents and myriad changes of point of view, additions, deletions, and a virtual army of people who had helped me along the way to what felt like nowhere. The "Big House" metaphor was daunting. I wasn't being let in. There was an inner sanctum for a certain set.

I should have stayed a poet, I lamented, instead of this one way ticket to Palookaville. But I wasn't going to give up(the mantra that I tried to repeat) and at the conference saw there were a number of great university presses. I had just come out of a workshop where some seasoned and well known writers talked about their foray out of the major houses. I wanted my work to get out there somehow, some way.

I'll check my email, I thought, even though it was a few chilling blocks to Kinko's. Once in the door, I sat down at one of the computer banks, put in the code and the meter was running. As I entered comcast, my trusty server, I saw three emails from my agent. Why would she be writing me? Then I saw the heading, Good news! My hands were shaking, not from the cold, but from an excitement that would take me out of the trajectory of the last ten plus years into a new place.

"Atlas and Co. a wonderful publisher, loves your book." The loves had three exclamation points after it. When my agent gets excited, she gets really, really excited. "Call me immediately!" I looked at the other two emails before this one, all telling me good news is coming. I thought of the Spiritual I teach "Good News is Coming," and was practically singing the song. I quickly jotted down the two numbers where she said she'd be--paid my money and stood in the doorway at Kinko's looking out the plate glass window and called her. When Laurie picked up, she was ecstatic. "It's a great press. I got you an advance-- They want to know by Monday."

I was silent for a minute. This was my baby about to be placed in a home--I asked more questions. She answered. I said, "Is this really happening." She said, "Yes, this is really happening." I could feel tears well in my eyes.
"This means so much to me," she said. "So much." We talked for another half hour as we often do--about the AWP conference, the workshop, the synchronicity, that this happened on Valentine's Day, that this was all a gift and meant to be.

We finished talking. I went out into the Chicago cold standing a lot taller. "My book sold," I told my colleague and friend, "my book sold." For the next two hours, any time I ran into a friend I told them and that night I celebrated. All the years before--the great interest and then the rejections(two agents worked with me and then gracefully recanted). Somehow, I knew that I had arrived. Was some of this luck? You bet! Was some of this constant work, reworking, learning, growing as a writer and the belief of all my friends, family and agent that this would ultimately happen. Yes it was.
What can I say to a new writer? If you believe in your story, if you believe that you can put in the time to make the writing as good as you can; if you can ask for help when you need it--then with luck, your story will be sold as well.

Burned: A Memoir will appear at the end of April 2010. If anybody reads this and wants to know some more of what I went through in getting this book to print, please ask.

Panic Attacks Be Gone!

Ah panic attacks- Mine have mostly vanished but seem to "rear" their ugly heads every once in a while when I"m in an elevator which I need to do three days a week at City College of SF. Last time when I got into an elevator, a woman getting out said she had been temporarily "stuck" and that she's claustrophobic but the police were great--very kind on the elevator phone and then like magic, the elevator door opened. I took a deep breath when the door closed and I was alone. The door on that elevator shuts very fast but takes a long time to open.

When I was very, very small--my best friend and I were on an elevator that stopped between floors and the door opened to nothing but a concrete wall, as if that was to be the place where we might have to live for the next hundred years--not a door I wanted to go through.

So it is mainly elevators that trigger the old panic. In NYC I was on elevators all the time. In San Francisco I mostly move in an elevatorless world except for those few hrs. each day at school.
I think there are some people, like my husband at times, who love enclosed spaces--spaces you can burrow into and maybe never be found. I'll try thinking of the elevator next time as my burrow.

From Panic Attacks to Selling My Memoir

For over ten years I’ve been writing, revising, searching for agents, working with editors and finally selling my book about a childhood trauma: my parents were severely burned in an accident on Cape Cod when I was four years old.

This blog will be of interest to those who have been through an early trauma and suffered from panic attacks—in my case decades later-- and also to those who have spent seconds, hours, days, months and yes, many years trying to bring a book to publication.

This very beginning—testing the waters—will be an attempt to combine the two threads. So I will start by just saying that my book Burned: A Memoir was sold to Atlas and Company and will be published in April of 2010. Making that statement represents years of sitting in front of the computer between my teaching job and raising kids –and my determination that the book would get good enough to be sold. The fact that it did sell also represents love of family and friends—a good dose of luck-- and what I learned about navigating through the publishing world.

So as I said—this is just a beginning—and as the weeks go on I will continue to write about the past (overcoming the panic attacks that ttriggered the writing), how I wrote and rewrote the book and perhaps how I would approach this differently(hindsight). The present and the future all converge to this very moment. My children are now grown—my parents have died—and my sister, six at the time of the accident lives in the Virgin Islands, returning to the sand and the sea—where we had such beautiful and such terrible memories.