A sobering reality for memoirists: Everyone’s dysfunctional

A person I respect and love dearly said one day, “Every family is dysfunctional. Every family.”

I said to myself That can’t be true.

But within seconds I realized she was correct. Each family is dysfunctional—each person is dysfunctional—some in big ways, some in smaller ways.

To complicate matters, we all have blind spots—we can’t see our own quirks—our malfunctions, aberrations, incongruities, blips, irregularities, inconsistencies, impairments, or distortions.

I give a huge shout-out to those who understand they have big or little imperfections as well as blind spots and who work hard to improve. I applaud you!

To those who are too proud to admit they could be dysfunctional, Thomas Larson suggests we examine where we’ve allowed self-delusion to shape our identities and memories (The Memoir and the Memoirist).

It’s easy to identify those with glaring malfunctions, and we need to write about some of those people in our memoirs.

But even the most functional people—the most “together” people—have little glitches that make them imperfect. We need to write about some of those people in our memoirs, too.

Think about the bosses you’ve had, people you’ve worked with, people you’ve traveled with, people you’ve lived with. College buddies, fellow cheerleaders, people you go to church with.

In even the finest of them you might see glimpses of being:

• controlling/bossy
• impatient
• gruff
• proud
• lacking in self-control
• narcissistic
• stretching the truth

Think about siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, in-laws, children, grandchildren. In even the finest of them, you might see hints of:

• being enablers
• having a “poor me” attitude, a victim mentality,
• being touchy/overreacting
• being aloof/underreacting
• snobbish
• bitter and unforgiving
• obsessed/addicted: spending money or eating/drinking/drugging to ease pain
• yielding to peer pressure, longing to fit in

Think of neighbors, best friends, doctors, bus drivers, CEOs, people who have married into your family. People in your Bible study or your book club or your writing group. In even the finest of them you might detect traces of them being:

• unpredictable/unreliable
• cowardly
• gullible
• vengeful
• prejudiced
• judgmental/holier-than-thou

People whose blogs you follow. Facebook friends, Twitter friends. In even the finest of them you might see glimpses of them being:

• power-hungry
• overly competitive
• defined by their appearances, accomplishments, possessions
• insecure
• driven

Even people we love with all our hearts

have at least mild shortcomings—

spouses, parents, siblings, kids,

grandkids, in-laws, best friends.

But here’s the sobering part: You and I are dysfunctional, too.

All those people we’ve been thinking about—our bosses, our co-workers, people we’ve traveled with, college buddies, people we go to church with—they have extended grace upon grace to you and to me despite our dysfunctions and our blindness to them.

Our siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, in-laws, children, grandchildren—they have all extended grace to us despite our offenses.

Our neighbors, best friends, doctors, bus drivers, people who have married into our families, people in our Bible study or book club or writing group—they have all extended grace to us despite our rough edges and flaws.

Since you are dysfunctional and I am dysfunctional,

let’s recognize the grace and longsuffering

others have extended to us.

Let’s be grateful for their patience and forgiveness,

for the second chances they’ve given us.

Let’s remember The Golden Rule,

doing unto others as you would have them do to you,

or, as it reads in The Living Bible:

“Treat others as we would want them to treat us”

(Luke 6:31, Matthew 7:12).

And in The Voice:

“Think of the kindness you wish others would show you;

do the same for them.”

Let’s write about them

in the way we’d like them to write about us.

Let’s offer others grace,

let’s be patient with them, forgive them,

and give them second chances in our hearts

as well as

in the way we write about them in our memoirs.

Your daily life: “Imagine the divine activities behind the scene”

In her Bible study, Esther, Beth Moore suggests that we “imagine the divine activities behind the scene[s].”

Those few words remind me of my challenge to all you memoirists writing stories with a spiritual dimension. You’ll often hear me say, “Connect your dots.”

By “connect your dots,” I mean this: Search for the ways God was involved in arranging the key events of your life, and then identify the ways He strings them together—how He “connects the dots.”

Beth continues, “If we could only see what is  happening around us in the unseen realm, our eyes would nearly pop out of socket. . . . So much that would thrill us lies beyond our sight. . . .”

Beth writes that God sometimes appears in the midst of a crisis “dressed in the best disguise of all: ordinary events. He tucks a miracle in the folds of His robe and sweeps in and out unnoticed.

“Only in retrospect do we realize that a divine visitation graced our cold, crude winter and the resurrection of spring is on its way.

“Sometimes we grab the hem of Christ’s garment for dear life. . . . Other times it brushes past us and we never recognize that the turn-around marking the months to come began with a single touch.”

She calls those events “so forgettably ordinary.”

So forgettable. So ordinary. Sigh.

That’s why memoirists must invest time in retrospection. That’s why memoirists must set aside time and make an effort to dig deeply into the past, to uncover, piece together, connect the dots, and make sense of what happened in the past.

Yes, that’s a lot of work—but, oh! The treasures you’ll discover!

Amy Carmichael wrote of new insights she received one day in reading Deuteronomy 11 when God was sending the Israelites to the land of milk and honey with the promise that “the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on [the land] from the beginning of the year to its end” (vs 12).

Amy wrote, “‘From the beginning of the year until the end of the year’—much is folded up in that. The day of the week, the hour of the day, every minute of the day, not one is outside His care.” (Edges of His Ways)

Think on those words

while you reflect and ponder and piece together your story—

while you connect your dots.

From the beginning to the end, God’s eye is on you.

Every minute.

“Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God’s appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)

You don’t need to be perfect to write a memoir, but you do need to be real

“Editors don’t want” [and I add: readers don’t want] “stories of our great triumphs or success. Readers identify with failure and find hope in rising above mistakes” (Cec and Me, with Cecil Murphey and Twila Belk).

You don’t need to be perfect to write a memoir.

But you do need to be real.

Readers want to identify with you.

They can do so if you’re willing

to be vulnerable—transparent—with them.

They read because they want to learn from you,

so write about your struggles, your flops, your fiascos.

Admit to your messes and debacles.

But don’t stop there!

Tell readers why and how you fought through your failures.

Tell them what kept you from giving up.

Tell them what gave you hope and resolve.

Tell them.

They need to know.

Why?

Because they want to grab hold of the same courage

and tenacity and faith and hope you chose.

They want to rise from the rubble like you did.

Write your stories!

Are you willing to share your story? “Convinced that this period in history would be judged one day, I knew that I must bear witness.”

We need stories about integrity, and courage, and perseverance, and about doing the right thing.

We need upright people who will speak truth to power, who will be a voice for those who have no voice, an advocate for the abused, neglected, and the downtrodden.

We need people who take seriously what we call the Golden Rule: Jesus’ words about doing unto others as we would have them do unto us—or as it says in the Living Bible: “Treat others as we would want them to treat us” (Luke 6:31, Matthew 7:12). In other words, “Think of the kindness you wish others would show you; do the same for them” (The Voice).

Imagine what it would be like for you

to be mistreated by those in power,

or for your voice to be silenced or ignored,

imagine what it’s like to be abused, overlooked,

disregarded, oppressed, and beaten down—

wouldn’t you want people to speak up?

We need stories written by people who are thinkers and questioners,

by people willing to look at issues from various angles,

people willing to step forward and take a stand,

willing to expose evil and injustice,

willing to be leaders and role models for so many of us

who are cowards—or at least foot-draggers.

Recently I read Jewish Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night.

You’ve no doubt heard about—and perhaps read—some of his books, but he says in the preface that “ . . . all my writings after Night . . . profoundly bear its stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works.” If you haven’t read his memoir, I encourage you to do so.

Elie Wiesel shows us what it looks like to put into practice this quote from his Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1986, below:

Maybe God is calling you to follow Elie Wiesel’s lead by writing your memoir.

Perhaps you can recognize yourself in what Wiesel wrote in his preface, “Convinced that this period in history would be judged one day, I knew that I must bear witness.”

Yet he also knew his “testimony would not be received. After all, it deals with an event that sprang from the darkest zone of man. . . .

“But would they at least understand?

“Could men and women who consider it normal to assist the weak,

heal the sick, to protect small children,

and to respect the wisdom of their elders

understand what happened there?

“Would they be able to comprehend how . . .

the masters tortured the weak

and massacred the children, the sick, the old?”

“And yet, having lived through this experience, one could not keep silent no matter how difficult, if not impossible, it was to speak.

“And so I persevered. . . .” (from the Preface to the New Translation [of Night])

Persevering is hard work. It can be discouraging work. Sometimes dangerous work. Often emotionally exhausting work.

Pastor Brian, my son-in-law, recently said, “Choosing to live and act with faith is hard. Will we trust God?”

That’s the hard part:

Will you trust God to help you

say what others need to hear?

Ask Him to help you speak not judgmentally,

but with grace and mercy.

Ask Him to help you speak with wisdom instead of foolishness,

with love instead of hate,

with truth instead of distortions,

with a cool head instead of a hot head,

with winsome words instead of fiery words—

words that build up instead of tear down,

that heal instead of injure.

Words that shine light in the darkness.

In what specific ways will you trust God

to help you write what others need to read?

Editing and proofreading a book you can be proud of

Have you ever re-read something you’ve published and found a grammatical error, misspelled word, or punctuation error? You feel embarrassed, right? If it makes you feel better, you’re not alone—we all have found mistakes in our published pieces.

Why don’t we catch those errors before we hit “publish” and send it out into the world?

“Gestalt psychologists were the first to discover that our minds tend to see things not as they are, but as our minds think they should be,” writes Debra Hart May in Proofreading Plain and Simple.

“The implications of this phenomenon for proofreading are enormous. Artist and author Carolyn Bloomer, in her book, Principles of Visual Perception, tells us ‘. . . Your mental “correcting” tends to tune out the very errors you are looking for. . . .’”

Read that again. If we grasp that “our minds tend to see things not as they are, but as our minds think they should be,” and that “mental ‘correcting’ tends to tune out the very errors you are looking for,” we’ll be more committed to watching for that tendency in our own editing and proofreading.

Writers can find help from books, blogs, classes, writing workshops, and critique partners. (There’s a difference between editing and proofreading. Learn more at Leah McClellan’s post, What’s the difference between editing and proofreading?)

Melissa Donovan at Writing Forward offers twenty-one tips in Do-It-Yourself Proofreading and Editing Tips. Each point is important but let me call your attention to point 16: “Start building a collection of grammar books and writing resources so when you do run into questions (and you will), you have access to reliable and credible answers.” I say Amen! to that! Also, ask other skilled writers which books they recommend.

Related to that is Melissa’s point 21: “Make it your business to develop good grammar skills. Read up on grammar or subscribe to a blog that publishes grammar posts (like this one) to stay up to date on proper grammar.” Amen! to that, too.

Nowadays we have more resources at our fingertips than in the past. For example, if you use Microsoft 365, you’ll see “Editor” near the top right of your screen. Click on that for feedback on spelling, grammar, clarity, conciseness, formality, punctuation, and vocabulary.

Also, I highly recommend using “Read Aloud” (Microsoft Office 365 under the Review tab). Pay close attention while you listen. You might be surprised at how many mistakes your ears catch that your eyes miss.

I also use the free version of Grammarly for online writing (emails, blog posts, Facebook).

Perhaps you’re like me: I’m always amazed at how I fail to notice overused words. Because of my blind spot, I depend on Wordcounter to point them out to me. It does what its name implies: it lists how many times I’ve used a given word. I use the Thesaurus (under the Review tab) to choose different words.

Melissa Donovan also has a comprehensive list so click on this link to take in her rich resource. You might want to print it for a handy reference.

And below, I’ll share additional tips with you:

• When you think your manuscript is nearly ready for publication, take a break from it. Don’t think about it. If possible, wait a week before you set eyes on it again. If that’s not realistic, work on something else for a while—empty the dishwasher, take a walk, make a phone call. Afterward, you’ll be better at spotting areas that need attention: grammatical errors, misspelled words, punctuation errors, etc.
• Print your manuscript. Eyes see mistakes on a printed page that they miss on a computer screen.
• Move away from your writing area to read your printed document—in a different room, a park, your back yard, a coffee shop, or at the beach. 

Here are more tips from Debra Hart May’s Proofreading Plain and Simple:

• Print a [vertically-oriented] portrait document in landscape (or horizontal) mode.
• Print in a larger or less familiar font. (But choose a serif font . . . [because] they are easier to read.)
• Work in small time increments—15-20 minutes at a time.
• Take regular breaks to stretch, rest your eyes, and mentally engage from the task.

Editing and proofreading can be tedious tasks,

but they are a super-important part of writing and publishing.

If you do them well (hiring experts if necessary),

you can publish a quality book.

Don’t settle for anything less!

Your memoir’s value to readers: Recognizing their story in yours

Our “stories all overlap and mingle like searchlights in the dark. . . .” writes Frederick Buechner. “My story and your story are all part of each other. . . . All our stories are in the end one story, one vast story about being human, being together, being here.”

And he asks what every memoirist must ask: “Does [my] story point beyond itself? Does it mean something?” (The Clown in the Belfry)

The memoirist must be able to answer “Yes.”

You see, it’s tempting to think a memoir is all about you but, at some point in your writing, take a high, wide look from above. For your readers’sake, identify your story’s universal principles, truths, struggles, quests, and values.

Why? Because when your experience exemplifies universals, readers recognize their story in yours. 

A good memoir “always connects the reader's heart with a deeper truth,” writes Jeff Goins. “Memoir is about something that is bigger than you. It's about a part of life we can all connect to.”

Human lives overlap. We all hover within universal human emotions, conditions, and happenings. We all experience joys and sorrows, triumphs and failures, courage and cowardice. We all have chosen wisely as well as foolishly. We are proud of certain moments and ashamed of others. 

Readers, like all of us, feel alone in their wobbly efforts, false starts, dead ends, and meandering lives. One reader might think she's the only one longing to find love or acceptance or success. For another reader, personal transformation hurts and it’s easy for a man to assume he's along in worrying through times of change. Another reader might be struggling to overcome fear.

When readers pick up your memoir, whether they realize it or not they want to see where their lives intersect with yours. They want to relate to you. Within your story, readers can discover they aren't alone: They’ll recognize themselves in your story when you write about issues that concern them, when your story is about more than you. They want to learn from you and apply what you learned to their own lives. Your job, then, is to look for ways your story resonates with all of us.

This is an example of what I mean: “During my intense grieving moments, other people’s stories gave me words to describe the ache that was indescribable. They gave me hope that a new day would dawn, and I would not be stuck in the black forever.” (Dana Goodman, author, In the Cleft: Joy Comes in the Mourning)

In that way, memoirists have the privilege of being what Anaïs Nin calls “the guides and mapmakers.”

Within your story, look for universal principles and truths about honor, tenacity, valor, generosity, kindness, commitment, self-discipline, sympathy, integrity—the list could go on and on.

Stories need takeaways, gifts you offer readers, those “A-ha” moments when the lights come on, when they identify and apply your life’s lessons to their own lives.

Your memoir’s universal appeal and takeaways

can spark defining moments in your readers—

inspiring them to take action, opening for them new opportunities—

and leaving them changed for the better.

As a memoirist, you have the privilege of lighting their way.

For those who are discouraged, disenchanted, or derailed

Has your writing suffered during the coronavirus pandemic?

Mine has. Life seems surrounded by fog. I feel numb. My brain is distracted. I’m feeling stuck. The little I succeed in writing takes more effort than usual.

Your writing and mine can get disrupted for various reasons. It happens to all of us.

We get:

• discouraged
• weary
• confused
• stumped
• disenchanted
• derailed

If those words describe you, Mick Silva’s message can lift you up.

“. . .  Trying to live as a WORD-saturated writer is hard,” he says. “Working to reclaim, recall, and re-establish truth, love, justice, and mercy is incredibly draining.”

Then he cuts right to the chase: If we Christian writers want to complete and publish our books, we must overcome the lies we tell ourselves.

In The 6 Spiritual Lies Derailing Your Writing Process, Mick lists what we allow to hinder us:

• Who do you think you are?
• You can’t handle this/You’re not ready for this.
• You’re too _____ (Fill in the blank: uneducated . . . damaged . . . busy . . . ).
• You’re wasting your time.
• You’re all alone.
• You have nothing . . . . [or] It’s been done before.

Stand up to those lies. Replace your discouragement with Mick’s encouragement:

“ . . . Writing is a holy, sacred ground. You’ve been called to help your brothers and sisters in the faith.”

Remember:

“An unfinished manuscript cannot change lives.

Even a finished one cannot minister in a drawer

or filing cabinet.

Only in published form

can a book go where you and I will never go,

to people we will never meet.

Only in published form

can a book make a difference in eternity.”

(Lee Roddy, quoted in Marlene Bagnull’s Write His Answer)

Lloyd Ogilvie penned this prayer and I hope it will help you focus on your higher purpose and keep writing:

“What will people learn from me about how to deal with difficulties, how to have courage in problems, and how to express joy when circumstances are frustrating? What will others learn about Your peace and hope?” (Quiet Moments with God)

Don’t miss Mick Silva’s post,

The 6 Spiritual Lies Derailing Your Writing Process.

He challenges us to face our fears,

fight against the lies we tell ourselves,

and trust God more.