Memoir and the Great Fallow Period
In which I discuss the two breaks I took in writing
I started my memoir on Oct. 31, 2018, sitting in a cigar bar in New Haven, CT, after teaching one night. I ordered a bourbon and started writing about my brother. Six months or a year later, I was still writing and had made the connection to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and was no longer writing about my brother. I remember calling a friend, a teacher colleague for mine in California — where are you now?? — who had written a dazzling memoir herself. Reading her memoir had inspired me, opening the door for my own efforts. I told her, “I found the organizing principle for my memoir. It was there, right in front of me all the time. I only had to open my eyes.”
I printed Eliot’s poem and taped it to the wall and marked it up.
I explained the fragments to her. Pieces of Eliot’s poem were lodged in my life like splinters of glass. Phrases rang out, reverberating with reference to my own experiences. The Waste Land had served as the backbone of my study of literature. I had taken more classes about The Waste Land or that included The Waste Land or that surveyed waste land literature than any other period or motif. It just so happened that I had professors who studied Eliot in this way, and thus, it became something passed down to their students. At that time it wasn’t a pattern for my life. There was no way to tell my brother would commit suicide years later, that “IV. Death by Water” would accrue meaning more than already applied to Phlebas in Eliot’s poem.
But there you have it. The Waste Land reached through its pages and grasped my windpipe and squeezed.
And yet, at my back I always hear . . .
Time is running short. You can help me achieve my goal of traditional publication by signing up for a free or paid subscription to my newsletter. Having an audience will go a long way toward the marketing efforts for my book. Thank you for whatever support you can provide.
Writing frantically, I studied memoir like an academic, devouring writing craft books and memoirs and blogging about them. A hostile student, an administration that wouldn’t support preventing work place violence led me to quit teaching and take up full-time temporary work in the Yale library, reorganizing books - glorious physical work that demanded of me no grading. I suddenly had more time to read and write.
I traveled to Belgium, my first ever trip to Europe. My partner was doing an internship for the summer. I took a week off and joined her. During the day, I chose a town to take a train to, read at cafes, sipping beer, eating chocolate and waffles and touring towns while she worked in the day. Then she would take a train and meet me for dinner and we’d travel back to her place for the night. When I arrived back home refreshed, I puzzled over my memoir. I wasn’t stuck, but I had a few things to figure out. I saw the ending clear enough, but getting through the two most difficult parts was the issue.
I found a counselor. I had done plenty of counseling in my life, mostly in support of my partners, years and years sitting in a counselor’s office. But this time it was for me and for my art. How do I transform this experience into art and not lose my way? I could feel myself falling into cracks as I wrote, reliving difficult life events. Counseling was the buffer that helped me see that I was living here, in the now, and that going back in my mind and on paper wouldn’t hurt me - even if it touched me emotionally. The process would provide healing tears. Art through crucible. In all, I spent a year talking with my counselor. I spent 6 months not writing and then began again effortlessly.
After finding my voice again, the pandemic hit and work was called off, though I was fortunate to get a paycheck for a few months while sitting at home. I took up learning guitar and kept reading and writing. We were scheduled to move across country while my partner job hunted. That proved a difficult time to maintain a writing schedule. So I gathered information about the publishing process, finding lists of agents and advice for writing query letters and listings of writing conferences. Before I knew it, I had reached another 6 months of non-writing. I continued to read writing and memoir craft books. We moved again and I took up a part-time and then full time job at a grocery store across the street from where I lived - awful work with awful pay. There were two good things about that job: 1) it was 450 ft from where we lived, so no driving commute; 2) there was a significant discount on groceries, though the products were overpriced to begin with.
By December 2021, I finished my book, for the first time. It was far too long, double the size it needed to be, 203,000 words. I cut it down to size (168,000 words) by mid-January and began querying. I also signed up for the Atlanta Writer’s Conference in May 2022. The book was still too long. I cut it more to arrive at its current 98,000 words plus 6,000 words of notes a la Eliot for the conference. And here I rest.
It’s been another 6 months. But this time, I’ve rearranged my life to take up writing and developmental editing full-time. I’m in the process of cutting another 15,000 to 20,000 words from my memoir. As I learn more about story arc and effectively writing setting and interiority, I see ways to improve my memoir. I’ve sought help for my query letter, which has proved problematic. I have a growing pile of rejection letters, and I rejoice each time I receive one - I’m in the game.
It’s only a matter of time before my query letter and an agent align. The year of The Waste Land - the centenary celebration of Eliot’s great poem - has come and gone. There was much fanfare, readings and festivals and a boatload of new articles and books. But The Waste Land will be there long after the celebrations have died down to resonate its harmonic and disordant voices with my own memoir.
I’d love to read your comments about today’s post. Do you have a story of you own about writing a book? How did you handle the breaks? Did you take any breaks? Also, feel free to share this post with others who are interested in the writing process.
Developmental Editing - Putting Out the Shingle
Over the past year, I have taken a course of study in developmental editing. Combined with my many years of teaching and wrting in higher education and as a writer, developmental editing is a way for me to engage with the literary world and to continue my work helping writers of all levels reach greater heights of writing success.
I’ve undertaken a rigorous course of study through ClubEdFreelancers.com.
Naked Editing - an introductory course
Foundations of Storytelling
Principles of Developmental Editing
Writing Effective Editorial Queries
Writing the Revision Letter
Manuscript Evaluation
Evaluating Your Effectiveness as an Editor
Editing for Plot and Story Structure
Editing for Character Development
Editing for World-Building and Setting
Explorations: Editing Memoir
Editorial Toolkit: Book Doctoring and Ghostwriting
In order to complete my certification, I have two more elective courses (copy-editing and editing literary fiction) and a practicum, doing a dev edit on a full manuscript with instructor comments/guidance/feedback. I’ve already attracted two clients and love the work. It aligns so well with my previous experiences as a teacher, writer, and student/professor of literature.
ClubEdFreelancers offers many more courses, a few of which I may take. But on the whole, I’m ready to open shop and seek clients. If you or anyone you know is looking for an editor or book doctor/ghostwriter for a writing project, please send them my way - lee@leehornbrook.com. Thank you!
You can leave a comment if you’d like to reach out about editing projects, or about anything
The holidays are here. We will travel back to California and see the ocean. For now, the snow-covered mountains (Olympic National Park to the west and The Cascades to the East) ring our view from Lake Washington when the skies are brilliantly blue. Rains have brought the green back to the grass, even in these cold months with winter approaching. It’s not as rainy as it has been traditionally. It’s time to read much of the winter and watch shows and go to movies and take car rides to see Christmas lights. Hot chocolate and steaming cups of tea help offset the chill to fingers and toes and noses.
We’re settling in for the winter months, seeking the perfect word, stories that inspire, delight, surprise, and touch us.
I hope you find some restful days filled with love and laughter with friends and loved ones.
Until next time, I’ll . . .
Just keep writing!
Please consider subscribing for free or buying a paid subscription
—(for the low price of the cost of one cup of coffee per month! - such a deal - you get two posts per week, that’s 8-10 posts per month for one cup of coffee! You’d need two or three cups just to read it all!)—
so I can continue my work seeking traditional publication for my memoir.
You can also give someone the gift of a subcription. If your loved one is interested in:
memoir
the writing process
mental illnesses
T.S. Eliot
The Waste Land
dysfunctional families
sailing
and. so. much. more.
they will love this newsletter!
Either way, thank you for reading and for your support!
All the love - Lee