Memory, nonfiction, and writing about the here and now

I've always been interested in how nonfiction writers work with memories, recreating on the page the events of our past. I even occasionally give presentations to writers groups about it, and also cover the topic in some of my classes. I'm interested in how we can retrieve bits of stubborn memories, how the writing process itself helps loosen additional details, and what we can do to work around, through and sometimes without, the memories we think are necessary to tell a particular story.

I think this intrigues me because a large portion of my creative nonfiction work has pivoted on incidents from at least five years in the past, and some goes back further – 10, 20, even 30 years ago. Although my freelance journalism activities have included a fair share of reporting and opining keyed to current events, for creative nonfiction, it's looking back, often far back, that has always felt more comfortable to me.

Then my father died in 2006, and suddenly I had a compelling need to write about that experience, not so long after it occurred. Slowly, over the four-plus years since, more and more of the present (or more recent past) has crept into my work.

And then last summer, I did what for me, was rather strange: wrote a personal essay about what was happening in my life, right then. I did not fool myself that the piece had the same kind of depth and nuance, the same kind of reflective insight and long-lens perspective I liked to see on the page; but then again, there was a certain energy and tone to it that I liked. Here's how and why it happened.

Last May, I was asked to write twice a month for the Love Mom section at Your Tango. Technically, this made me a (paid) blogger, though my editor and I agreed my pieces wouldn't be casual chronicles, but personal essays. The site typically skews to a younger readership, but I was to represent the slightly older Mom voice, the one with experience, teenage children, and a 22 year marriage.

It was an interesting learning curve, as my (now former) twenty-something editor and I wrestled with getting the tone right, somewhere between here's-what-I-know-for-sure and despite-my-experience-I'm-as-clueless-as-every-other-mother. I experimented with essays that reached back to specific events from when my boys were babies – such as how a miscarriage once affected holiday plans, and my initial reluctance at the prospect of motherhood -- and those noting current struggles, but still reliant on echoes of past experience – such as my annual family-free week, and making peace with being just good enough.

Then last summer, faced with a deadline and operating on scant sleep while across the country at my mother's and on the third week of hospital bedside duty, and missing my family, I decided to let fly with an of-the-moment essay about the mixed emotions stirred by the situation. After getting over the small tremor of fear that my siblings would be upset by the piece, I rather liked the experience. Since then, I've continued to write about what's happening, as it happens, including a follow-up when my mother had another heart attack and I decided not to fly to her side. In one of my favorite pieces, I wrote about anticipating how much I'll miss the family routines we take for granted today, when they are one day gone.

While I don't write or think of these essays in the same manner I do the longer, deeper pieces I continue to work on for other venues, I've grown quite fond of writing them. As I tell my students all the time, shorter is harder, and at less than 800 words, these short pieces are a useful way to practice what I teach.

Going back to the idea of memory, I've also discovered – or rather reconfirmed what I probably already knew – that all memory is tricky, and rich, and so very fallible. Recalling what happened two weeks ago -- and what it means, how I felt, the way others reacted, and who said what -- is as much an act of using one's imagination, as to mine material from decades past.

Turns out, I like getting a story out to readers without even knowing for sure it will all turn out. (Why I should be so surprised, given my initial journalism training?) That part though is a risk for someone like me who is much more comfortable knowing the end of a story before putting a single word on the page. But then again, I need to remind myself that most of the time when I write a very long piece about something which took place 20 years ago, the "end" I eventually write toward is rarely the same conclusion I had originally attached to that story in my memory.

This week over at Love Mom, I wrote about how the preparations for the SAT -- and my son's not-so-subtle stance against my inner-Tiger Mother instincts -- had me re-evaluating the hovering blunders I've made, and how I'm now trying to change that pattern. And who knows, two months from now it may be that I've not really changed at all; that "lesson learned" may have faded to a missed opportunity and I may feel slightly nauseated that I touted what turned out to be an unearned epiphany.

That's the risk I guess of writing in the present. I've avoided it a long time, and so for now at least, I want to see how that particular writing glove fits. Good thing too, since now I'm contributing an essay weekly at Love Mom. I hope you will hop over from time to time to see how it's going, let me know how I'm doing. (All of my pieces at the site are listed here.)

Writing exercise -- use these four words in a sentence: Happy. Married. Happily Married.

For years I wrote about motherhood and avoided writing about my husband and/or my marriage. That began to change when I focused the research semester of my MFA program on exploring how contemporary women nonfiction writers represent the spouse in memoir and personal essay.

More recently, my regular personal essay writing gig over at Your Tango's LoveMom section more or less requires that I examine the marital relationship in the larger context of "the intersection of life, love and kids."  My piece over there today pivots on the difference (if there is one) between being happy and married, and being “happily married” (whatever that means!). It begins this way:

A decade ago, when one of my sons was still a preschooler, a friendly old gent in the grocery checkout line tried to make small talk with the boy, who was attired in a New York Yankees jacket.
"Oh, are you a real slugger?"
From the kid, silence.
"Are you a big strong boy?"
More silence.
Finally, winking, "Are you married?"
The boy spoke. “No, I’m happy.”

You can read the rest here.

Department of Shameless Self-Promotion: A family essay about spending time with -- only me.

Over at YourTango, where I contribute a short essay every other week, I most recently wrote about how selfish I am. That is, how, and why, I regularly take time away from my family.

"In the last two weeks, I have only seen my husband and two sons for less than 24 hours and that is just fine with me. I love them all, enormously. But I love being alone, too. It's what feels natural to me. This was my biggest concern before getting married—could I live with someone, or several someones, for an extended time, no matter how much love was involved? To my relief, I discovered having a family, and living with them, is lovely—but only most of the time...."

You can read the rest here.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: June 18th Edition

I'm dealing with an annoying, painful (but thankfully not-serious physical ailment); hence the lack of regular posts. There is a definite connection between unremitting pain, lack of sleep, and the inability to write (or even think) clearly. Things are under control now, so I hope to resume posting, beginning with this short, catch-up Friday list. Many thanks to those who sent emails asking if I was okay. I am.

► At YourTango's LoveMom blog this week, I wrote a piece titled, "Does Parenthood Mean You're Grounded?" For a long time, I thought (and acted as if) it did, and then I smartened up. I hope you'll click over and read it.

► Shelf is a planned iPad magazine, set to debut in September, with the emphasis on books, reviews, independent bookstores, author interviews and excerpts. The first 10,000 people to connect on Facebook (search for Shelf Magazine) or contact the publisher by email, get a free download of the premiere issue.

► If you haven't read last week's guest post by novelist Laraine Herring and her new book, Ghost Swamp Blues, I hope you will. Leave a comment at that post to win a signed copy of her book (now extended until June 25).

►And finally, this fun little Tumblr, SlushPileHell, where "a grumpy literary agent wades through query fails" kept me amused this past week or so.

Have a great weekend.

Parenting: Win, Lose, Write.

I'm over at YourTango today, with a little piece about me, my husband, two small parenting battles, who won and who really benefited.

"When my husband and I hear a song on the radio and can't remember the artist, he's the first one online looking up the answer, then letting me know he's the one who got it right. Me, I'm usually content to wait out any disagreements, preferring to let him discover later on just how right I was..."

You can read the rest of the piece here.

Writing From the Home Front

I'm over at YourTango today, talking about the way I see certain parenting issues vs. the way my husband does:

"Why do I interpret my kids' diversity as a mandate to continually deconstruct and refashion my approach, while my husband strides confidently ahead, applying solution A to cause B?. . . I struggle not to blindly ascribe it to maternal instincts, just as I try not to credit tire-changing skills to the Y chromosome... I know my husband can out-parent me in several categories, and I'm more curious than upset when I notice the unequal ways we respond to our sons."

You can read the whole piece here.