Can we talk about memoirs for a sec?

Can we talk about memoirs for a sec?

Here’s the convo I recently had with my husband:

Me: Do you want to read my book before we publish it?

Him: No. I trust you. What’s it about anyway? 

(This, after a decade of me writing it 😂)

Me: Us. It’s the story of our lives.

Him: Which part?

Me: All of it.

Him: ALL of it?

Me: It’s like a photo album, only it includes the pictures we didn’t take.

Him: I trust you.

Me: I love you.

Him: I love you too. 

Love, marriage, parenthood, single hood, breakups, layoffs and EPIC fails—this book has it all. Only it’s not a memoir because I make A LOT of shit up. I had a lot I wanted to say and I just didn’t want to be limited by my personal life experiences.

That said I work with many memoir and life story tellers and that comes up a lot: the boundaries between our stories and those we share with others—in particular family and friends.

I’ve worked with clients who have written beautiful books only to shelve it because their families weren’t ready for the story to come out.

I’m helping writers create books that they know are going to piss a lot of people off.

As long as it’s truthful and well-intentioned and I know this is going to help people, I’m game.

For most of these authors, though, it helps to have someone to hold their hand through it all, even if it’s just to be a shoulder to cry on. Or someone to tell them that everything is going to be okay. (It is.)

Like I tell my writers, writing doesn’t need to be a lonely endeavour. In fact, the best kinds of stories are the ones we write together.

Cat xo 

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