Writing Memoir: Claiming Your Voice

“A woman singing into a microphone in a dim concert hall” by Richie Lugo on Unsplash

Memoir may be the genre that’s easiest to claim. When we write memoir, we’re telling a story that’s already ours. It happened to us. No one can take that away.

And yet, people who write memoir and personal essays can still be silenced by self-doubt. Claiming your voice means speaking your truth on your terms, and believing in your power as a story-teller.

Self-doubt is usually unsupported by reality. But the fear that self-doubt generates is real: fear that we’re wasting our time, that we don’t know crap about writing, that no one wants to read our stories.

That’s bullshit. And writing experts agree.

You’d think I was getting a cut from my favorite writing expert, Chuck Wendig, since I quote him so much. But I’ve never met the man; I just like his no-frills tone. Mr. Chuckles (my secret nickname for him) assures us that all of us writers experience that “I-suck-so-why-bother” fear. In considering how to move past the fear, Mr. Chuckles reminds us to focus on storytelling’s meaning, no matter how we feel about ourselves:

This thing we do, it has meaning. But it doesn’t always feel that way. When you sit down, and you’re about to put a pen to paper to write that next book or short story or script, or whatever it will end up being, you’re going to experience that twinge called “impostor syndrome.” We all feel it.

For me, claiming my voice is partly about claiming my history. But I also like Mr. Chuckles’ idea that no one can be an impostor when it comes to telling stories, because that’s part of our human heritage.

Don’t be afraid. You can’t be an imposter because storytelling isn’t for the few. It’s for the many. Stories are for everyone.

“An overhead shot of a person's feet in white sneakers on asphalt next to a yellow number 31” by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash

Hey, it’s the last day of May! And my work here is done, as far as my memoir-writing-post-a-day-for-May goes. This project helped me to wrap up a complete draft of my memoir about reuniting with my birth family. It forced me to think about issues that were relevant to my revisions, and to research strategies and solutions. Next month, my goal is to send the draft out to agents, and I’ll probably write a bit about that.

Thanks to all who’ve taken the time to read a Writing Memoir article or two. I hope you’ve found some useful information here.

Keep writing as if your life depended on it.