Reflect | April
My writing life this month: resistance and new rhythms; writing in, about and through the body; slow progress is still progress; and reading memoir with a writer's hat on
Part 4 of my monthly Reflect posts: process notes from the overgrown path through the deep dark woods that is writing a first draft of my memoir, a check in with my writing goals for the month that’s ending, and any interesting ideas emerging from what I’ve been writing about.
April has been a composting month on the memoir writing front, for a variety of reasons. I’ve already written about my week of solo parenting and celebrating my younger son’s 9th birthday in my last post, and maaayyybeee I underestimated how much work would be involved in both of those things, leaving me with the time to write but not necessarily the right kind of energy or headspace to do so. I also always seem to forget how much our usual family routines get stretched and warped into different shapes during the school holidays, so there’s been two weeks this month where I’ve struggled to find my usual writing rhythms.
We’ve had two weekends away, which has been great in terms of reading and mulling things over - somehow I find both easier to do in a new environment - but has definitely contributed to a lower word count for the month than I had planned. And that’s without considering all the horrific and terrifying events in the wider world: Israel’s continuing efforts to destroy the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, Trump’s trade tariffs in the USA, the UK Labour government’s cuts to disability benefits and refusal to lift the two child benefit cap, the steady and ongoing realisation that politicians are in it for money and power, not for any altruistic desire to make the world a better place.
Reach 30,000 word count
I haven’t met this goal. Currently, the word count for my work in progress is around 25,000 words. It might reach 27,000 by the end of the month. As discussed above and in my last post, it’s been a slow month on the word count front. I’m mostly OK with this, and trying to accept and understand that it’s part of the process. Instead, I’ve spent a lot of time this month reading memoirs by other people, catching up with online writing workshop recordings, and thinking about structure and themes. I think it’s starting to pay off - my count has been slowly but steadily starting to grow again since the Easter weekend, and I feel like I can see a clear path forward again, after several weeks of stumbling around in the dark.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways in which we write in and through the body. At its core, the memoir I’m writing is about bodies: my mum’s dying and then dead body and my pregnant one; the embodied experience of grieving her death while growing a new life inside me. But both of those (all of those) bodies are a long way away from the version of my body now that is writing about that time. I’m interested in why I’m writing this story now - why I’m able to write this story now and not then, and not at different point in the last nine years - and it feels like the reasons could be linked to the body that’s doing the writing. If that makes sense.
’s post earlier this year sparked my interest in thinking more deeply about writing as an embodied act:“I write to you from a body. From this female form. Yes, they are words, written down, plucked from my head. But I make these words with and by and through my flesh. My body is making this book.”
Earlier this month I finally watched the replay of an Arvon Masterclass with Polly Atkin from February (Taking Up Residence Again: Writing In, Through and of the Body) and the writing exercises she offered as part of the session were really effective in helping me to think through some of the ideas I’ve been mulling over. Finally, Moving Mountains: Writing Nature Through Illness and Disability has moved to the the top of my to read pile after listening to
’s conversation with as part of her Cost of Caring series (linked below). I should caveat that I don’t have a chronic health condition or disability, but reading and listening to writers who do offers a different and valuable perspective through which to think about both my writing and my body. It feels important to be more consciously aware of all the ways in which my experience of the world is shaped and affected by my body, rather than simply thinking of it as the engine through which I (in the form of a disembodied consciousness housed somewhere behind my eyes) move through the world.
Write the December 2014 / February 2016 sections of my memoir
I made some progress on both these sections at the start of the month, getting about 1000 words into each of them before stalling. After a lull - which I’ve been thinking of as a period of writer’s block but in retrospect maps almost exactly onto the week of solo parenting immediately followed by the school Easter holidays - I’ve now started writing what I think might be the introduction to my memoir. Or at least, what might be the introduction for now - I’m sure I’ll revisit and redraft it extensively once I’ve completed the first draft of the whole thing.
I originally thought that July 2015 (the month my mum died) would be the final chapter of my memoir, one which I would work my way towards it through the rest of the manuscript1: starting out 9 months before and 9 months after her death and slowly moving forward and backward through time until I reached it, like two separate but mirrored paths through a labyrinth. I think this was perhaps more to do with me - when I started writing I didn’t feel ready or able to write directly about Mum’s death. I realise now that of course it needs to be at the start of the memoir, so that I can introduce the themes I’ll be writing about and explain why I’m writing about them. It doesn’t stop me from returning to this time later on in the narrative, but her death needs to be there at the beginning too.
So now I’m 3000 words into writing about July 2015 and unsurprisingly it’s bringing up a lot of big feelings. Those three weeks of writer’s block might be better understood as a period of resistance to writing directly about the month Mum died. I’m very good at telling myself that I shouldn’t be feeling a certain way about something, that it doesn’t make logical sense so I should just put those feelings aside and get on with the thing. I lived through that month and I’ve thought about it often and in detail over the years since, so why should writing about it be difficult? But it is different - taking my interior thoughts and feelings about that time and pinning them down into words and sentences on the (virtual) page. Transforming them into a narrative. With hindsight, it seems inevitable that I might have needed to take some time to accept that I needed to write about July 2015 now, not later. To screw my courage to the sticking point and actually begin.
Publish 3 Substack Posts
Ah, I had high hopes of completing this goal - I published 3 posts in March and it seemed entirely realistic and achievable that I could do the same this month. It’s only my monthly Compost and Reflect posts plus one more, and I had several draft posts in progress that I could use: part 2 of a mini series about all the houses I have lived in (Part 1 is linked below), a piece inspired by week 1 of Ruth Allen’s Slow Read of Weathering thinking about where I am in life and the world, and how I got here. I’m cutting myself some slack on this goal - perhaps aiming to publish 3 posts in a month that’s 50% school holiday was a bit over confident!
I have been writing almost every day, despite my slow progress on the memoir word count and not managing to publish 3 posts here. I’ve written and submitted a piece to Motherlore Magazine on the theme of becoming that explores the mirrored experiences of my eldest son and me on the threshold of a new phase (adolescence for him, perimenopause for me). A piece of writing I submitted to Fieldfare Press will be published on their Substack in May. Writing both pieces has been both enjoyable and valuable - I like the opportunity writing to a prompt or theme gives me to step back from my main writing project a little, or to look at it from a different perspective. Submitting them has been a rollercoaster of emotions: exhilaration, fear, a tidal wave of imposter syndrome. But, like job interviews or driving a car, it’s getting easier the more I do it.
Start reading through Mum’s notebooks and hospital letters
Still haven’t started this. It was originally a goal for March which I then rolled over to this month. I know that I’m resisting this one - I’m definitely looking for excuses not to make a start, telling myself that I need to wait for the perfect time to tackle this project. I was going to do it when my husband was away for a week at the start of the month - in my head I thought that all those evenings to myself after the kids were in bed would be the ideal time to read through Mum’s notebooks from her final year of life, before she lost the ability to write. Then I got cold feet, considered the very real possibility that I might get quite upset by their contents, which I knew would cover the many medical treatments she underwent during that time and her questions and fears about them. I didn’t want to be alone, late at night, weeping over Mum’s increasingly uncertain handwriting.
So this goal will be rolled over again for May. Now I’ve finally started writing about July 2015, the month Mum died, it’s making me realise that there are many questions I don’t have the answers to about those final months (why was she briefly admitted to hospital in May 2015? when exactly did she have chemotherapy? what did the doctors tell her and dad about her chances of recovery?). Her notebooks might hold some of those answers. I’m currently reading The Day That Went Missing by Richard Beard (thank you
for the recommendation!). It’s excellent - I am fully gripped by the narrative and racing through it in a way that I usually associate with fiction rather than memoir. I’m also enjoying reading it as a writer, if that makes sense - thinking about how Beard has structured his memoir, when and why he switches between the different timelines or changes from past to present tense, what it is that makes the narrative so gripping. In particular, I’ve been interested by the way he uses archive material (photographs, school notebooks, medical records) to both write about and reconstruct the central event of the memoir: the day his younger brother drowned on a beach in Cornwall. It has, I suppose, inspired me to tackle Mum’s notebooks. To consider that perhaps my resistance to reading them, and my experience of finally doing so, could become part of the narrative of my own memoir.Plot a solo writing retreat
This one is in the early stages. No firm dates or plans but I’ve thought a lot about what is possible. My husband was away for a week on a structured retreat with organised sessions and activities. I’m not sure either that timescale or that level of structure are feasible or desirable for me right now. Instead, I’m imagining one or two night’s away from home, ideally in a self-catering cottage somewhere in County Durham or Northumberland - but a Premier Inn in Newcastle would do in a pinch. What I need is a defined amount of time and space that is just for me to write in. Too long, and I suspect I’ll spend it procrastinating. Too short (or too close to home) and I won’t be able to get the separation from everyday life that I need and want.
Please imagine me pausing to internally freak out at this point in writing this post, as it’s the first time I’ve described my work in progress as a manuscript and it just feels so author-ly and a little like some writing god or authority is going to appear and slap my wrist for daring to do so.
so much richness and things we have overlapping here Ellen - acknowledging all that's going on in our lives as we try to write - from world events (enough on their own FFS) to school holidays to solo parenting to working our way towards what we really need to write. Not all writing is words on the page I'm learning. Composting as you describe.
and wow yes to the thought that it is THIS body of yours NOW that is the one ready to be a portal for what you need to write. that feels very profound.
and it's a BIG deal to write 'manuscript' or 'book' or 'draft' or 'writer', well they all were and are for me anyway - I expect the writer police to appear at any minute... but less and less these days, much due to the welcoming community here on Substack.
Thanks for sharing all of your goals and journey, it's wonderful to read along side your achieving your goal. well done x
I love that you're reminding yourself all the way through this post that goals are all well and good but reflecting on whether they were achievable and the reasons why they might not have been ticked off is even more valuable. Congratulations on both submissions, Ellen, and also thank you for the mention of the conversation I had with Louise. This feels like one that's taken on a bit of a life of its own with new people coming to it in their own time. Ro everything there is a season and that applies in our work as well. Happy Sunday!