Two memoir writing answers
I’m always happy to field questions about the writing journey that I’ve experienced in choosing to write a memoir about my experience of sibling sexual abuse as a child and subsequent journey as an adult survivor towards recovery. RESOLVE is the result of that journey. Two memoir writing answers are provided below. They are in response to questions that I’ve been asked, or prompted to respond to, both along the way and today.
Memoir writing is new to me. I got started with it in 2019 alone. The first full draft was completed by July 2020 and given to an editor. She did a major edit and proofread and it was sent away for beta reader reviews. What they shared and recommended led me to draft no. 2. I knew I was nowhere near what I felt in my heart the book needed to speak about.
In January 2021 I found a community of writers I could be with to better understand the writing process. I joined the Hay House Writer’s Community, following weekly writing prompts, the first being:
Number One: I am writing a memoir about…
The task: allow ourselves seven minutes on the phone timer. Write whatever came up, without the pen leaving the page. We were to fill a page with words, even it if was repeating the same words, until a new thought flowed out of the pen.
For me, this first prompt resulted in these words:
I am writing a memoir about my childhood experience of sibling sexual abuse, something that’s unspoken about and that let me feel so alone, bad, dirty for so long until I realised it wasn’t just me he had harmed. The relief of that learning led to me making things happen. I became stronger, and found in me strength to say NO more often, which in hindsight I realised I’d developed as a young girl when I knew I had to stop him, by myself, without feeling I had safety at home or adults to back me. I didn’t say NO as a word at eleven, but I did stop him. Then again when he turned his attention to me when I was fourteen. I did say WELL DON’T when he persevered with his attempts and I changed from fearful to angry. We were latchkey kids after school. I’m writing because of the heavy guilt I felt, alone, all those years, in the silence. My sharing is not over-revealing, that way I hope I will reach at least one other child, teen, mum or dad who can so NO, look with awareness at what is actually happening. For adults like me, to help them start the process to heal today, not wait. I waited until I was 25 to find out I wasn’t alone. It’s never OK. If I can’t change the past, my hope is to change another’s future.
Alice Perle
Number Two: This morning someone asked me when did the idea of writing a book first arise?
In March 2019 – I found a note I’d written on an ideas page in my annual planner. It was about drawing a line in the sand. I had to understand the past but leave it behind me somehow. I didn’t know how that would happen at that stage, but that was a thought I captured with my pen. That, and setting a new path forward for my life. I knew I needed to do something good. After the abuse and trauma I’d experienced as a child, what could I do, and for more than just myself?
It’s been an incredibly long and interesting learning journey since that date. The manuscript ended up with more than 20 drafts, machete edits, tens of thousands of words added, and others removed. The end result is 90,000 words, 294 pages, of a 6 x 9 inch sized book.
With support from professional editors, beta readers, legal advisors, the accountant, a designer and a therapist, I’m proud to say, Resolve is a beautiful memoir.
I changed a lot as I wrote and sought therapy simultaneously.
The first draft is barely visible now. At maximum those words make up 25% of the content, reshaped as they have been into the final manuscript. Many of the words written in this sort of manuscript needed to come out of my mind, body and soul. They had to be vented, raged, cried out of me, to let the hurt out, and epiphanies unfold. Then I would decipher their meaning, talk through, decide action, and heal from them or begin to heal. Healing is a lifelong journey in relation to sibling sexual abuse. I grew and found a new way to express what was more relevant and helpful to a reader.
I’m happy to answer questions about writing a memoir as a first time writer. That and share any insights I’ve had on my journey to understand all that I have come to know. There was so much I had no idea was part of my plan back in March 2019.
Thank you,
Alice
