Truth Is Subjective - Writing A Memoir
Jamieson Villeneuve
September 24, 2007
I have been thinking about truth lately.
This is mostly because I have been writing my memoir titled One Step at a Time. It will be published by The Friday Project in the summer of 2008.
Truth has concerned me because I have taken pains to remember everything that has happened in my past so that I can piece it back together. It's almost as if I was a puzzle. I'd probably be a big box of a thousand puzzles. Maybe there would be a big smiling picture of me on the cover?
It's hard to tell.
Either way, writing a memoir, completing the puzzle of me, has not been easy. It's been a painful process going through past events and laying them down on paper. It's been difficult to write something that isn't protected, sheltered, by fictional words.
It's been difficult to write what I remember.
Essentially, that is what a memoir is. What I remember. The dictionary defines a memoir as follows: a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation.
When I began writing the memoir, I was concerned with how people would react to it, what people would think of it, or of me, after they had read its words. I decided not to concern myself with that as much as possible. If I did, I would spend all my time worrying and not enough time writing.
I resolved to tell the story I knew, write the words that were in my heart and make sure my life was put down on paper as truthfully as possible. Though I wanted to fly off into the land of fiction, I kept myself grounded, kept myself focused and told what was inside my heart instead of inside my head.
I knew when I started writing the memoir that it would be difficult. Not just in terms of writing it but how others would react to it. Especially those closest to me. I knew that there would be those who would react badly the words I was laying down on paper; that there would be those whose reaction would not be favourable.
That’s the problem with memoirs. It’s only one side of the story. It’s a personal recollection of events. It’s not a biography where everyone’s story is taken into account. It’s not an autobiography where someone has researched and collected all the information needed to make sure that every story is told.
It’s a personal story, something I have lived. I’m writing from the inside looking out; not the outside looking in. I feel like I am living in a fishbowl, like everyone can see into me, through me.
I knew this difficulty ahead of me and, for a while, ached and worried about what I was writing. But, in the end, I had to write it. I had to write what I knew to be the truth. Not anyone else’s words but my own. I knew that people would be hurt, shocked, dismayed.
But I promised myself in the beginning to tell the story I needed to tell. To tell the story the only way I knew how: with my own words. No one else’s.
I can only hope that those who react badly to what I have written will be able to forgive me for telling what should have remained behind closed doors. In the end, I wrote what had to be written.
And now I have to set my words, and myself, free.
This is mostly because I have been writing my memoir titled One Step at a Time. It will be published by The Friday Project in the summer of 2008.
Truth has concerned me because I have taken pains to remember everything that has happened in my past so that I can piece it back together. It's almost as if I was a puzzle. I'd probably be a big box of a thousand puzzles. Maybe there would be a big smiling picture of me on the cover?
It's hard to tell.
Either way, writing a memoir, completing the puzzle of me, has not been easy. It's been a painful process going through past events and laying them down on paper. It's been difficult to write something that isn't protected, sheltered, by fictional words.
It's been difficult to write what I remember.
Essentially, that is what a memoir is. What I remember. The dictionary defines a memoir as follows: a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation.
When I began writing the memoir, I was concerned with how people would react to it, what people would think of it, or of me, after they had read its words. I decided not to concern myself with that as much as possible. If I did, I would spend all my time worrying and not enough time writing.
I resolved to tell the story I knew, write the words that were in my heart and make sure my life was put down on paper as truthfully as possible. Though I wanted to fly off into the land of fiction, I kept myself grounded, kept myself focused and told what was inside my heart instead of inside my head.
I knew when I started writing the memoir that it would be difficult. Not just in terms of writing it but how others would react to it. Especially those closest to me. I knew that there would be those who would react badly the words I was laying down on paper; that there would be those whose reaction would not be favourable.
That’s the problem with memoirs. It’s only one side of the story. It’s a personal recollection of events. It’s not a biography where everyone’s story is taken into account. It’s not an autobiography where someone has researched and collected all the information needed to make sure that every story is told.
It’s a personal story, something I have lived. I’m writing from the inside looking out; not the outside looking in. I feel like I am living in a fishbowl, like everyone can see into me, through me.
I knew this difficulty ahead of me and, for a while, ached and worried about what I was writing. But, in the end, I had to write it. I had to write what I knew to be the truth. Not anyone else’s words but my own. I knew that people would be hurt, shocked, dismayed.
But I promised myself in the beginning to tell the story I needed to tell. To tell the story the only way I knew how: with my own words. No one else’s.
I can only hope that those who react badly to what I have written will be able to forgive me for telling what should have remained behind closed doors. In the end, I wrote what had to be written.
And now I have to set my words, and myself, free.
Print
Email
