Feel-good short stories, novellas - I’ve romped towards publication. A longer, more personal piece, however…maybe that’s where you’d grind to a halt too?
If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll know I’ve had short stories published and paid for, along with novellas (one of the in large-print this week!). However, what about something more personal, more exposed? I forged ahead, wrote the outline, banged out the first third…then, stalled. Sound familiar?
Apparently 97% of writers who start writing a novel, never finish it (I’m not sure where the quote comes from but it feels accurate!) I’m not sure if it also applies to non-fiction and memoir, but I’d think so!
We fear the judgement, yet here we are writing anyway. Doing the very thing that will spark that fear.
The paradox of putting yourself out there!
A fiction writer can live in a dreamland for the length of time it takes to write and publish — imagining the agent, the book deal, the designed cover. But the fear of judgement arrives anyway. Often hardest in the days before release according to some of my trad published writer friends.
What I’ve learned about writing for a reader
One thing I’ve come to understand from writing feel-good stories: your writing is not for everyone. It’s for the particular reader who needs that story right now. Every genre — feel-good, horror, crime, memoir — fills a real need, from pure escapism to the ache of wanting to be seen in a character.
Non-fiction and memoir feel different, of course. If you’re writing an expert or research-based book, the audience self-selects. But personal memoir? We’ve read about the real monetary issue - agents want fame (and a built-in buying audience of readers) or a genuinely different take. Yet, as a reader, I’ve been moved more by ordinary lives on the page. Travel memoirs. Medical ones. Working-class stories that were written with raw honesty.
A ‘Yes, me too!’ can be a validation that we’re not going mad — that our lived experiences are of value.
On why memoir matters
Books that showed me the way
Here are a few memoirs and non-fiction reads I’ve found myself returning to — books that proved ordinary lives are worth the page. There are bigger, more celebrity or niche memoirs, but these ones came to mind for what they taught me.
Landscape as medicine
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
When Raynor and her husband Moth lose their home, and he receives a terminal diagnosis, they do something impulsive and walk 630 miles of the South West Coast Path. It’s a meditation on nature, endurance and what it means to keep going. I mean, it’s not without controversy - and that debate about what memoir owes the reader in terms of “truth” is one worth having, yet as a piece of writing it is hard to put down.
Devorgilla Days by Kathleen Hart
After years of serious illness, Kathleen Hart buys a dilapidated cottage in Wigtown, Scotland’s book town. A story of a woman and a place of healing, told with a deep attention to the natural world. It is a delightful read for anyone who might’ve felt that a small white cottage by the sea might just save them.
Working-class voices, told without apology
Maggie and Me by Damian Barr
Growing up gay in Thatcher-era Motherwell, in a broken home with very little money, Barr had every reason to stay silent. Instead, he wrote one of the funniest, most tender memoirs of a generation. He wrote of a difficult childhood with humour and generosity.
Lowborn by Kerry Hudson
Hudson spent her childhood between B&Bs, council flats and care across Scotland and England. As an adult, she returns to those places, memoir and investigation woven together, asking what poverty really does to a person. It is unflinching and written with the clarity of someone who truly lived it.
Not going to lie, when I picked up my pen again to write, both of the Scottish memoirs by Damian and Kerry were on the shelves and all over the internet, so I read them with interest. Not because I’d gone through what they had, but because I recognised my communities in them - working class Scotland, and I suddenly realised that it might be ok to write more honestly, more closer to home!
How brave, to lay your life out there like that. And thank goodness for readers!
So — let them judge
Several years of tremendous grief have opened my eyes to the value of shared experience. Memoir competitions are active right now. How fantastic that we writers have a platform like Substack meaning we have no gatekeeping and can reach a reader who needs exactly what we’re writing.
I have been humbled indeed to messages I’ve received both on the diagnosis of Mr.M’s blood cancer and to the shocking, unexpected death of my younger brother.
I wrote my way through pain by writing feel-good stories. You may find a different way.
Journal. Record. It may end up being for your eyes only, and that has value too. Or it may find a competition, an agent, a readership. Either way: write it.
I love that Substack exists. That it brings me writing from around the world, new perspectives, new worlds — and always, underneath it all, the same very human person, nervous to put it out there.
I see you. Keep going.
Over to you
What’s your favourite non-fiction book? One of my favourite non-fiction writers is actually Nigel Slater - I love how he mixes cooking and living and stories, and I return to The Christmas Chronicles every single year!
Have you read memoir, or written one? I’d love to hear your recommendations and links to any Substack newsletters that resonate. Please comment below!
That’s all this week, from Jackie in the Little Writing Corner in Scotland x x x
BOOKS mentioned:
Nigel Slater: The Christmas Chronicles
(All of these authors have gone on to write further books/or are currently doing so. Check them out!)
COMPETITIONS:
There Is Only Narrative: Eve White/London Writers Centre - opportunity has just closed, but London Writers Centre has valuable information online
Cheshire Novel Prize accepts memoir
Bridport Prize accepts memoir
Many agents are currently seeking memoir and non-fiction books - Query Tracker News will update you!
(Well done if you got this far - thank you!)
