How I Wrote My Memoir (And Why You Should Too)

When I first decided I wanted to write a memoir, the task was far too daunting for me. The act of writing had never been hard before. But this time was different. It wasn’t the transition from fiction to nonfiction that threw me—I had already published several stories about my life (and none of them painted me as the hero). It wasn’t making the leap from short story to novel, either—I had done that, too.

What threw me was fear.

Fear that everyone would finally see me for who I really was—the man behind the mask. I was so afraid of exposing my mistakes that I completely discarded the idea of even writing about them!

To be fair, though, I was 19 at the time. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Four years later, as I finished my second read-through of Nic Sheff’s Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines, I revisited the idea. Except that now, my life was in complete turmoil, just like his was in the book.

I was in a relationship that was as codependent as the one that I wanted to write about. I’d been unfaithful to my partner and hadn’t yet told her about it. I hated my job because it was so easy that all I did there was read books and write poems (which sounds fine in your head but can really affect your view of yourself in reality). I hated it so much that I started to steal money from them.

And my family was in town, which is never easy for me.

So much was happening that I didn’t like or that I didn’t want to have happen and I felt inhuman from it all, like I was living as far from genuine a life as possible.

I also felt weak because I was being dishonest with every single person that I interacted with. Dishonest in every facet of my life that the only place I felt I could turn to was the blank page. I was filled with self-doubt and guilt and all of the same thoughts that only served to keep me from writing it the first time.

But my life was so out of control and I didn’t know how it had gotten to that point that I forced myself to revisit the last time this had happened. I allowed myself to go step-by-step with the process and focus on writing first and publishing later (if I even decided to go that route). I didn’t tell anyone that I was writing it because…well, because I was lying to everyone about everything. I didn’t talk about it at all until I was halfway done. And even then I kept the conversations vague and to a minimum.

I isolated myself from friends and family and cried nearly every time that I wrote. I fought hard to deprive my mind of all the shame-based questioned it was riddled with, like, “What if mom and dad find out? What if my current girlfriend doesn’t like that I’ve been writing about my ex? What about the fact that I’m in the midst of dealing with a lot of the same issues I’m writing about? Won’t people think I’m full of shit?

The truth is I had no reason to think that wouldn’t happen. After the last true story I had written—the story of how I cheated on my high school girlfriend—I was unfriended on social media by one of the girls I cheated with and confronted by the other. But along with that came dozens of messages from friends I hadn’t talked to in years all telling me the same thing: “I couldn’t stop reading.”

I should note that none of these friends read. Like, at all. They weren’t illiterate. They—like most young men in Mexico—just thought it was a waste of time. Yet here they were, reading my 6000+ word story about infidelity. (No, the irony is not lost on me.)

By all means, people are bound to have negative reactions. What I realized, though, was that it doesn’t matter if they do. After all, don’t most creatives agree that polarizing an audience is generally a good thing? 

So at a little over 73,000 words, I managed to finish the book in 30 days.

And, of course, what did I realize when I finished it?

I had to publish it.

Having quieted the fear of what others would think, I made a decision that for 30 days made me feel higher than any drug I ever tried. I found a purpose that went beyond the usual “I want to write a great story one day!” I felt that some part of me, deep as it may have been, had finally healed.

I found the answers to a lot of the issues I was struggling with at the time that I wrote it by diving deep into my past and really being honest with myself about the things I had done. And I wanted to share it with others because, like Tweak, I knew the impact my story could have on them (of which I know many exist). 

I spent the next month reading and re-reading the first draft, wondering if all of the things I wrote about had actually happened to me. I felt detached from every sentence because all of a sudden these weren’t just memories anymore. They had a protagonist, supporting characters, an emotional arc — all of the things I felt my life was lacking. And there was nowhere to hide from the ugly truth. There was only work to be done to turn something ugly into something meaningful.

So I guess that’s what this is. Or, at least, what this is a part of. Creating something meaningful from my past in the hopes that I can reduce the shame that surrounds it.

Is there anything YOU’RE afraid of writing about? 

Don’t let fear silence your growth.