Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Anna David to the blog for a guest post. Her funny and quirky memoir Falling For Me was reviewed here at TBR's Monday. I had so much fun reading it and am thrilled to have Anna here today.......
How Personal To Go?
by Anna David October 2011
I've always taken “write what you know” very much too heart—arguably too much to heart. From when I first learned to write stories, in sixth grade, I began making them about the people I know (my girl-hating sixth-grade History teacher, the appropriately named Mr. Mein, was a prominent character). I majored in Literary Writing in college and my final project was a short story about a dysfunctional family that was just like my own; only the names were different.
Then I started working at magazines and learned how to do non-fiction: to interview people and weave together what they told me in order to create a story. I liked building material based on The Truth, as opposed to the more amorphous, subjective act of telling stories based on my own perceptions of my experiences. After years of reporting stories, I found my way back to my own experiences again when I started publishing essays. None of this was planned—I was just a writer far more concerned with paying her rent than with the career trajectory she was on.
I decided to write my first novel on a whim—when I noticed that other people I’d worked with at magazines were publishing novels and decided if they could do it, I might be able to as well—and my first one was a story that flowed out of me without an outline or really much thought. Not because it turned out that I was some sort of savant, mind you, but because it was basically my story; only the names were different. My second novel, which was based entirely on an investigative piece I did for Details magazine, followed the same philosophy. Again, only the names were different.
Now my memoir, Falling For Me, is out and even though it’s not a straight-up memoir—it follows me following everything Helen Gurley Brown recommended in her 1962 bestseller Sex and the Single Girl—it’s without a doubt the most personal material I could ever possibly share with the world. And all I can think is: Why on earth did I agree to do this?! There are things in this book—about my family, about the way I’ve struggled in relationships and about the depths of despair I’ve sunk to—that I don’t even feel comfortable telling people I hang out with all the time, and here I am telling anyone with $10 to spare! I don’t know how other writers experience this but somehow, when I’m working on a book, it feels like no one will ever read it—that the pages may as well be my diary—and then, suddenly, it’s out there in the world and I feel vulnerable and frightened.
But I also believe that my subconscious knows what it’s doing—that it’s brought me to this way of doing this career because, for reasons not entirely clear to me, I need to purge my life as part of some sort of healing and growing process. All writers need to be tough—we experience enormous amounts of rejection and have to read derisive comments about our work from people who hide behind their computers—but throwing it all out there without the “Oh, it’s just a novel” protective bubble requires, in my opinion, another level of toughness. Alligator skin. Because, while I may have once thought that no one could be meaner than Mr. Mein, turns out he had nothing on some of those people floating around GoodReads. Especially when this time, none of the names—including, most relevantly, my own—are different.
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Well, Anna I loved your book so no mean words from this reviewer....(smiles). Thanks for stopping by today and sharing those thoughts on the writing journey. Wishing you tons of success and true love.
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Great thoughts. It's a question I'm sure all writers face.
ReplyDeleteGreat guest post! I had no idea that the book that inspired the author was written back in 1962! That's so cool.
ReplyDeleteI'm amazingly intrigued by this story. It's always the stories about myself I feel like I have to get out. Like if I don't they are going to eat something out of me. Loved this piece.
ReplyDeleteThanks for featuring Ms. David on your blog!
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