It’s common for a writer to find that she has written much about a period of her life that is now uninteresting to her. Though she wrote with enthusiasm, intending to include this material in her memoir, it doesn’t seem to merit inclusion now. She may be despondent. “I worked so hard! Now I want to leave this out! Is this going to happen with everything I write?” Why do writers lose interest in parts of their memoir.

I’ve heard clients express this frustration and I’ve also experienced it myself. What’s up?

I believe the writer who now finds some of his material no longer of interest to him has accomplished an inner goal and has produced a good piece of healing writing. He is now free of the material’s emotional intensity and no longer needs to give it attention. 

Understanding why writers lose interest

Often a writer confuses personal attachment to the subject with a potential audience’s general interest in the topic. Through the writing process, s/he has grown beyond that attachment and has achieved perspective. It now seems, in its intrinsic interest, to be minimally important to the development of the memoir’s theme. We say these writer lose interest.

In this situation, I might respond by saying, “Congratulations! Memoir writing has brought you maturation and freedom from attachment. Now get on with writing what is unique about your life, what your kids, your community, and the world need to hear from you.”

When writers lose interest in a story segment, was writing the soon-to-be-discarded material been a waste? Not any more than the submerged 9/10ths of an iceberg is “a waste” of iceberg. It fulfills a crucial function of holding up that visible one-tenth above water. To continue the analogy, the seemingly useless writing has lifted the writer up above the consciousness level of life’s many experiences so s/he can now concentrate on the telling the more important and meaningful story. 

As one writer said in a workshop, “I had all this anger at some family members. When I wrote about it, I realized they weren’t particularly aware of the impact their actions had on me. I was not the center of their attention. In fact, I was totally peripheral. For years, I’ve thought these were “bad” people who couldn’t be trusted. Now I realize they were simply self-involved and caught up in their own drama.” 

In conclusion to “writers lose interest”

Observe this phenomenon in yourself. Be ready to reassure yourself that the process rather than the product of memoir writing may be the most valuable part as you work through your attachments to incidents in your past and experience them as no longer important.

And remember: “inch by inch, it’s a cinch; yard by yard it’s hard.”

Good luck writing your stories!

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~ Memoir Writing is Healing