Next up in Writing Lessons, my guest teacher is Monica Wesolowska, a writer whose brave new book is getting a great deal of much-deserved attention. Deftly-written and smart, it is a primer in how to write a tough memoir topic. Here, Monica writes about how questioning your own work will guide you in writing memoir, specifically leading you to learn about yourself while writing memoir. She is next in a series of fine writers you will meet here, all of whom are going to teach us a thing or two about our favorite genre. Entries in Writing Lessons include a piece on how to write memoir, an excerpt, and a chance to win the featured book. Read to the end for more on the series.
Do you Have A Question?
by Monica Wesolowska
Each morning while writing the first draft of my memoir Holding Silvan, I’d wake knowing what scene to write next but not knowing what I’d learn from writing it. This was a new feeling for me as a writer. An exhilarating feeling. A scary feeling. A feeling strong enough to get me through a book. What motivated me to write—to snatch time from regular life—was a question: Did I love my son Silvan enough?
That was a scary question to ask. But I never forgot it. Whether consulting my diary entries, or hospital records, or writing a scene as small as buying Silvan a hat, I had that question in mind. Silvan was my first son. He had been damaged during childbirth. My husband and I had chosen together to forgo medical intervention and let Silvan die. Was that love?
Along the way, other questions arose. How was I clear-headed enough to ask the doctors if Silvan was so damaged that he should be allowed to die? Because of that question, I explored scenes from my childhood and found connections between our choice for Silvan and the case of Karen Ann Quinlan who died during my childhood. Or: Why did we resist taking Silvan home at first? Because of that question, I explored the different ways people deal with death. Also: Am I able to forgive those who seemed to “fail” us while Silvan was still alive?
Writing Holding Silvan was scary and sad but ultimately heartening. I came to the end of the book and thought, “Yes, I did love my son enough.” Then I showed the book to others and they seemed to agree. Either that, or they agreed on the importance of my question.
If you’re reading this, you must have your own story to tell. Everyone does. Maybe you’ve even started it. You’ve become overwhelmed by the size of your story, or the emotions in it. Maybe real life pulls you away. Or you worry no one will care. How do you get others to listen? Scenes are important. Details. Dialogue. Tension. Language. These are essential tools. But most important of all is the question. Do you have one?
Holding Silvan: A Brief Life, an excerpt
Another day, another hike. David’s right to persuade me. Going into nature feels necessary now. We go up this time: deep blue sky, lush green hills beginning to flash the golden heat of summer. As I hike, I am narrating to myself, without even realizing I am, narrating to myself what is happening; and then my narration shifts suddenly to a vision of a book cover: Silvan, Silvain, Silvano. As the endorphins kick in, I begin to feel triumphant, as if the creation of a child out of words is as good as the creation of a child out of flesh. As if the redemption in our suffering will come from the giving of Silvan to the world in the form of a book. Silvan, Silvain, Silvano: My Translatable Child. My life, Silvan’s life, will have been made worthwhile if I can give him to others in words. Then I hear my deluded chant and can’t go on.
I throw myself to the ground.
I’m on all fours, staring at the ground. Inches from me is a patch of wild chamomile. Rising from the fuzzy green are little yellow flower-balls that sway at the tops of their stalks like treetops in a silly, powder-puff forest. When was the last time I observed a patch of weeds this carefully? The sun warms my back. David waits.
If he worries that other hikers will come along and observe my freakish grief, he says nothing. But at the same time, he has temporarily run out of consolation. He seems almost to have run out of tears. He’s impatient now with my need to stop for every wave of grief. He stands higher up the hill from me, hunched in his gray fleece and jiggling one leg the way he does when he’s anxious to get moving again, looking back and forth between my prostrate form and the yellow scar of path that disappears around a corner up ahead. He is enduring his grief by keeping busy, by consulting outside doctors, dealing with insurance, filling the car with gas while I am left free to feel every ripple of emotion. The postpartum hormones coursing through me amplify my grief, make it come in waves that bowl me over. But I can’t stay like this all day. I can’t sustain this drama. The feeling is passing. The need to be prostrate is gone. There is nothing to do but go on.
I heave myself upright.
We climb.
Copyright c 2013 by Monica Wesolowska. Excerpted from her just-published memoir, HOLDING SILVAN: A Brief Life, published by Hawthorne Books. All rights reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Mary Evans Inc.
About Monica Wesolowska
I ask all the authors to provide their own bios. Here is hers.
Monica Wesolowska is the author of the memoir Holding Silvan: A Brief Life (Hawthorne Books, 2013) which explores the love and ethics behind forgoing medical intervention for her newborn son. With an introduction by Erica Jong, the memoir has been praised in the Boston Globe, Kirkus, and elsewhere for transcending its sad topic. Wesolowska has published her work in many literary journals and anthologies including the Best New American Voices series. A former fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, she has taught creative writing at UC Berkeley Extension for a decade.
HOW TO WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK
I hope you will enjoy this new series, Writing Lessons, which will run twice a month on the blog. Featuring well-published writers of our favorite genre, in each installment the series will take on one short topic that addresses how to write memoir, and will include a great big book giveaway.
It’s my way of saying thanks for coming by.
Love the author featured above? Did you learn something in the how-to? Then you’ve got to read the book. And you can. I am giving away one copy, and all you have to do to win is leave a comment below about something you learned from the writing lesson or the excerpt. I’ll draw winners at random (using the tool at random dot org) after entries close at midnight Monday, June 17, right in time for the next installment of Writing Lessons.
Good luck!
Ann Hutton says
Wesolowska’s advice to hold the question your story asks is helpful. It keeps the writing pertinent and keeps the writer from wandering off into extraneous territory. Thanks for “Writing Lessons.”
Patricia Shinaberger says
Thanks for the reminder to keep the question in mind a with a post a note attached to your computer screen. Also, telling the truth about striken wilh whole body crash to all fours only seconds after feeling a rush of recognition that you were finally able to move on …..it really happens that way. Fear of letting the reader see this high-low moment would not be the whole truth.
Lisa Romeo says
Excellent advice and example from her writing experience. I might go a step further; sometimes I put the question (or questions, as writing progresses) on a sticky note near where I’m writing, so I confront it often. Distilling the question always seems to me to be the hardest part. Once it can be framed, I get a little *aha* moment and it seems to pry something loose. Until the next question….
Great series!
Amy C says
I hope it’s not too glib or cliche to say that I learned from reading this to be brave. As a relatively new mother (of one 21-month-old) my heart is wrenched at the thought of experiencing what the author has experienced…she inspires me to look deep inside and examine my own fears, because I can’t be a real writer without going straight to that dark place that I want to share with no one. I look forward to reading this book, whether I win it or buy it. Thank you.
Suzanne Wright says
I also lost a newborn son. We chose to remove life support after he was born prematurely and suffered extensive brain damage. The question of “Did I love him enough?” is heavy and deep. I see it as an anchor and I commend the author for daring to ask the question. I haven’t fully answered that question for myself and I would love to read about how she answers it for herself. It gives me courage to see someone write so honestly and openly about this socially forbidden subject. I hope to have my own memoir about baby Micah someday… I’m going to start thinking about my question.
Bonita Searle says
“My life, Silvan’s life, will have been made worthwhile if I can give him to others in words.” Exactly how I feel as I struggle to write a memoir about my mother who suffered a mental illness so debilitating that she often seemed to disappear. I want-no, I need her to be seen. And I often ask myself the same question that Ms. Wesolowska asked of herself. Did I love her enough? Is it possible to love anyone enough?
Allison Hawkins says
When my daughter was 7 days old, she quit eating/nursing. By the time she got to the hospital her body ahd gone into sepsis and they gave her a 50/50 chance of surving the night. (She was born with little holes in her small intestine, and a few days later had surgery) As my husband and I drove the hour drive home, we discussed the possibility that she might not make it. It was this conversaition that my husband shared his beliefs about life and death and just as I had assumed, were very close to my own. We even talked about how if she did not survive, we would not let it destroy our relationship.
Our daughter did make it through, and turns 11 this August. My admiration to Wesolowska is great,
Sarah M says
What a compelling excerpt! Wesolowska’s invitation to consider the central question that animates your writing is a wonderful challenge. Thank you!
rae johnson says
Ah yes, what is the question? I can tell about the experiences I had growing up as a hard of hearing child of deaf parents and trying to understand the differences between the deaf world and the hearing world. I have only one story in me to write about but I’ve been stuck and now think I should ask, “what’s the question?” It’s something that will think about. Thanks for the lesson. I look forward to more lessons.
Casey Mulligan Walsh says
Is it a coincidence that I decided to follow this link today – the eve of the 14th anniversary of my 20-year-old son’s death? The eve of the next meetIng of my biweekly writing group, for which I really want to be writing/should be writing/am clearly avoiding writing at this very moment? It’s pretty clear to me that the universe conspired to send me this nugget, and not a moment too soon.
So this is my tough story, and like most of them, the actual death of my child is not remotely the whole of it – or even the most salient point. What IS my question?Thanks for the reminder to set my sights here, I thought, and read on. Then the kicker: Did I love him enough? Our stories, so vastly disparate, bring us both to this universal question – brings me, at times, to my knees. Thank you for leading my distracted mind, overwhelmed with the need to do justice to a story that is anything but straightforward, back to a clearer path. I can’t wait to read your story.
Monica Wesolowska says
Casey, Your response brought tears to my eyes. How much more complicated the question becomes when your child dies at twenty, if only because there has been so much life lived, and life is complicated. My heart goes out to you and your story.
Best, Monica
Kim says
I am intrigued and inspired by the advice to find your question. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms. I have a story to tell, but now I have to see if I am brave enough to confront my question straight on, instead of writing carefully around it.
Thanks for the compelling thoughts, and I can’t wait to read the book.
Mary Lunnen says
What is the question? An arrow straight to the heart of any journal writer, whether for publication or not I feel. Thank you.
Amy Young says
Like others above … the lesson I’m taking away is “What is the question.” And now I’m thinking if I were writing my own memoir, what my underlying question would be. In two weeks I’ll move back to the US after first arriving in China 21 years ago this summer. I’m mid 40’s — and the deep down question of my being is “has my life mattered.”
Dennie DeBellis says
I’m just beginning to work on a memoir and the scope of what I need to learn is astounding. But for the first time in my life, I’m eager to learn as much as possible. I can’t get enough.
This provided me with another helpful tidbit, another tool to stay focused. I’m having trouble sticking with one idea, my writing is much too broad.
Thanks for the lesson.