WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN you discover that you’re writing the wrong memoir? Well, if you are Louise Ross, you make the decision to write the right book. In this case, it was going from writing her own memoir to instead writing a collective one that includes the tales of the women she met in her ex-patriate journey. Ever had the feeling that what you are writing is not the right book? I think it happens to every writer at one time or another. If you’ve ever wanted to shelve one idea for another, please come along with Louise and find out how to make that decision. Here is a guest post from her featuring her newly-published book.

Shelving One Memoir Idea for Another

by Louise Ross

You’ve heard of the band Talking Heads, right? And maybe you know their song, “Once in Lifetime”? The first verse goes like this:

You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack

You may find yourself in another part of the world

You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile

And you may ask yourself, “Well … how did I get here?”

That last line, “… how did I get here?” Do you sometimes ask yourself that? I do.

Because I’ve lived in four different countries since leaving Australia 35 years ago, I had the idea that writing my memoir would be a great way to answer that question. By way of formulating themes to explore, I wrote down a long list of questions to consider, including ‘how did I get here?’

I played around with assignments Marion, my memoir writing coach, had given me, and then at some point, I came back to her and said, “You know, I don’t think I have a book-length story to tell – maybe half a book, and then I’d have to make the rest up.”

So I shelved the personal memoir idea.

Five years ago, I moved to Portugal and joined the social organization International Women in Portugal (IWP) and soon after I started participating in an IWP weekly hike. On those walks, I was hearing captivating personal stories, the caliber of which caused me to take stock of just how exciting and stimulating it was to be mingling with a group of worldly, educated, well traveled and intrepid, multi-lingual women.

It occurred to me that writing a collection of memoirs would be far more interesting than writing my own. Also, I thought that by committing these stories to print this book would become an important addition to Portugal’s historical archives given that it would document the oral histories of a diverse sampling of women who, for a myriad of reasons, have found their way to this country from all corners of the globe at the end of the 20thand the beginning of the 21stcentury, and during a time of massive global changes. (Ironically, in the 15th century it was from this point that the great Portuguese seafarers set off in their caravel to discover the world, and now the world is discovering Portugal).

How I went about the project is simple. It started with an informal interview with a Swedish woman I met on the IWP weekly hike, followed by practice interviews with a couple more women I’d met. I recorded the interviews on my iPhone and when I transcribed them, I knew I had something, but in order to craft the content into something significant, I came back to the assignments Marion had given me, one of which was formulate themes to explore. After some thought, I decided to focus on these three questions:

  • What compels someone to leave their country of origin?
  • What happens to them on their journey to the new place?
  • And what causes them to finally land somewhere and decide to stay, if not for the rest of their lives, then for an extended period?

Twenty-seven interviews later and three years into the project, I had about 450 pages, which I painstakingly edited down to 20 stories and 250 pages. What I noted when I edited and re-edited is that the women inadvertently answered the questions above while also revealing some additional topical themes particular to expatriates, such as the following:

  • The experiences of Adult Third Culture Kids
  • Feeling like an outsider in your own country
  • Returning to one’s country of origin
  • The question of where is home
  • The trailing spouse experience
  • Traveling as an outer expression of the inner journey or the Hero’s journey

I would not have thought to explore these themes when I began the project; simply, I did not have enough insight about the broader picture. It was my interviewees who informed me, introducing me to topics I wasn’t familiar with, such as ‘trailing spouse’, showing me that their stories were far richer and more complex than I had envisioned.

Since Women Who Walk launched in January 2019, it has been exciting to witness during readings, presentations and online discussions how the topical themes resonate for readers, both in the expatriate community in Portugal, and abroad, particularly in the U.S. where there is curiosity about Portugal, and interest in living abroad. This encouraged me to add book group discussion questions to an updated ‘Kindle Direct Publishing’ edition of Women Who Walk; readers seemed to need a vehicle to talk more about their own journeys or the journeys they hoped to embark upon.

I was in London just prior to International Women’s Day and I learned of WOW, Women of The World Festival. Its founder and director, an awe-inspiring creative by the name of Jude Kelly, former South Bank Center artistic director, had this to say:

“Women can do extraordinary things because they’re human. The difficulty is they’ve been made to feel that it’s an unusual thing, mainly because people have not called on them to be extraordinary and haven’t really wanted them to be extraordinary. But we are.”

She goes onto say, that we have a “mutual responsibility to value our own stories.”

Ultimately, I was motivated to realize this memoir project because of my personal conviction that the truth of women’s lives matter, and I’d like to think that by documenting the personal triumphs and disappointments, educational and professional achievements and failures, travels, adventures and discoveries, the decision to marry or not marry, the decision to have or not have children, Women Who Walk achieves Jude Kelly’s directive by valuing the female story.

Author bio: Louise Ross is Australian. She has lived in the UK, France and the United States. In 2014, she moved to Portugal. She lives on the Estoril coastline. See her on her website. Her new book is Women Who Walk, How 20 Women From 16 Countries Came to Live in Portugal. 

HOW TO WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK

I hope you enjoy Writing Lessons. Featuring well-published writers of our favorite genre, each installment takes on one short topic addressing how to write memoir.

It’s my way of saying thanks for coming by.

Love the author featured above? Did you learn something? 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 on April 30, 2019.

Good luck!