What I wish I knew before publishing a memoir
...and the real reason I had a complicated relationship with THE YEAR OF LESS
Hi friend,
This summer, I assigned myself a little writing project: to re-read my first book, THE YEAR OF LESS, and do a chapter-by-chapter follow-up (12 in total). This is the final post in the series and, if I’d followed my usual structure, it would’ve simply included my thoughts on the final chapters and perhaps a few takeaways from this project. But as I started writing, I realized I wanted it to be something bigger… and ended up writing over 6,000 words.
Long-time readers will know I’m not usually one to give how-to advice. But if there’s one thing I think I could help someone with, it’s sharing what I’ve learned about writing and publishing a memoir—and how to protect your mental health throughout the process. This post is long, and won’t be for everyone. But if you’ve ever considered writing a memoir, and sharing some of the more challenging stories from your past, here is my story and all the advice I can give you.
Chapter 12 (June 2015) + Epilogue
To finish off this series, let’s briefly discuss a few thoughts I had while reading the last chapter and epilogue…
When I read them with my editor’s hat on now, these final chapters feel a bit rushed. As the writer, I remember I felt self-conscious about the fact that I’d already gone over the word count my publisher wanted, and also that I had a lot of loose ends to tie-up. But the writing doesn’t feel great. You know what does feel great, though? I don’t care! Seriously, I have wasted so much energy worrying about how “bad” the writing in this book is… and now that I’ve re-read it, and actually really liked some of the chapters, I think it’s fine! So, I’m forgiving my younger self for not being a great writer. I hope this gives me the freedom to let go, learn, and keep trying new things in the future.
One light topic to update you on: I’d forgotten that I mentioned my decision to stop wearing makeup. Honestly, I’d forgotten that was an intentional decision at all! I can’t really remember what sparked it either, but I’m sure it was influenced by whatever minimalist or anti-consumption content I was consuming at the time. It lasted, too—for a solid 6-7 years. I’d wear makeup for certain interviews and book events, but otherwise only put moisturizer on my face. And then sometime after the early years of the pandemic, I started wearing it again. Just the same 3 basics I used to wear before: eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara—and SPF now, too. In the book, I wrote that if I ever started wearing it again, it would be for me—and it is. (Especially the SPF.)
And one bigger topic I’ve been thinking about: the story I told about why I moved back to Victoria. If I’m going to be really honest with you: it’s the one story in the book that I twisted. I painted a picture about how my decision to move back was about community, the pace of island life, etc. But the real reason I moved home was to help my family, for reasons I won’t share. I’m not entirely sure why I wasn’t comfortable saying this, when I wrote the book… other than my usual fear, which is that I probably (safely) assumed one person in my life wouldn’t like it. But maybe I tried to make it sound more positive and hopeful, compared to the temporary solution I knew it was. (I was still living in Victoria when I wrote the book, but moved to Squamish shortly after.) Maybe I tried to tell myself this story to make it feel ok. But that’s the full truth, friend.
My Complicated Relationship with THE YEAR OF LESS
If you remember, the reason I decided to tackle this project was to see if I could change my relationship with TYOL. Before this, I would’ve labelled that relationship as “complicated” at best, and my attachment to the book as “avoidant” at worst. I often tried to avoid conversations about it. Would tell people no, they didn’t have to read it. Would add that I was “so young” when I wrote it, as a way saying: you’ll probably think it’s bad and that’s ok, I totally understand and won’t be hurt by your judgments. And generally avoided talking about my work altogether, especially with anyone I had just met.
In fact, I do know one of the reasons I had a complicated relationship with the book: because people put me on a pedestal, after it came out. Not everyone. Mostly new people, people I had just met and might want to be friends with. And then I’d eventually understand they didn’t want to be friends with me because I might be a nice or interesting person, but because they thought it was cool to say they were friends with an author. Or worse, because they wanted something from me—like a connection to my agent or publisher. I’m a firm believer in supporting other writers, but this isn’t the way. Authors are people, not their books. And I’m already someone who is sensitive to interactions that feel inauthentic, or leave me feeling used and/or unwanted. After yet another person contacted my agent and pretended they were friends with me (after we had exchanged ONE email), to try to work with her, I really struggled to trust new connections.
Outside of that, I had a few other ideas that might explain why I had such a complicated relationship with this book. I didn’t really care about the subject matter anymore, and didn’t want to talk about it. (Read: I won’t sell minimalism to you.) I felt some shame about the fact that I’d talked about my weight, as my feelings and beliefs about diet culture and body positivity had shifted a lot since publication. (I discuss this in the chapter 1 review.) And truthfully, I did feel the writing showed my age, which was young and a little immature—both as a writer, and as someone who hadn’t yet gone to therapy to work through any of this stuff.
For all of these reasons, I’d been a little anxious about opening it back up and revisiting the words in these pages. But it only took reading the first chapter for me to see the real reason I had such a complicated relationship with TYOL…
…it’s because the process of writing and promoting it took a massive toll on my mental health. This is something I haven’t talked about publicly before, but feels important to reflect on and share now—especially as I begin to think about working on another book. I can’t do it again, if I don’t implement what I’ve learned from my first experience of writing and publishing a memoir.