Memoir

So I’ve been working on a memoir for years now. ← something I’ve been telling people and feeling embarrassed about

I had it in my head that a) it’s embarrassing to think your life has enough meaning to anyone but yourself to suggest that people might want to read it, and b) it’s especially embarrassing when you’re ‘young’. But one of my favourite books of all time is ‘Wasted’ by Marya Hornbacher, and another favourite is ‘Madness’ by the same author, and she was only 23 when she wrote ‘Wasted’. That’s a full decade younger than me. A few nights ago I had a dream and woke up remembering the thought that 32 is an acceptable age to write a memoir (in my Notes app, “33 is old enough for a memoir diary-style ← in a dream”), and you’re never too young to be relatable to someone who feels lonely. I don’t know ugh I want to write it and I want to make it real.

It’s less of a ‘need’ at the moment though, which I think is good. It means I can spend time on the cohesive look of it all. When I submitted a few pages to the First Graphic Novel award I wasn’t fully happy with some of them, but just glad to have made progress - to put off that horrible feeling that time was running out and I needed to make it before I died. Now I’m writing it more than drawing, but I have a clear vision for how I want the end product to look.

When I was about 16 I was recommended ‘Evidence’ by Candy Jernigan by an art teacher and read it during class. I wish I could find it in a charity shop. It’s stuck with me for so long now. I want my autobiography memoir to look like ‘Evidence’, plus a teenage diary, plus ‘Wasted’, plus ‘See You Next Tuesday’ by Jane Mai, plus a collection of printed out photos of card paper like I had in a sketchbook from 2010, plus doodles, plus a fiction book, plus Cy Twombly, plus patent application diagrams. Plus fashion magazines. Basically I just want it to look like a filled-in sketchbook from my A-Levels mixed with a neat diary hahaha. Picture images on the left page (drawn, photos, collaged) and tiny dated sections of handwritten memoir on the right. I don’t think words on their own are enough for me to make sense, and I love images and mixed media, and there are some things I need to hide behind art for safety (serious adverse reaction that makes me shake if I go into it) and plausible deniability (complex relationships).

‘Wasted’ is a memoir about anorexia and bulimia, and ‘Madness’ is a memoir about rapid-cycling bipolar disorder. I read both in 2012 when I had just been diagnosed with bulimia and rapid-cycling bipolar. I love memoirs, I love not feeling alone and I still love it when I can’t relate at all to what they’re describing.

I still don’t know whether to attach my actual name or not if it ever gets published, and I’ve been debating that for years. I think I just need to use a fake name so that I can say more. I still can’t say everything though.

ANYWAY here’s some text excerpts from what I’ve written so far. I need to write in short breaks because if I write about my own life for too long I get the regular-post-hyperfocus-’oh i feel so sick’-dizzy feeling (after hours of not moving besides my hands) along with the memoir-specific feeling of being ‘zoned in’ and trapped in my own history in loops, but here’s some of what I have written out over the past few years! (some of the visual parts here)

“I had talked myself into remembering [name] as 21 or 22 in my memories,  but I found some old back-of-book writing a few days ago and one of them said he was 25 (written at the time I was still seeing him, during my gap year). Maybe I just need more time off screens. Maybe less? I just need to jump into doing things, it’s when I have too much aimless unfocused time that my brain uses it.”

“Walking back in the dark in an autumn or winter late afternoon with warm Greggs in my bag. The trees dancing on my way to the art block. Dandelions with [name] behind the coffee shop and Student Union buildings. Seeing men in white coats coming out a white van while in an Art History lesson in the long side building behind the library and thinking that the teacher was diverting our attentions away from them because they were going to section someone, wondering if they were there for me.”

“Illnesses occur in such rote ways that we have classification books for them - the ICD, the DSM, WHO guidelines. Depression meant I was barely thinking, but when I was, it was usually a thought maybe 50 other depressed people were having at the exact same time. It’s kind of beautiful actually.”

“The GP practice where I had that appointment, where they weighed me and we talked about the bulimia, was opposite a walk-in medical building that I had walked past one night with [ex] (and [friend]?) as a mental health walk for him, and pictured myself in the waiting room, cared for and safe and taken seriously, and immediately felt like shit because [ex] needed my support and all I could think about was being sick.”

“Mimicking the way they mouthed at tiny pebbles, bop, bop, the smack of fish-oil lips against each other. A delicate hand on the glass to say hello, kneeling on the velvet bench seats 90 degrees from them. Just slightly off. 90 degrees turned from the rest of the world’s response.”

“Sometimes when I look at her I can so clearly see the clumsy child she was, the daydreamy quiet teenager.”

Okay, that’s all for this post. I know people say not to post/talk about what you’re working on because it’ll kill your motivation, but I think I need to know if I’m on an appealing track or not. Advice?

Thanks for reading this!