Beginnings Are Electric but It’s How You Sustain the Current that Matters
by Brooke Warner
We are in our first week of JanYourStory here at Memoir Nation. We had well over a thousand writers sign up, and 200 people at our first write-in on New Year’s Day. And we are jazzed!
Beginnings are electric. They come with a surge of energy—confidence, urgency, even relief. You’re going to do this thing you say you want to do, that you know you must do. Let’s take a minute to stop and experience this feeling, this jolt that comes with beginnings. It’s your drive to write. Your inner knowing that you are meant to write this story, a story that no one but you can write.
We want JanYourStory to be an ignition month—a month of writing every day that will supercharge your writing habits. For the month of January, the 500 words a day and the write-ins serve as a container. Some writers are figuring out that writing in community is a productive way to write. I feel this way, for sure. I often talk about the pulse I feel when I join the write-ins. Knowing people are there, even through Zoom, gives you a felt sense of not writing alone. The original She Writes mantra was WRITERS DON’T LET WRITERS WRITE ALONE—and I feel a keen sense of support in these circles, just showing up to our own individual pages, but together.
Today is Day 5 of the challenge, and I for one am writing again for the first time in months. Starting again has been exhilarating, mostly because I’ve tapped into that deep knowing: I want to; I must; I will. For me, this kind of heart drive is always a good sign.
And yet, I’ve been here before. I recognize what this is. The early days of a new project are all voltage—full of promise, but not yet current. There’s desire, stakes, urgency, and meaning propelling us along, plus the group energy of the challenge—an electrical field all its own.
But this is not a sustainable place to be for months and months on end, which is why we have to find ways to sustain the current. A light burns not from energy stored, but because energy keeps moving through it.
I am treating JanYourStory as conditioning for the long journey ahead, knowing that this initial surge is not what’s going to get me to the finish line. Urgency is enticing. The desire that comes with starting something new can give us the same endorphins we feel when we fall in love. Which is why we need to train our minds for current and flow—for the steady pace that will see us through to the end.
During JanYourStory, consider the following:
Identify the conditions:
What is the best time of day for you to write?
Where do you write and is the space you have working?
Do you do well writing in community?
Capture the inspiration:
Revisit why your story matters once a week
Name what’s at risk if you stop writing, or if the story doesn’t get written
Journal the meaning that’s evolving, giving space to dream and explore
Accept that there will be fluctuations:
The urgency will dissipate
Progress will feel slow
You will feel uninspired
Keep showing up:
Hold writing spots on your calendar
Sign up for a class or join an accountability group (like ours)
Find a writing buddy, group, or coach to support you
Consider the math of 500 words a day x 365 days = 182,000 words. That’s practically three books. So we don’t need to sustain quite that pace, but rather to find the flow that works for us. Writing is a practice, after all. It’s about showing up on the days you don’t want to; it’s about allowing those shitty sentences to show up, knowing you can finesse them later; it’s about learning to hear the voices that judge you and writing anyway.
Writing a memoir requires stamina, and constant self-pep talks. We have to come back to purpose again and again—and we have to embrace all the supports that work for us, given our unique temperaments, needs, and drives.
This week on the Memoir Nation podcast, we’re ringing in the new year with insights from 10 of our favorite past interviews: Mary Karr, Jeannette Walls, Kiese Laymon, Abigail Thomas, Elizabeth Gilbert, Ashley C. Ford, Firoorzeh Dumas, Dani Shapiro, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, and Maggie Smith.
Listening to each of these memoirists speak about memoir back-to-back in a single episode gave me an inspirational jolt. When the energy runs low, crank up the voltage by listening to interviews, reading other memoirists’ work, attending classes, and finding ways to engage with your writing community.
