[00:00:00.070] - Christie Purifoy
I had a dream of a book lined office on some College campus, and I'm not living that dream, but I'm living something better, something that was pretty deeply buried in me, and I'm so grateful that it finally came out.
[00:00:20.330] - Clarissa Moll
Do you have words deeply buried inside you? Is the life you've lived, a story waiting to be told. If you're a writer who wants to explore her own story, memoir might be a great way to do it. Whether you want to put down the full narrative arc of your life or you'd just like to capture the memory of a few important moments, memoir can help you find a home for the words you carry. Join me for this episode where we explore how Hi, I'm Clarissa Moll and welcome to the Writerly Life brought to you by Hope Writers, the most encouraging place on the Internet for writers to make progress here at The Writerly Life.
[00:00:58.730] - Clarissa Moll
We help you expand your creativity, explore new techniques and express your hopefilled words in a world that needs them. We'll help you learn to balance the art of writing with the business of publishing and learn to hustle without losing heart. You have words and your words matter, and as you write them, you can be you boldly, bravely, maybe even a little scared. Sometimes you can be you in your writing life. Welcome to the Show Friends. Lean in. Grab a pen. Let's chat. Whether you've lived an extraordinary story or you're looking to capture the significance of ordinary moments, you may be considering writing memoir.
[00:01:45.150] - Clarissa Moll
Unlike biography, which recounts the chronology of events in a person's life, memoir uses our life stories to explore a bigger theme or idea. It's a great genre to use when you want to make meaning of life experiences or explore how your story connects to other narratives. Our special guest today, Christie Purifoy, knows what it feels like to have stories buried inside you, waiting to find their home on the page. A seasoned podcaster and writer Christie left the College classroom for an old farmhouse and a garden where she discovered her creativity flourished as she explored her life stories through memoir.
[00:02:26.970] - Clarissa Moll
Lean in as she tells us more in this Hope Writers Tuesday teaching with host Emily P. Freeman.
[00:02:33.570] - Christie Purifoy
For the previous ten years or so, I felt that I had been living a story. My particular struggle in those years had been with infertility, and I felt like I learned so much, and I had grown so much through that experience that the most accessible story to me, the most accessible. I think genre of form to me was just to sit down and tell my own story. And that's probably true for a lot of people. Our own story is maybe our first story. And for me, it was the easiest story to tell for others that might actually, they may have to start with fiction or something and work their way to their own story.
[00:03:05.430] - Christie Purifoy
But that was the most accessible story to me. So I sat down to try to capture that story of that experience I've had and the spiritual growth through that in words. And I thought as I was writing, as it took shape, I thought I'm writing a book. I'm doing it.
[00:03:22.710] - Christie Purifoy
It will go out into the world.
[00:03:24.090] - Christie Purifoy
And it will bust people. What I didn't know is that it wouldn't. It's still just a file that sits on my computer.
[00:03:30.510]
But.
[00:03:32.550] - Christie Purifoy
It was the story that proved to me I can do this. I have words to share. I can craft language, maybe not quite to the level of my most admired writers, but I have something that I can work towards, and I have something to offer. And so if you had told me at the time that the book I was writing would never be a book, that it wouldn't be published, it wouldn't show up in people's hands. I would have been devastated. I don't know that I could have kept going.
[00:03:59.910] - Christie Purifoy
I needed the hope of that to hold on to. But now I can say without a doubt that was the book I needed to write, to learn and to grow, so that then I could write Roots in sky and Placemaker the books that came after. So sometimes it's good. There's a mercy and not knowing what the outcome of our writing will be. So that book was for me. It turns out so interesting.
[00:04:25.890] - Emily P. Freeman
Just to clarify, you wrote an entire book from beginning to end, just on your computer, on your own. Now, did you have every intention of pursuing publication, of getting an agent with that book?
[00:04:40.170] - Christie Purifoy
I did, and I tried a little bit. I was just learning. I was learning about agents. I was learning about blogging. I was learning about proposals. Apparently, I maybe should have started with a proposal instead of sitting down and writing the book. But sometimes doing things the correct way or the right way for the industry of writing doesn't tend to be the right way for us. And so even though I didn't know about all of that, it turned out, I think, to be right, that I just needed to sit down and write it.
[00:05:07.950] - Christie Purifoy
I think I needed that to prove to myself that it was possible because it just seems so impossible before.
[00:05:15.810] - Emily P. Freeman
That makes so much sense. I'm curious, what was the timing then, Christie, for you between finishing that book and then your first traditionally published book?
[00:05:25.770] - Christie Purifoy
It was several years, I want to say, at least at least four years, probably. And in that time I just wrote with the outlets that presented themselves. So that was blogging for me, with the encouragement of a good friend and even my sister who got me set up online. I started a blog and just started that discipline of weekly writing. So I had already written this book, and I was already starting to think of myself as a writer and wondering, is there a future for that? But then I just needed to sit down and do the kind of the hard, not hard, but just that daily practice of writing and of beginning to share it publicly.
[00:06:03.750] - Christie Purifoy
So I hadn't done that before. But with the blog I started doing that. So it was a several years process, which means that there were ups and downs. There were ups where I thought I've done it. I'm a writer. And then there were these downs where I thought this might be the end of it. I might never write in the ways that I'm imagining. So it took years. But it turns out that in those years, not only was I gaining skill as a writer, I was gaining community as a writer, but I was actually living the story that I would eventually tell, which became the book Roots in sky.
[00:06:38.910] - Christie Purifoy
And I couldn't know that at the time. But now I look back and I just see this perfect pattern.
[00:06:45.390] - Clarissa Moll
I love Christie's honesty and the faithfulness she exhibits in that story. She knew she had stories to tell, and she faithfully stewarded that gift in the best way. She knew how, regardless of what the outcome might look like. While her beginning work never saw publication, it prepared the ground in which her memoir Roots in sky would grow. Writing memoir, even for herself, was a worthy pursuit. When Hope writers sat down with memoirs and writing coach Marion Roach Smith, she explained that memoirists face a distinct challenge when it comes to deciding how to structure our work.
[00:07:25.050] - Clarissa Moll
Unlike fiction, where the plot may be shifted and shaped to suit the story, writing about reallife events requires you to consider both the truth of the narrative and the needs of the reader as you put pen to paper for your own memoir, consider these three tips to shape your work. Number one, focus on the reader. Marion defines memoir for the students in her online writing class. Like this, memoir is not about you. It's not about what you did. Memoir is about what you did with it.
[00:07:58.830] - Clarissa Moll
As you write your own memoir, keep in mind that your story is the illustration, but the theme of the work must be universal enough to appeal to your readers. Number two, use a proven formula. If a memoir isn't a recitation of chronological events, how do you determine the form your story should take? As a memoirist herself? Marion has developed an algorithm by which she structures her personal stories. She explains. It's about X as illustrated by Y to be told in A-Z-X represents what the story is about Y, the author's personal story, and Z stands for the format in which it will be written.
[00:08:42.090] - Clarissa Moll
Not all stories are meant to be a book. Some will serve your reader better as a blog post, a short story, or a long form assay. As a nonfiction writer, it's important to understand the form that will help your story reach readers most effectively. Number three, take a fresh perspective. Once you determine the universal appeal of your theme and the ideal format for your story, you can begin to decide how the events of your life will best illustrate it. Marion suggests either exploring an entirely unknown topic.
[00:09:17.490] - Clarissa Moll
She wrote about her mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis before Alzheimer's was a household name, or taking a fresh perspective on an old topic. In order to publish a book, you should provide a unique spin when writing about something familiar. This is how personal stories featuring a writer's individual worldview can succeed in publishing. Number four, narrow your focus with Marion's formula. Defining your illustrations is a key component of success. She also recommends writing from one area of expertise at a time. If you're an experienced parent, an accomplished Cook, or a master gardener, first of all, go you.
[00:10:00.570] - Clarissa Moll
But you must decide which areas of expertise best illustrates the story you want to tell. Narrowing your focus is critical to the structure of your piece. Too many details and multiple areas of focus in a story are often bandaids for poor structure. By focusing on a single area of expertise. Using the XYZ algorithm and exploring universal themes through personal illustrations, you can make sure your work is ready to find its way to a reader. In our conversation, Marion offers writers hope by telling us she receives books every week in her mailbox from former students who applied her teachings, wrote their stories, and found the reader who needed them.
[00:10:45.450] - Clarissa Moll
Your life, from the extraordinary to the mundane, is full of illustrations. For bigger stories. You live the stuff of memoir every day and using a simple method like Marions and the wholehearted eagerness of Christie, you can write your stories in ways that reach your Reader's heart.
[00:11:04.230] - Christie Purifoy
I think it's that we have this idea of memoir that's almost more, maybe a little bit more aligned to autobiographical stuff. So I've lived some incredible story. I had a near death experience or those kind of really intense stories that we know that could be a memoir that could be autobiography. And I'm just an ordinary woman with a pretty ordinary life. So in that sense, I wasn't writing a memoir of I wasn't writing, for instance, the earlier book, The Memoir of Infertility. I just wasn't writing straightforward memoir, but I was using my life like the raw material of my life, my experiences, especially the place where I live to one little tell my own story, but really on another level to offer reflections and spiritual insights for my readers.
[00:12:02.670] - Clarissa Moll
If this episode was helpful to you, just imagine how helpful the entire hour long interview with Christie Purifoy would be every week. Hope writers members have access to a new 1 hour Tuesday teaching with agents, publishers, social media strategists, and authors like Kristi Purifoy. Hope Writers helps you make progress in your writing life, whether you're writing blogs or articles on social media or in a book. If you want to be serious about your words and your reader, we're here for you for writing tips and encouragement. Find us on Instagram at Hopewriters or at our public Facebook page.
[00:12:40.950] - Clarissa Moll
Hope Writers Community Last A final word from journalist and author William Sinner memoir isn't the summary of a life. It's a window into a life very much like a photograph in its selective composition, it may look like a casual and even random calling up of bygone events. It's not. It's a deliberate construction. Your readers are waiting for a window into your life an opportunity to see life differently because of the stories you tell. As you write your memoir. Let the stories buried inside of you. Find the light of day.
[00:13:19.830] - Clarissa Moll
Put pen to page and use your life as an illustration for larger truths. Remembering Always as we say here at Hope Writers that you have a message to share and a reader to serve. Thanks for listening, writer Friend as you step into this week, remember to keep writing your words matter, we can't wait to read them. If you found this episode of the writerly life helpful, be sure to hit subscribe and tell your friends rate and review the show and like and comment. If you're tuning in on YouTube reviews help others know you found the content helpful.
[00:13:56.550] - Clarissa Moll
See you next week.
