How Do You Write a Book?

“Asking me how to write a memoir is a little like saying, ‘I really want to have sex, where do I start?’” ~Mary Karr

Lindsay Lonai Linegar
Nov 4 · 5 min read
I found this (paper on right) inside my copy of “The Art of Memoir” by Mary Karr. As you can see, I’m SUPER organized.

This is day three.

After a nasty bout of depression on day one and the unwelcome start of a cold on day two — I actually started writing my book today. So far, we’re only talking a few hundred words but I feel amazing. I feel like I’m back in my first night-time dream, flying around on the back of a giant bird in my yellow underwear, smiling from ear to ear as we swoop through the clouds and sunbeams.

It has yet to be determined the exact year of this dream, and I cannot say whether it was partially inspired by The Neverending Story. I tend to believe, for reasons that will become clear by the end of this piece, that the dream was given to me, specifically, as a sort of puzzle piece. But yeah, I felt like that after I finished my first few hundred words.

Ok, I still feel a little bit like shit. But this is one of those both/and situations I’ve learned to embrace in my late thirties. I feel both miserable from coughing and clearing my throat and blowing my nose and moving sluggishly all day, and outstanding because I was finally able to begin.

I had plans to ask you a question today, in case I still couldn’t begin writing the book. My question was going to be this:

How do you write a book?

And I was going to be dead serious. I have long dreamed of writing a book, like since I was a young girl. In my adult years, I’ve had about seven million different story ideas. And they’re all amazing, ok? But I’ve had so much trouble figuring out how to focus, how to hunker down and stay committed to one idea.

But it’s a funny idea asking someone how to write a book. I mean, learning the basics is one thing, but I don’t believe there are really any rules about how to write a book. Not every author I’ve ever read used a complete sentence for every sentence in their book. As a very basic example.

Even Mary Karr, author of The Art of Memoir, seems to think it’s absurd to ask someone how to write a book — a memoir in particular:

“Asking me how to write a memoir is a little like saying, ‘I really want to have sex, where do I start?’ What one person fantasizes about would ruin the romance for another.” ~Mary Karr

I think I could agonize about the how-to’s of writing a book, forever. I’ve been in that place long enough. You know what makes me feel good about the few hundred words I wrote today? I just started. I moved. I listened to the words of Hemingway that have been singing in my mind the past few days: “Write one true sentence, and then go on from there.”

And so, I wrote one true sentence and went on from there. I started with a funny story about memory because Mary Karr says it’s important for a memoirist to let their reader know from the get-go, the fault in their memory.

“By transcribing the mind so its edges show, a writer constantly reminds the reader that he’s not watching crisp external events played from a digital archive. It’s the speaker’s truth alone. In this way, the form constantly disavows the rigors of objective truth.” ~Mary Karr

It’s a pretty heavy burden to think of remembering everything exactly as it happened. But Karr also says we tend to write the memories that stand out most, and we’ll likely remember enough to write about them.

Yes. I must finally be brave enough to call myself a memoirist.

Memoir — or creative nonfiction — is, after all, the type of writing I do. I have struggled plenty with insecurity when it comes to writing memoir. Am I old enough? Wise enough? Clever enough? Brave enough? Good enough? And then there’s the question of, who will care about the stories of my life? It has been a long, ugly battle to get to a place where I’m finally read to say, WHY NOT? And, my story is worthy of being told, just like everyone else’s.

I’m glad I happened upon Karr’s book today as I was organizing some things in preparation for a move. I started reading again, as I took a long, much-needed epsom salt bath and I have a feeling she is going to help me a great deal through this journey. I find her to be sharp, funny, and incredibly helpful.

A friend gifted me the book two years ago. I started reading and got overwhelmed in the good way, like I wanted to highlight every single sentence or dog-ear every single page. I don’t think my brain was ready to use the book for the intended purpose. It still might not be. Ok, it probably isn’t. But something definitely clicked in the bathtub. Thanks, Mary, I thought, as I stared up at the new ideas floating through the atmosphere, head submerged under water.

I dried off, got dressed, and started writing.

I aim to remember this moment, as well as I can. Hopefully it will act as some sort of encouragement when I start feeling the way I felt when that giant bird rudely dropped me off on a high cliff and abandoned me, in my first dream. Remember? We had been having so much fun, flying around in the sky together? And then, boom. Just like that, he dropped me off and flew away. Probably tomorrow is when I’ll feel that way. Hopefully not, but probably.

My life is scattered and messy at the moment. A big move, a new start in an old place, different weather, existential crises. I’m extra vulnerable to feeling the way I felt when the bird abandoned me.

The Motherfucker. The Motherfucker is what I nicknamed the bird once. I’m still sorting out my feelings about forgiveness. Surely The Motherfucker will make an appearance in my book. As will my feelings about my potty mouth.

Lindsay with an a

Writer

Lindsay Lonai Linegar

Written by

Writer | Creativity Coach | Dog Walker | Aspiring Yogini 🌼 California is home, but so is everywhere.🌍 “Just dance, gonna be ok.” ~Gaga

Lindsay with an a

Writer

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