If you’re here, you probably have an itch to tell your story. Your life is unique and what you’ve learned through your experiences feels powerful to you. We hear from authors so often who want so much to tell their story—but aren’t sure anyone wants to read it. We hear that hard question all the time—is my memoir worth writing?
In the end, the only one that can really answer that question is you. But there are things that may be standing in the way of finding a clear answer for yourself. Our culture has very powerful—and often harmful—concepts of “worth” that hurt our understanding of what is valuable and how we determine value. We often look for external validation as a form of permission to go through the work of telling our story—sales, well-placed reviews, respect and acknowledgement from peers, the “right” kind of publisher. We even go as far as telling ourselves that unless we have these forms of validation, even trying will be a waste of time.
While these are all reasonable goals to have, they cannot be guaranteed, and, more importantly, they do not accurately reflect the worth of your project or your experiences. This week, Amanda and I are talking about how you answer this question for yourself and maybe even redefine our understanding of “worth it.”
Before we get into today’s post, we wanted to ask—do you have a plan for actually finishing your memoir? If not, we know you aren’t making the progress you hoped for. That’s why we developed The Memoir Method Checklist. This free guide (and video training!) will take you through every single step you need from idea to published marketable book. Grab it now at https://pageandpodium.com/checklist
Pressure of Productivity Standards Can Strangle Creative Efforts
Our world today puts enormous expectations on productivity. If you’re going to spend X time, then you need to have Y profit. If you’re going to spend X money, then you need to have Y returns. This becomes a problem for people who have this desire to write and share their story, because there’s no guarantee of a quantitative return, especially in terms of readership and dollar value. This lack of guarantee can stop people in their tracks.
When we don’t have a guarantee, our minds often narrate the worst possible outcomes. We imagine spending months and months on a book project and then no one reads it. Or we’ll get bad reviews on Amazon. But we can’t really know if this is true. You will never know ahead of time how your work will be received in the market place (though you can learn how to give it its best chances.) When we assume the worst, it’s our self-doubt trying to protect us from any sniff of criticism or feelings of failure, even when we have no real reason to assume
The Creative Process is Intrinsically Valuable
When we are trying to weigh when we ask if our memoir is “worth writing”, we often forget that the creative process is intrinsically valuable. For some reason, we don’t seem to forget this about other kinds of endeavors. If someone cares deeply about a sport, for example, and practices, joins a local competitive team, and invests hours a week and probably hundreds or thousands of dollars in it as a past time, we don’t wonder why they bothered unless they knew they were going to go pro. We understand that engagement with the activity is valuable in itself—it keeps us healthy, engaged with a community, and focused on trying to be the best we can at what we love to do.
Writing your memoir is an intrinsically valuable process. It is a transformative experience to share your experiences and perspectives openly. Sharing your experiences and the truth as you understand it supports our psychological well-being, especially in dark times.
Often there is a learning process we go through to try to make our book as best as we can possibly make it. That learning process can be hard at times, uncertain frequently, and can require diligence and resilience. Building those abilities in ourselves is invaluable—and no one can take that experience from you. Even in the (actually very unlikely) circumstances that you don’t sell any copies at all, going through the process of writing a book can sharpen your perspective, clarify your feelings of purpose in the world, and celebrate your growth.
The sense that we are not worthy is silencing
The hard edge of this problem is that when authors focus solely on the external proof of “value” of their stories and their creative efforts, one of two damaging things will happen. First, the author will abandon the central heart of what they want to say with their story for what they are betting the audience wants to hear (or at least will buy.) Second, they will abandon the effort all together. This silencing comes from internalizing the idea that our self-worth is tied solely to a dollar amount. We want to be able to point to sales numbers and say “that is how much my ideas are worth.” Regardless of what those sales numbers are, that is a dehumanizing experience.
It is also potentially keeping a real message from authentically finding its audience. Silencing the creative impulse to serve a “productive” cause hurts you and your potential audience. There are ways to support yourself and your book in the book industry, but focusing too much on that industry-driven concepts of direct ROI and profitability will hurt your creative process. It may even stop it before it starts.
Emotional clarity that comes through writing will make your book better
Memoir in particular is a difficult genre to write in. It presents specific technical challenges, but also its own set of emotional challenges. Often when you’re writing memoir, you’re revisiting difficult times in your life, especially times when you didn’t know and feel your true worth. Writing about your life takes an act of bravery, and it is difficult to hold on to that courage while also reliving those difficult times. As you’re drafting and revising, focusing on the intrinsic value of going through that process will help you stay the course. It will also make the final resulting book better. Psst, audiences want authentic memoirs.
When we create things, we are investing in enriching our human experience.
You deserve to have the experience of writing a book.
If you’re here, you have that itch to write. You feel called to it, and you dream of having written a book. If you’ve landed on this blog because you googled “is my memoir worth writing,” then you’re probably struggling to separate the intrinsic value of the experience of writing a book with the uncertainty of the outcome, especially the financial outcome. But you deserve that experience if that is part of what you want from your life.
PS. Searching the internet for writing, publishing, and book marketing advice can be exhausting to say the least! If you’re ready for hands on, one-on-one support for your memoir, check out The Memoir Method. We’d love to welcome you into this nine-month group program specially designed for women writing their first memoirs. And don’t forget, if you’d like to chat with Amanda about the program (or any other services we offer), you can book a free consult any time!
