Why Writers Push Pause, Hold Off, Procrastinate, and Otherwise Take Years to Finish Their Memoirs

Reckoning with Why I'll Wait to Publish My Memoir

Last September, I started an accountability group to finish my memoir. I was struggling to make the time, to open up the space in my schedule, and the group was an admittedly selfish exercise.

Finding the time was a first and early obstacle, and the accountability worked as I knew it would. I’ve written 30,000 words since we started. But around the six-month mark, earlier this year, just as I renewed my group for another six months, I started to push up against something unexpected: fear of outcome.

My memoir is about my relationship with my ex-wife. It’s my story, but it’s also our story. That said, the things I’m writing about are not buried secrets. My family and friends know what happened. I’m an open person, living a pretty out-loud life. My ex is not secretive about the childhood abuse she suffered that’s central to how and why our relationship unraveled. She’s written about it publicly, so my future memoir will not out anyone, nor will it expose what’s not known.

The matter, however, is the bigness of it all. The ripple effect of putting the story into the world. For years I’ve told writers I work with not to put the publishing cart before the writing horse. I’ve said, “Write, and figure out the publishing thing later.” I see now that for some, myself included, publishing is inextricable from the journey itself. I’m writing this memoir for publication—and I want it to be a meaningful contribution to the genre. If that weren’t the case, I’d have set it down already. So my advice, while not completely off-base, is not right for every writer. (Good reminder: this is true of all writing and publishing advice.)

Fear of outcome is a strange experience because the fears roll in slowly. They make themselves known gradually—and they can also roll back out. When I determined I was finally ready to write this story, the primary people occupying my headspace, my fearspace, were my ex and my mom. It’s not uncommon for people to confess they are waiting for someone to die in order to write their memoir. In her memoir, Inheritance, Dani Shapiro writes:

Students sometimes tell me that they’re waiting for someone to die before they feel they can write their story. They say this sheepishly, guiltily. As if, in some way, they’re wishing for that person to expire, already, so they can get on with the business of writing about them. I try to liberate my students from these tortured thoughts by telling them that they may as well just start now, because it can be more difficult to write about the dead than to write about the living.

I don’t have such morbid thoughts, but I’m also lucky. I have a mother I can talk to about my fears. I’ve had conversations with her, including on my podcast, that have allowed me to release my concerns and forge on. Even though I haven’t discussed my memoir with my ex, I know she values the power of personal story—and I wouldn’t publish without her permission.

As it turns out, there’s another kind of waiting memoirists do—and that’s waiting for people to grow up. When I started this book almost two years ago, I wasn’t thinking about my son. But then, he hit puberty, and this little boy whose child mind was less of a consideration where this story was concerned was suddenly an almost-young-man with deeper thoughts and curiosities. Just as I moved my mom out of my fearspace, my son stepped right in.

As winter turned to spring this year, a dawning awareness washed over me that I was going to have to wait until my son graduates from high school to publish this story. I am coparenting my ex. He lives with both of us. What he knows about the story of his two moms, about what happened, is negligible, as is appropriate.

This understanding came to me over the course of a few weeks, a surprise at first, then a disappointment. I thought about other memoirists I admire who’ve published books that would have had similar consequences for their kids—Rachel Cusk, Gina Frangello, Maggie Smith, Claire Dederer, Julia Scheeres (please contribute to this list as you’d care to in the comments). I acknowledge that each of us is different. We all have our own stories, our own sensitivities, our own kids’ personalities to contend with.

For me, my writing brings me as much into the future as into the past. On the page, I am grappling with a love that couldn’t sustain the pressures two people applied to it. In my day-to-day, I am fully aware of the pressures already bearing down on my son—to fit in, to try to sail through these years as unscathed as possible. In the scenario where I publish my memoir on its original timeline, I see him in high school. Maybe he’ll have a crush on a girl—a girl who knows who I am, or who easily discovers I’ve published a memoir. My son will have given me his blessing to write and finish this book because he’s not the kind of kid to throw up any objection. He’s not the kind of kid to stand in the way of his mom’s dreams and ambitions. But he will have declined to read it. It will be embarrassing to him, understandably so. But the girl, she’ll have no such reservations. She’ll tear through the book and know more about my son’s backstory than he does. This kind of scenarioizing has brought me to full stop some days. This will not be the outcome, and I have time.

I know plenty of memoirists who’ve taken years to write their books. Recently, I’ve interviewed two of them for my podcast.  Susan Ito shared that she’s been writing I Would Meet You Anywhere for her most of her adult life. Margaret Lee shared in the podcast that’s dropping this week (Monday, July 15) that she thinks of her memoir, Starry Field, as her first child because she started writing it before her kids (now young adults) were born.

These authors have helped me settle into the idea that it will be five more years before my memoir comes out. I’m also centered and grounded in the knowing that it will happen. And I’ll heed Dani Shapiro’s advice to keep writing.

All of us writing memoir are on two journeys—the one we’re reliving from the past, and the one we’re living as we resurface that past on the page and weigh the consequences of unearthing our stories. My past journey taught me about compassion and loss. It taught me that sometimes we cannot save the things we most care about, and that wanting something with your whole heart is not enough—or even helpful—if it’s at odds with what another person needs. The writing journey I’m on is teaching me patience and priorities. It’s bringing me face-to-face with the outside pressures I place on myself and why. And it’s reiterating to me how powerful and poignant this genre really is, and that it’s here for all of us—when we’re ready.

Memoirists, published or in-progress, you continue to inspire me every day. To those of you contending with your own fearspaces, or who’ve gotten past them through conversations or waiting it out, I welcome your stories in the comments.