What is the date you began writing this memoir and the date when you completed the memoir? I began in the fall of 2020. Meg Pokrass was giving a workshop based on her novella-in-flash, “The Loss Detector,” about a single-mother led family and the main narrator was the young daughter. For 30 days, we would read one of the mostly one-page chapters and Meg would give us a prompt based on that story. I hadn’t planned on writing a memoir, but all these thoughts and emotions about being unwanted by my father emerged and I had to deal with them. By the end of the workshop I had the entire structure of the book and by the end of 2020, a first draft.
https://www.bamboodartpress.com/store/meg_pokrass-the_loss_detector.html
Where did you do most of your writing for this memoir? And please describe in detail. If you visit the “about me” page on my website (Click on Blue Link Below) you’ll see I live in a tiny cottage on a mountain top where my desk faces out upon a lush valley of sprawling oaks and pastures dotted with horses and cows. On most days, my only visitors are families of deer, wandering coyotes, and the abundance of hummingbirds that vie with other species for dominance over a small fountain outside my front porch. A mating pair of red tail hawks performs aerobatics against mostly clear blue skies I like to think for my pleasure but, of course, they could care less about me. The stillness and peace is only broken when my dogs bark at some imagined threat. Unfortunately, they have active imaginations, but it is a small price to pay for the love they give.
https://jaynemartin-writer.com/meet-jayne/
What were your writing habits while writing this memoir- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I’m an early riser. If I’m not awake and up by 7:00 someone better check my pulse. My immediate need is for coffee. I get the drip going and then, still in PJs, plant myself at the computer. It must be silent. I’m easily distracted by sound, so no music. And God help me if there’s a leaf blower going somewhere. I type directly into the laptop. My handwriting can’t keep up with my thoughts when something is pouring out of me as the pieces in this book did.
Out of all the specific memories you write about in this memoir, which ONE MEMORY was the most emotional for you to write about? And can you share that specific excerpt with us here. The excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer, and please provide page numbers as reference. Wow. That’s a hard one. The whole experience of writing the book was a gut punch. I think it would have to be “At the Stroke of Midnight,” page 33.
At the Stroke of Midnight
In my fantasies, my father is Prince Charming and Superman. As handsome as James Bond. As powerful as the president.
I’m fourteen and Mom buys me a new dress, black chiffon. It’s too old for me, but she doesn’t say no. She never says no. I line my eyes and paint my lips. I wind my hair into a French twist so I look grown up.
When he left us, I was just a little girl, and my mother was crying and my grandmother was saying, “You knew he wasn’t a family man when you married him.”
I look in the mirror. The little girl stares back.
Mom and I drive to the nearby town where he now lives. We park in front of a Payless shoe store wedged between a dry cleaners and a nail salon.
“What are we doing?” I ask
Inside, my mother’s hand is on my back, gently pushing me toward a man who is thin and balding, and on his knees fitting a shoe to the foot of a seated woman.
Can you describe the emotional process of writing about this ONE MEMORY? In writing this scene, I realized that I hadn’t a single memory of him ever holding me, hugging me. I had no birthday cards, Christmas cards, or acknowledgments of my graduations. I simply did not exist to him. It was about this time that my longing for him turned to anger and a general distrust of all men. It also started me down a destructive path of seeking out men who, like him, were emotionally unavailable. I simply had no other role-model of a relationship with a man.
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? No. In this book, I’ve pretty much laid my emotions on the page. For most of my life, I thought I was the only one with these types of abandonment issues, of feeling somehow that my father’s leaving was my fault. That I was never good enough to deserve love. Then, in doing some research, I found that one out of three women identify as fatherless. In telling my story, maybe others with similar experiences won’t feel quite so alone.