For the past 25 years, as a ghostwriter, editor, and author coach serving authors with incredible survival stories, I have met and worked closely with people who have lived through unbelievable circumstances. The current blog series focuses on the unique challenges of writing the survivor-thriver memoir.
New and emerging authors come to me because they have a dramatic story to tell. For many, that story involves surviving violence or oppression: Combat veterans and civilian war survivors, survivors of child abuse and sexual assault, immigrants and refugees who escaped threats on their lives, and people who survived an incredibly corrupt legal system, as well as the relatives of people who did not survive those traumas.
Today, I have several requests of new clients, the most crucial of which is that they have both a powerful story and a higher message that calls humanity to a better path. I need to know that my Authors have, not only an astounding survival story, but also a path that took them through unbelievable growth afterward.
I ask that survivors work with me, only once:
- They have already begun the committed, therapeutic work of healing and forgiveness
- Their book idea not only tells the truth of what they survived, but also shares how they re-created their life afterward
- They are able to write with enlightened compassion about the people who harmed them—not denying the harm done, but recognizing there is a broken human being somewhere in there
This is the hardest work that violence survivors will ever do.
I ask that survivors already have a deeper spiritual message to share with humanity, not just a revenge-memoir or raw truth-telling only. I look for stories that tell the truth and call readers to build a better world. I work with authors who want to empower their readers to take constructive action in response to the story.
Authors Need that Higher Purpose to Survive Writing the Book
Some of my “Client Expectations” are due to my own personal limitations. I live in a body that has significant medical challenges. For years, I helped people write raw-truth survival stories. That ghostwriting and co-authoring work, writing only the truth of the horrors, had measurable negative effects on my physical health. I can’t do that anymore.
Today, I focus on stories that bring me hope—so I can continue thriving myself. I focus on “higher-truth stories” because I want better for the planet too. I want to empower a chorus of memoir authors who call their readers to both bear-witness and foster better ways of being.
These requirements benefit my authors too.
Contrary to popular belief, memoir-writing is not “cleansing” or “invigorating” or “a big release.” Honestly? Writing a survivor-thriver memoir—one that other people will want to read—is just plain hard work. Even if I provide full-service ghostwriting, my Authors have to repeatedly re-live their most traumatic (and happiest) memories over and over during our interviews, so I can harvest all the literary detail required to write a convincing scene. Re-living memories at that sensory level, even positive memories, is time-consuming, disorienting, and stressful. It’s rarely fun. It’s a job.
Most of my authors already have day jobs! Writing a book means taking on another part-time job, a physically and spiritually exhausting job. It’s a giant sacrificial commitment that affects relationships, personal time, and overall energy.
To survive writing a book, an author needs a bigger reason to fuel the process. “I want to tell the truth” is not enough. In over 25 years of experience, I’ve found that the “truth-telling urge” is only enough to fuel a few blog entries or essays. It’s not enough to fuel the years-long process of writing a book.
One needs longer-lasting fuel for that. Survivor-thriver authors need a higher calling.
That higher calling can come in infinitely diverse forms. Perhaps it’s a speaking career devoted to peace-making, or a podcast that helps child abuse survivors heal, or a foundation that gives scholarships to domestic violence survivors. The point is, the author is already metabolizing their survival experience. Many authors pursue a career inspired by what they survived. In that sense, the past may still inform and influence their choices, but the trauma itself no longer commands them.
Only that higher calling can fuel the years-long journey of: writing the book, finding an agent, securing a publisher, and then waiting another two years for the publication date. And then the years of book-marketing initiatives. This is a long and life-altering journey.
Only once a survivor-thriver is living at that higher-calling level, are they ready to write a compelling and life-giving memoir. They’re ready to use the book to support a bigger purpose.
How about you? Where are you at in your survivor-thriver journey? If these ideas ring true, feel free to contact Anika and request a free 20-minute consultation.