Welcome to the seventh episode in my season of summer shorts, a series of shorter episodes where you’ll hear from writers working in the trenches right alongside you. Each week they’ll share their fears, doubts, and questions they have about the craft of writing and the writing life. Consider it your backstage pass to my coaching practice.
This week, you’ll hear from Laurie Riedman, a personal and relationship coach, writer, and storyteller. She published her memoir Diamonds in the Dirt: Stories from a Junkyard Girl earlier this year. She also co-edited Badass Sisterhood and Soul Shine (forthcoming) with Susan Walter.
During this episode, Laurie and I talk about three issues trauma survivors struggle with: owning their truths, dealing with family responses, and navigating the unexpected anxieties that come with sharing your work and especially with publishing a memoir that explores personal trauma.
Before we get to our conversation, I have a few questions for you. What struggles have you had, or can you imagine having, as you get closer to publishing your memoir or any other personal work? Has sharing your work with others ever triggered you? If so, how did you care for yourself? I hope you’ll ponder these questions as you listen along. Now, let’s get to my conversation with Laurie Riedman.
Lisa [00:00]
Well, hello, Lori, welcome to the writing resilience podcast. I am so grateful to see you again. It’s lovely to have you on.
Laurie [00:08]
It’s great to be here, Lisa. Thanks.
Lisa [00:11]
Well, last we met, you were working on a book as part of my Camp Structure class. And looky, looky behind you. Your book has been published, and I have my copy right here of Diamonds in the Dirt. So, my first question is, what would you like us to know about you and your book?
Laurie [00:35]
I’m a personal relationship coach. But I’m also a writer. I had a 30-year career of writing professionally, and a couple years ago, actually, more than a couple, I decided to do some writing for fun, and decided to take a memoir class. It just happened to be what I could fit into my schedule, never intending to write a memoir. And I had a kind of unique childhood growing up in a junkyard, I also experienced trauma as I know you have as a child. And I’ve heard you say, Lisa, that writing for you is such an important part of the healing journey for trauma. And I found that the more I wrote the stories from my childhood, the more I remembered, and it just got to the point where I had enough stories. Then the pandemic hit, and work came down, and I decided, maybe it was time to pull the book together and join your class. And you helped me do that.
Lisa [01:26]
I love how you have your book in the background. That’s such great product placement, and for all of you who are listening who know that at some point, you’re going to have a book published, you want to make sure whenever you’re on a podcast, or you have any other speaking engagement, that your book is visible, so that it’s in people’s minds. And I love your cover. It’s so beautiful.
Laurie [01:48]
Thank you for that. I worked with a cover designer, and it was really wonderful to get her insights.
Lisa [01:53]
What did you learn from that process?
Laurie [01:55]
Well, it was interesting. I had in my head, a particular idea for a cover. And I had originally hired an illustrator, because I have no pictures of myself as a child, very few. And so I went through that process, paid money to have someone work with me. And in the end, it just didn’t feel right. So, one of my writing groups I’m in had a graphic designer that lives near where I live come in and talk about book design. And so, I hired her and worked with her. And I learned a lot about what catches people’s eye. She taught me how to really, you know, we all judge a book by its cover, right? She helped me through that process. And I’m very grateful for her. And on my website, I do have a credit to her if people want to look her up.
Lisa [02:44]
I’m interested in this, because it relates to the question that you’re going to share with us in a moment. You said that the original person that you worked with, it wasn’t working out, something just didn’t feel right. What was that like for you? What internal guidance or signals did you have that just said, you know, I don’t think this is a good fit?
Laurie [03:06]
It was really me, because I had this idea in my head of what the cover should look like. I am not an artist. She’s won awards for book covers illustration, and she’s an amazing artist in my community. But it just seemed as though I was forcing something to happen, it felt like there was resistance inside of me. It didn’t feel true to me. And I just was worried that I couldn’t put a child on the cover because I didn’t have any pictures of me. But once I really got working with the designer, she asked me questions like, what kind of mood did I want the cover to show? She had read parts of the book too. So, she knew a little bit about the book. And it’s funny, the cover that we chose is a picture of a little girl swinging. And I actually did a focus group, since I’m in marketing, kind of informally, and asked people what they thought of the cover. A couple people came back and thought they didn’t like that it showed a little bit of little girl’s underwear, because it’s an innocent thing on the swing. I really liked that picture, because it foreshadows the trauma in the book, but in a very innocent way. So, we kind of fuzzed out part of the picture to take in the feedback from the focus group.
Lisa [04:30]
Yeah, I love that you were able to have a focus group so you could get some feedback. I think that’s so important when you are working through cover design or, you know, some of the other more aesthetic parts of the writing process that are marketing-focused because, yes, we do judge books by their covers, and they need to be really good. And what I’m hearing from this experience is that, you know, this isn’t about the person that you worked with. They were very talented. They knew what they were doing. They’d won awards. And yet, you knew the work she was going to do was not going to be true to your vision. So somehow you were able to trust yourself. I want you to hold that in your mind as we get into a question that you came here to ask.
Laurie [05:21]
This is a question that’s close to my heart. And I think, hopefully, it will be of interest to a lot of your clients and people who follow your podcast. So, my question is, when writing a memoir, or creative nonfiction, particularly of our own life, especially if it includes some type of trauma, and I call that big T, or little T, usually, it’s all trauma. Do you have any advice for us on how to get past or quiet that little voice inside that says what we’re saying isn’t true?
Lisa [05:56]
Yeah, that is a good question, and it’s one I get asked a lot. So, I’m so glad you asked it. And that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on, in addition to the fact that you are one of my former students. So, I’m going to pull back here for a second and talk about the general ways that this works, so that anyone who’s listening can say, oh, maybe this is me, or this is me. And then as you’re listening, I want you to think about what’s ringing true for you, so we can talk about that. So, in terms of our ability to trust whether what’s on the page is actually true, the issue can come from two places. There can be external things happening out in the world, usually with other people, family members, other people who might serve as main characters, wanting to know about your work putting pressure on you to portray them in different ways. And so those things can be very triggering, and especially, you know, in the world we live in, which can be very polarizing, even things in the news or news stories about, you know, gotcha newscast, or somebody got in trouble for something that wasn’t true. All those things can make us question our stories and whether they’re true. And when it comes to characters in our book, I just want to say, of course, they’re worried. Of course, they feel uneasy about it, it is vulnerable to be in someone else’s book. And yet, that doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to tell your story. So that’s some of the external things that can happen. And then there’s the stuff inside us. And so that can come from several different places.
If you come from an invalidating environment, and that could be any kind of environment where you were told that your story, your experience, didn’t matter, or people told you that your version of what happened wasn’t true. So, if you’ve been discounted in any way, that can affect it. If you have then built a habit of discounting yourself, right. So, maybe someone discounted you, now you’re discounting yourself, that can affect it. Also, two other things that can affect it are memory lapses. So, it’s very common when we are working on memoir, or other forms of creative nonfiction, where it is dealing directly with our experiences that we’re not going to remember everything, and we’re going to remember things wrong. That’s because of how memory works. And there’s so much I could say about that that would be outside of the scope of these summer short episodes. But memories are fallible. And when we encounter faillible, memories, what can happen is that we can begin to discount our own experiences. And then another part that can get involved is that if we’ve experienced trauma, which you referenced in your question, there can be parts of ourselves that are trying to protect us from feeling the pain of confronting whatever’s on the page. And so sometimes those protector parts might say, no, no, that can’t be true. That can’t be true. We’re not going to go there, because we have to face something that’s difficult. And so, all those things can be reasons why we discount our experiences, and we struggle to trust that it’s true. So, as I share all that, what’s sticking out to you?
Laurie [09:32]
All of it’s true.
Lisa [09:33]
That’s often not the case for people.
Laurie [09:34]
One of the things that I will say is that the more I wrote, I have gone through a lot of therapy, every kind of you can imagine my whole lifetime, and I really felt I was in a good place to write this and that I had done a lot of healing. What I was surprised at is again, the more I wrote, the more I remembered, and quite frankly, it was some more of the fun stuff that I had totally forgotten.
But after I collected the stories and put the book together, I did, in certain cases, call up various family members, other people, other characters, as you said that were in the story, to kind of just fact check. I really enjoy storytelling, and if those of you that hopefully will read my book, it puts you in the scene. I like doing that even though it’s memoir.
And so, you know, I was five years old, and I didn’t remember the color of the car. And so, I would ask people for those details. Sometimes it was very helpful. But often, it contradicted completely what I’ve written. And that shook me. It made me wonder, is this true? A big part of writing this was to own my truth, to put it out there, I just didn’t realize how scary it would be when I did put it out there.
And part of my story, one of the themes is how creativity saved me. I loved to read. I was in plays, and I pretended a lot. That’s how I survived as a kid. So, it was important for me to own my truth in this story. And that’s why it became really hard because there were so many times that I just was that little voice inside of me was saying, well, that didn’t happen that way. Are you really sure? Like, how could you really remember that? You were only five. So, the more I worked on the stories, it was really hard to resist taking things out, and changing it a lot. I did get a lot of support from really good beta readers. I did two different rounds of beta readers. But one of the things I thought of when you were talking just now, Lisa, which is what prompted me to write this question to you—when I pushed the button to publish it on Amazon, I’d been working on this for years, and I thought, I’ll be jumping up and down. I’ll crack open the champagne, and we’d be so excited. I ran to the bathroom and threw up, I was terrified. And I was like what the heck. And it was this, this feeling that came over me of, okay, now you’ve done it, everyone’s going to see this, and this isn’t true. And it was really a visceral response that I didn’t anticipate.
Lisa [12:33]
I will say, girlfriend, I have been there too. I’m going to unpack this in a couple of different ways. But I do want to get to the publishing piece, because I think that’s so important. So, some of this happens when you’re very young. That’s an important part of the story. Pretend plays an important role. So, there is a fictional part of the story, because you are making things up to cope. And that was important. So being able to tease out what’s true, and what’s not, was part of the story. The hard thing with siblings—and we often want to ask them because they were there—they are the ones who shared it in the most intimate way. And yet each sibling is going to have their own experience, which can directly oppose yours, because they’re having a different experience. They are not actually having the same experience, even though they might have been in the same room. Some of the things that can cause that are birth order, relationship to parents, their emotional state at the same time this thing is happening, what was important to them. Even if everybody’s scared, let’s say, what matters to that person in terms of their survival might be very different from yours. Or even if it’s happy, what makes them happy is going to be different. So, I think that is a struggle that many writers face.
And so, my invitation to all of you is that, yes, you can ask your siblings, but if they tell you a story that is vastly different from your own, that does not mean your story is not true. And it also does not mean that their story is not true. Their memories are their memories for a variety of different reasons. And sometimes it’s best to try to do that research without your siblings, especially if they are characters in your book. Because once someone is a character, and especially if they know they are a character in your book, it skews everything. So, try to think about what you can research on the internet, or in other ways. Obviously, if it’s the color of a car, you can’t necessarily do that research online, especially if there aren’t pictures. And that’s such a small detail. It’s okay if it’s not completely accurate. And you can even say in your book, in my memory, it’s blue.
Laurie [14:52]
I had that come up and in the case about the car, I have this really specific memory of my grandmother taking me to have her hair done. Pretty much she would have her hair done weekly, and she would always buy me a book afterwards. And I remembered that. And I remember her fingernails pushing the buttons on the radio, and I was in the backseat, and sometimes I’d pretend she was my chauffeur. So, in that story, I just called my older brother, Joe. And I said, “Hey, what kind of car did grandma drive?” And I just wanted that like detail. He said, “Grandma didn’t drive that car.” And I was like, “Yes, she did.” He said, “No, that was grandpa’s car, and she would have me come home from college and start it up and drive it around the neighborhood, because she was afraid to drive it. And all of a sudden, I was like, what happened? Like, I have this memory, Lisa, and so I kept that story in the book. And I think either the preface or somewhere in my note to readers, I shared this, that my brother had a different view. And what I think may have happened is maybe my mom was there driving with my grandmother, but I wanted so much to feel special and feel like she was my chauffeur that I made that a part of my memory. And so, I wanted to keep that in the book. And it was a struggle for me. I went back and forth. Do I change it? This is by memory. But exactly what you said, I kind of came to the point where that’s his experience. This was my experience. And then it made me really look at what is truth?
Lisa [16:39]
Sometimes what’s important is not so much. Is it factual, but why do we remember the things the way we do and how does that lead to truth? My husband and I just recently had this experience where I had this very vivid memory, and I can’t even remember what it is, but I think it has to do with music and CDs, and remembering myself listening to CDs at a time when CDs didn’t exist. But the memory is so vivid. I’m just like, okay, I know enough about memory to say like, well, there’s something in there. That’s true for me. And I think that can be really important. And so, owning it, that’s important. I love that you put it early in the book. I know that Mary Karr does this a lot in her book, The Liar’s Club. She will share a memory, and then she’ll put it in parenthesis Lisa will tell you a different story. That Lisa is her sister. So, these kinds of things happen a lot. And it’s important to learn how to own your truth, especially when it comes time to publish, because what can happen, and this is so interesting to me, but it also makes sense is that we often think of publishing as this major victory. We have made it. We get to hold our books. It’s amazing. And on one hand. it is. But if you are a trauma survivor, and you are a person who experienced bad things when you were seen, and those bad things can be bad things that happen to you, or your pain was not seen or validated. So, it can be either one. That can make the experience of publishing terrifying. And it can create an extremely visceral reaction inside you. So, learning how to take care of ourselves and understand that this is a normal and okay part of the process, you’re not broken, you’re not wrong, your nervous system is just really trying to help you is important. So, I always tell people to practice a lot of self-care. Expect that that might be the experience versus the other thing that everyone shows out on social media. There are a lot more writers out there who have the experience you had, Laurie, that don’t talk about it, and then they show a different experience online. So, your experience is one that a lot of people have.
So, here are some invitations for how you can begin to own your own experience. So, one, it’s about self-talk. You know, really learn how to say it’s okay for there to be multiple truths. My story is true, and it doesn’t have to be factual, and I can own both and show both on the page that the story is true and there is an emotional truth there even if I don’t remember all the facts. Also, you know, think about where you’re researching and make sure you are protecting yourself from main characters for as long as you can. And know that when you tell main characters about your story, you know, some authors do not tell their main characters until after it’s been published. I mean, that happens, and each person must make their own decision about when they’re going to do that. That’s a whole different question, but really have good boundaries. And I love what Marian Roach Smith says. She will show her manuscripts to people, and she’ll say, tell me if something is factually inaccurate. And if it’s factually inaccurate, and it can be validated, she will change it. And if not, it’s her story. But I think another thing that can be helpful is to have a sense of mission, to understand how your work is of service to others. And then to work really hard in the writing process to keep your side of the street clean, meaning that you are really working to not necessarily get away from the truth or sugarcoat things, but that you’re also being compassionate to your characters, that every character is rounded, that if you’re sharing something that is unflattering about someone else, you have a really good reason why you’re doing it, and that it serves the story. So, making sure you’re doing all these things. I think that can help mitigate that. But it’s not necessarily going to take away the discomfort. So, because we want to keep this short, I’m going to ask you a question, and then we’re going to move on to my lightning round questions. I’ve just shared a whole lot of information, what do you want to take away from this that’s related to your experience?
Laurie [21:25]
Well, when you talked about making sure that what you’re sharing serves the story, like does it need to be there, I did do that. I was able to, especially talking about family members, I was able to change certain things that maybe it wasn’t exactly the way I wrote or described them in the original story. And I realized it wasn’t serving the story to say those things. So that rang true for me, for sure. And the self-care piece was how I got through that moment of pushing the publish button. I mean, I almost threw up. But I immediately sat down and used some of my own coaching tools. I meditated and relaxed and just got my vagus nervous system kind of calm. And then I went for a walk. I didn’t tell anyone I had hit the button like I was planning to. And I wasn’t going to do a big launch thing at that time. I decided to pull together rather quickly an online unboxing of all the books, because I realized that if I wasn’t feeling celebratory, what did I need to feel celebratory? And I realized it was other people who had supported me. I wanted to feel this way. And so how could I get there?
Lisa [22:55]
I love those strategies. I think that is a wonderful way to think about this. And I’m so glad you did that work. And I think that’s one of the things that makes you a gift to others. And I think that’s one of the things that’s makes your work such a gift to all of us. So, I’m going to end with our three questions. What is the best piece of writing advice that you have received?
Laurie [23:19]
I think it’s really to just write without editing. At first, I was trying to make it all picture-perfect. And I realized writing is a process, let it flow. And then I can go back and refine it later. I called a lot of my first second, third drafts of stories, sandpaper drafts, because they were rough, but I could go back and polish them. So that’s kind of the biggest advice that helped me the most was just to write. And then I could worry about editing later and polishing them later. And the other thing I thought of when you asked me that question is there’s a quote and I have it on a little sticky. And I don’t even know who said it. I tried to look it up before this call, and I couldn’t find it. But it’s writing is going deeper into the human spirit with words. And you’ve talked so much about writing as therapy, I totally believe that, and I hope that so many others who are writing about their own childhood, or whatever they’re writing about that has caused them some challenges in their life will hopefully recognize that it’s just going deep inside us, using words to express whatever is there.
Lisa [24:42]
I love that. So, you just shared a bunch of different ways that you cared for yourself when you were publishing your book, when you hit the publish button. If you had one thing you want to say about how you nurture your resilience, what would that be?
Laurie [24:58]
Going outside and watching a sunrise or a sunset. Nature grounds me. It allows me to take a breath, and to pause and to be with the beauty of what is in front of me. And to know that I can be grounded and trust myself and I can face whatever challenge I’m facing, whether it’s with my writing or just life.
Lisa [25:25]
If people want to connect with you, get your book, learn more about you, or follow you online, what are the best ways for them to connect?
Laurie [25:34]
Well, I have an author website, which is my first and last name. It’s www.laurieriedman.com. And I’m sure, Lisa, you’ll put that somewhere, so people spell it correctly. You can subscribe to my blog, which is on Substack, which is called More Than Words. And I write all different kinds of writing there. And I’d love to hear from people when I post, just like you do. And people can go on to laurieriedman.com and get a link directly to the Amazon page. I think because I’m a first-time author, it’s a little tricky sometimes for people to find me on Amazon. So that’s the best way to find the book is to click the link on my website or to email me.
Lisa [26:25]
Wonderful. All those things will be in the show notes. So, I hope that people connect with you to learn more about your experience. And I want to thank you so much for being here. And once again, congratulations, both for completing Camp Structure, which, as you know, is a lot.
Laurie [26:45]
But it was so helpful. I was just telling somebody the other day, how, even though the structure that you taught, I didn’t end up using completely, it totally helped me find the structure that worked for me. Telling the story with a hero’s journey, or through all the tools that you showed us, you can use it in a short story. It doesn’t have to be in the book. So, the skills were really wonderful to learn. And I still stay in touch with people in the class.
Lisa [27:16]
Yay. And that’s what I always love to hear. And I love how you figured out one structure, but then later, realized it needed to be something a little different. That is so common. So, I love that. So, I am celebrating you for all that you have done since our class, and I want to thank you, once again, for being on the podcast.
Laurie [27:40]
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Laurie’s Bio: Laurie Riedman is a personal and relationship coach, writer, and storyteller. After thirty-five years running her PR and marketing firm, she transitioned to coaching, founding b.u. coaching to support those—like her—who seek to embrace their truth and be their best selves in all aspects of their personal and professional lives. She publishes essays on her blog, More Than Words, and recently published her memoir Diamonds in the Dirt: Stories from a Junkyard Girl. She also co-edited Badass Sisterhood and Soul Shine (forthcoming) with Susan Walter.
Sign up for Camp Structure: https://lisacooperellison.com/camp-structure-find-your-memoirs-narrative-arc/
