Interviews with Creatives | Melissa Sharman on writing the book you need

In this interview, I chat with writer Melissa Sharman to hear about why she needed to write her memoir and how she approached it.

This is part of the Interviews with Creatives series, a curated library of conversations from the Creative Momentum with Meg podcast.

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Melissa Sharman, Writer

MS: My name is Melissa Sharman. I’m a writer and have just released The Beauty of Broken Things through Hawkeye Publishing, just a few weeks ago, so it’s fairly new to me. I do a few other things in life. I am also work as a DV practitioner and, run a few non-profits, but my passion is writing.

Creative Routine

MD: Excellent. Before we started recording, you did mention that you’re working full-time. Do you have a routine for your creative work?

MS: I do. I have to really carve out the time, since there is a 9 to 5 there, and as much as I’d love to drop everything and become a writer full-time, you’ve got to make it work. I feel like a lot of the time, what I do for work and life is inspiration for writing as well, so that works. I suppose what I usually do is at nights, I’ll often spend an hour or two, lock myself away in the office, and write. I’m also a big fan of the writers events with Writers Queensland, where they will have a few hours carved out with the Pomodoro Method, and I will just go and drop a good 5-10,000 words on a Saturday or a Sunday, so it is hard, but it’s important. It doesn’t come easy, but you’re doing what you can.

MD: So, with the Queensland Writers’ Centre events, are they full day events to just turn up and just do your riding, Pomodoro style, or…

MS: Well, generally, they’re 3 or 4 hours, so they start at 9 o’clock on a Saturday, or a Sunday, or a Friday, and they’re usually held at libraries, so they’re great times where writers can sit, and … I think sometimes getting out of the house, where you’ve got notifications coming in, and people who want your time and attention, and just carving that little bit of space out is super important, and I think also being with other writers who are sitting down and really putting the work in. I think 3 or 4 hours is a really good time just to hit it with all the energy, and see what you come up with.

MD: Yeah, I’m so curious about these events. Is someone sitting there with a timer going, like, your 25 minutes is up, like, 5-minute break?

MS: It’s actually run through lots of libraries in Queensland, and they actually have, a little timing thing that’s on a screen, and it shows you, and I think it… don’t quote me, I get a bit lost with it, but it might be, like, 25 minutes, and then a 5-minute break, and then another 25 minutes, and then a 15-minute break, and then another 25 minutes, and, like a 5-minute break. So you’ve just got enough time to really go hard, take a bit of a break, bit of a breather, walk around, stretch, go to the bathroom. And then you’re back on the clock again. The clock actually comes up on the screen, and you know where you are in it, so it’s a really for those who find it’s hard to carve out that time and space for yourself. It forces you to sit with other writers, and when you’re on the clock, you’re going. So it’s a really productive time, and I think it’s a really great idea.

MD: Yeah, I love this idea.

MS: Yes.

MD: If there’s other library, public library people listening to this, set this up in your library, this is a great thing for writers.

MS: There’s lots of different locations all over Queensland, in libraries, and I think in the Queensland Writer’s Centre itself and I think it’s just a good place to go and meet other writers and have a little bit of conversation in the gaps. So, yeah, it’s a good thing to get along to.

Creative Process

MD: Do you have a process for your creative work from idea to finished product with the finished manuscript that’s ready to send out?

MS: I think it’s changed over time. I used to think that writing was very much a linear activity, start at the start at the beginning and end at the end and I’ve kind of realised that it’s more, for me, like a patchwork quilt. So it’s adding little bits of squares, and then you might need to add another one in, and then eventually, once you’ve got them all, you join them together. So, I suppose I fit in the more of a plotter than a pantser type of activity, but I like to have the idea, and sometimes I will write a whole piece of work based on one line, which is quite fun when you get to do it. But with the extra work, sometimes I’ve literally written a story around those lines, and I’ve just pieced it together and shaped it as it’s needed to go, so I think that’s something that I’ve gradually realised has worked for me, because in the past, I’ve tried to do it start to finish, and it hasn’t worked. So I think work to your strengths.

MD: Yeah, so when you’re doing that, so you’re talking long form? Is that right?

MS: Generally, like, chapter books or a long piece of work, yep. I had to do a lot of narrative non-fiction for short pieces and things like that, and that’s a completely different idea, but…

MD: Yeah, so your book that has recently been published. Is that fiction or non-fiction? Can you…

MS: That’s a non-fiction memoir, so I think memoir has a lot of rules of its own, and I probably during writing it, I must have attended 15 different workshops from online, to little ones in libraries to everything, and I found that each single one that I went to, I got a little bit of a gemstone out of. And there are so many different ways of doing it, but ultimately had to take the best of the information that I got from so many different sources, and make what worked for me, which I really loved writing.

MD: Can you tell us about the process of writing that memoir, and what you’ve learned from it that you would do differently next time?

MS: I think that when I first started writing, because in memoirs, for a lot of people, it’s  a piece of information that shares a lot of our personal lives. For a lot of people, those can be, painful, traumatic, can be hard times, can be really good times. It’s a lot. You’re really vulnerable when you’re leaving yourself on the page, and I think initially when I got into it, I wanted to write something that was easy to read. I wanted something that was happy and I wasn’t really quite ready to share the vulnerable parts of my life, I suppose. Over time, instead of writing what I was writing for everybody else, I decided that I was going to sit down and I was going to write something that was completely raw. Like, Anne Lamott says, you write to know what you think. And I wanted to know what I thought, and I had all these thoughts floating around, and I needed to put it on a page, so I literally wrote for me something that no one else would read. When you take away that pressure of what other people will think of your work what comes on the page is a lot more vulnerable and honest and raw, and I think real. And that was definitely the case for me. It had a few lives, and I also found that reading in the genre was probably one of the best things that I could have done. If you saw my bookshelves, they’re wild. I’ve read, hundreds and hundreds of memoirs, and observed how other writers do things and do them well, and taken that experience, and how to do that into putting it together. I think that, particularly in a memoir, there are a few basic ways to get through, and the structures, and that’s one thing, but I realised that with memoir, it’s not about having a good story, and I think that’s what I was worried about, that I’d have a good story, but I wouldn’t have the skill or the voice to be able to write it. And I think when you sit and you write for yourself, you write for what you really want to say. That’s what a memoir is all about, because there are plenty of people in life, unfortunately, that may go through divorces, or sicknesses, or health, or death, or hardships, but what differentiates one writer from another is their voice, and how they tell the story, and I think that that’s super important, so getting comfortable with your style, and just putting it on page, and not worrying about what other people think, at least in the first draft I highly recommend.

MD: What were the best resources for you in writing the memoir?

MS: I read a lot of writing, writing books, a lot of writers who wrote on, on memoir,  a lot of story structures and things like that, but I honestly feel probably the best resources were reading in my genre, because I was able to see how other people had tackled problems that I had.

MD: Yeah, that’s so interesting, because I do often say to writers, the best thing that they can do is read, and I think that was Helen Garner’s advice as well: read more. In the first episode of this podcast season, Helen said, read. And she was shocked how many writers were not reading, or wannabe writers were not reading.

MS: I think it’s very much, inspiration thing, and I think that motivation comes and goes, but with inspiration, that can also help push forward motivation. There’s also the time that I invested into, whether it be looking at art, whether it be reading about people’s psychology, or human issues, or things that were inspiring to the story, or other people’s books to read that. One of these other writers, said to me the writing process isn’t just the time that you sit down to put pen on paper or fingers on keyboards. It is the imagining, the understanding, the research, the thought that goes into it, that is part of the writing process. So I learned to embrace that, rather than going, well I can’t, shouldn’t be reading, and I shouldn’t be looking at art, and I shouldn’t be doing all these different things because it’s not writing, but it is part of the artistic process.

MD: I think it’s that cup filling stuff as well we’re learning from. Even just looking at art is so great for us as writers, as you just said.

Creative Inspiration

MD: Tell me, where do you get your inspiration for your creative work?

MS: I think that I get it from everyday life. The conversations that I have, the people that are in my life the little dilemmas, the things that make us human is probably the human condition. I like all the intricacies about all the things that make us tick. I think that’s probably always been something that’s really, really interesting to me. Stopping to notice the details in landscapes and sounds and just the world around me. I’ve really learned to pay attention and to notice things and to look at things like a writer, instead of just existing in the world. I think it depends on the project, but I’m very, very a big fan of storytelling, so I love inspiration of real life on the page, whether it be through fiction or through memoir.

MD: So are you writing fiction now, or…

MS: I am, I’ve got two on the go. I’ve got another non-fiction, 73,000 words later, but I’ve also been working on a contemporary fiction, and I’d say it’s probably a little bit literary, but it’s, very contemporary fiction, exploring relationships and conflict and secrets.  I’m still figuring out where I’m going with it, but I’m loving what it’s what it’s becoming so far.

Memoir v Fiction

MD: I’m gonna ask a sideways question here, because I’ve had conversations with other writers, who are trying to make that decision whether to fictionalise the memoir or write it as memoir. Did you go down that decision path of what’s going to be the better way to tell this story?

MS: Yeah, I absolutely did. I suppose it’d find… you find it differently, for different people. I guess for me it was a bit of a risk, and I wanted it to be my story, because I think that we draw as humans inspiration from people. Things that we know are to be true. Saying that, in memoir, you can have a little bit of creative licence, but not for meaningful details, if that makes sense. So when you’re recalling conversations, sometimes the conversations aren’t going to be exactly, but you know what they said. The scenes around you, things like that. But I think for me there’s obviously a lot of writers will be considering what if Mum and Dad are angry? What if my ex-husband sues me? And these are really big questions, I suppose. With mine, and I wrote a little bit of a disclaimer in the front, but I had to be careful with what I put in mind, because it had to sort of link up with court records and police statements, and hospital statements, and various documentation that was out there that I could be really sure that I was safe with it. I had to speak to a lawyer and make sure that I was covered, and I also fell really very much into, and I think this is really important on when people learn to show, not tell and understand that we own everything that happened to us. It’s not their story. It’s our story, and we may see it differently to them, but that’s okay. I think that there is some protection and a difference in how you tell the story when you’re talking about how you felt about an experience, and how it occurred to you, and what happened, rather than telling people, this is what happened. I think there is some beauty in being able to  figure it out, and the readers can make up for themselves their mind, and what they think of a character or a person. So, I think it depends on the circumstances, definitely. I think there are also different ways that writers can still write a memoir, but they can disguise a character. With a few of my characters I refer to by a physical feature, or just an occupation. You can still write details about who they are and the essence of them without declaring who they are. Other characters in my book, I change the names off, just for privacy and other reasons, or for confidentiality. That was really helpful, because there are some complex stories in here, so… all the trigger warnings.

Creative Wisdom

MD: Tell me, if you were to be chatting with someone who is, wanting to find their way into creative work, whether it’s writing memoir, writing fiction. What wisdom would you want to share with them?

MS: That’s a good one. I guess I would probably say, sometimes, just to get started. I think that a lot of people are occupied with writing perfection, or painting perfection, or creating perfection and one of the greatest teachers that I actually had, she said a simple line to me: don’t be afraid to write crap, which I kind of laughed at the time, but I realised there was such wisdom in that, because in order to get something beautiful, which a quarter of a million words on the cutting floor later, I had to learn how to get to write the awful stuff, and to write it, and then to pare it down, and to cut away the dead wood.  Sometimes you’ve just got to write it, so sometimes you’ve just got to get started. The piece that you’re most proud of might be it might take a while to get there and it will probably be the next one, and the next one, and the next one, because you get better at your craft and your art. So just do, get started, do something. You can always get better.

MD: Such good advice, because we can talk about doing the thing for a very long time and not do anything with it, but getting started is and be prepared to write crap, I love that.

MS: I spoke to a journalist yesterday, and he said to me, I’ve been interested in writing a book for years, and I just don’t know where to start. And I said, well, probably the best place to start is just to sit down and write yourself 300 words. Doesn’t take long, you know. For him, who’s used to smashing out hundreds of words a day, go and write 500 words and then another day, write another 500 words. And even if you only get 200, or if you get 1,000, at the end of the year, you’ll have a lot of words on a page.

MD: I remember being in a class with Antoni Jach Yark, who is one of the people who started up the RMIT Professional Writing and Editing course. He said, what is the minimum amount of time that you can spend on your writing, in a day. I worked out that I could do half an hour could easily find half an hour in a day, and  he said, work out how much you can write in that time, and I worked out I could write 500 words. And you then go, oh, wow, that’s like 3,500 words a week. Minimum.

MS: And it all adds up, and then some days you might not have more than half an hour. Some days you might have an hour and a half. Some days my writing schedule was I was running out the door, or I’d have something in my head, and as I’m driving down the motorway, I would get out my notebook and just leave some thoughts that were in my head, and that was writing even if it was only 100 words on a page, so it all adds up in the scheme of things, so that’s really good advice, yeah.

MD: And it is that staying in touch with it as well. The more often you’re at it, the less fear you have, and all of that.

Creative Home

MD: Melissa, what feels like home for your creative work and your creative brain?

MS: That’s a good question. Do you mean like a setting, or just in the writing, or just anything?

MD: Anything. What feels like home?

MS: I feel there are definitely certain things. When I’m writing, I might put on music, that’s something that’s really… You know there’s just certain songs, or certain sounds, or certain ways that just really draw you into a really comfortable place, a creative place. I’m a big believer in music. I love having beautiful things around me, so I love having an office with a place that just feels comfortable to write in, I suppose. I’ve got a really stable, good family and good people around me. I really appreciate art and nature. Nature’s always been a beautiful part of feeling like home as well. I think having all that, those familiar things, those sources of things in your life that bring you alive really helps with creativity and helps with authentic-ness as well about what you’re writing.

MD: Yeah, I love it.

MS: I’m not sure if that answers your question, but…

MD: Well, it does, really, I mean as you’re saying that, I really got the feeling of that kind of safety of space as well, which is what home should feel like for us. It should feel safe.

MS: Sometimes it’s just little things, like when I’m writing, I love tea. It sounds strange, but it’s just got so many memories of home and warmth and safety for me, that when I’ll be writing, I’ll have a cup of tea or a little teapot beside me, and it’s just those little things, I think, that just let you exhale, and let the words come, I think that’s different for everybody, but that’s all part of the beauty of it.

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