Writing Memoir—It’s a “We” Program

By Elizabeth Jannuzzi

The other day I was trying to be a good student—something I never was when I was in school—and I was completing my homework for a writing course. At the start of this year, I enrolled in a five-month program to learn how to seek representation for my debut memoir about my recovery from alcoholism. I was working on the summary of the book for the query letter when I plummeted deep into a pit of self-doubt.

“Why am I doing this?” I asked myself with my head in my hands. “No one wants to read my memoir. I’m wasting everyone’s time. What do I have to show for these years I’ve spent writing? What is the point of any of it?”

What made my self-doubt feel worse was that I’m currently leading a group of writers in a yearlong book writing program, book inc’s Memoir Incubator, the same one I completed in 2022 to write my memoir. I’m there as their guide and champion, cheering them on with the belief that if I can do it, so can they! 

But at that moment, as tears of self-doubt filled my eyes, I didn’t feel like I could do any of this. Not find an agent, not lead other memoirists, and not even write this damn query letter. The imposter syndrome was real and intense.

But that moment passed, as moments do. And I realized something: it’s because I have these occasional plummets into self-doubt that I am uniquely qualified to shepherd writers along this journey, help them overcome their doubts, and keep writing. 

“Uniquely qualified” – where had I heard that phrase before? Oh yes, I know, from my sponsor and in the rooms of recovery.

I’ve been an active member of a 12-step recovery program for 13 years now. One of the first things I learned when I got sober was that my experience––my particular brand of alcoholism––is one of my greatest assets, because I can use it to help someone else who is struggling with the same issues I struggled with. I share my experience, strength, and hope with a newcomer. That newcomer learns that they are not alone. And if I can stay sober with the problems I faced, so can they. I, in turn, stay sober because my life now has a meaning and a purpose: to help another sick and suffering alcoholic. It’s a symbiotic relationship. I help you, you help me, and together we stay sober.

The genesis of this recovery program began in 1935 in Akron, Ohio, not when Bill W, one of its founders, stopped drinking, but when Bill W. met Dr. Bob. Previously, Dr. Bob was unable to stay sober. But after connecting with and learning from a fellow alcoholic, he never drank again. The program’s communal aspect is emphasized in its first step: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.” It’s a “we” program.

The Memoir Incubator I’m leading is a “we” program as well. Technically, you can write a book on your own. Many people have done it. I couldn’t, though. I needed the support, community, and accountability of a writing group to overcome recurring moments of self-doubt and resistance. And now, I can pass on what I learned in that program to other writers. I understand the obstacles they are facing because I face them too. I can share with them my experience, strength, and hope as a writer.   

In my recovery program, when someone experiences a momentary lapse in their program, we say, “Ok, that happened. Now pick your butt off the floor and put it back in the seat.”

That’s what I did after my moment of despair when writing my query letter. I let myself feel my doubts, shared them with my fellow writers to get them out of my head, and then sat back down in my seat and got back to writing. Now when a writer comes to me in distress asking, “Why am I doing this? No one wants to read this!” I can say I know how you feel, and here’s what I do to keep writing.

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Elizabeth Jannuzzi is a writer and a program manager at book inc, a writing collective dedicated to helping writers draft, revise, and publish memoirs and novels. Her essays have been featured in The Rumpus, Counter Clock, Off Topic Publishing, and HerStry. In 2018, she received an honorable mention in Memoir Magazine’s Recovery Contest. For links to her weekly Substack on writing and recovery and her other publications, please visit her book inc Writer page.