The Journey of Writing a Memoir (in a nutshell)
The first of a few blogs I've written on the book I am writing. A journey that is gaining more and more interest as time goes on. Here's what the book is about starting with my timeline.
2019
My bodywork therapist, healing coach and yoga teacher
planted the seed in me to write this book. At a time where I didn’t even realise I was on a journey or that I was doing anything differently to what anyone else would be doing in my frightful situation. I had no idea at this stage that what had happened to me was not only common, but that there were many millions of us suffering in agonising silence all around the world.2020
I dared myself to go big and go bold on a healing retreat and whacked “international best-seller” on a vision board we were creating. I’d wanted to go on a healing retreat since my teens, it took me until I turned 40 to gift myself one. It doesn’t escape me that I waited until AFTER burnout and chronic illness to do something that I’d always wanted to do. Something that I’d wanted to do for so long changed the landscape of my life. Though I am yet to manifest this international best seller, I have every belief that I will.
2021
Hay House writers workshop (online) over my 41st birthday and 3rd UK lockdown. The energy of thousands of us coming together over zoom was enough to make me feel held and alive during the most isolated and lonely times many of us had ever known. I came out of it armed with ideas, packed with insight and understanding on how to move forward in writing a book.
Later this year, I created a giant vision for my book. That night I did an ancestral meditation journey (also online) and when I asked:
“What was the reason I was born? Why am I here?” as guided,
The visual of a book with all its pages opened, flying about in the wind came into my mind’s eye.
This was also the year I connected with there being a greater reason, purpose and mission for all I’d been through, endured and come out of the other side of.
I got to writing, powered up, pumped up and ready to unravel the words of my story across many pages. I did a full first draft of a journal I am creating to accompany the book alongside it. I wrote an ending to my memoir, started the first few chapters and uncovered a big insight that I’d missed early on in my journey. Missing this insight saw me suffer severe and agonising pain for many years longer than I would have if I’d connected with it sooner. Though I instantly realised this missed insight would be to the benefit of other readers, this was very triggering to me and I couldn’t return to either book for a full year. The journal still remains in its first draft.
I did, however, manage to stick “I am a Hay House published author” on my vision board just before entering a period of depression and a dark night of the soul.
2022
No sooner had I put “I am a Hay House published author” on my vision board than I saw a Hay House Writers (in person) Workshop to be held in Edinburgh that September!!
I booked and attended. A magnificent event of the highest vibrational energy. The opportunity to submit a proposal.
The break in my writing the book opened space to launch blog and podcast platform, Warrior Within, here on
.On the back of a friend’s recommendation and not having any idea what I was signing up for, I joined the Write That Book challenge with Michael Heppell and a few thousand others. Later (once I did know what I was doing), I also joined the master class! The biggest boost to the book that I could have ever envisaged. The support I needed. The ideas and activities to build on what I’d already started.
2023
Finalised the full outline for the book that I started just before Christmas. 3 parts to the book, 24 chapters and 3 sections per chapter.
I spent months working on what I deemed to be a winning book proposal. 18,000 words! An enormous amount of work. Sent 5 minutes before the deadline of midnight on Sunday 26th March! A document far from polished, though I did my very BEST. Sent as much celebratory energy at this magnificent achievement as I possibly could. My best is good enough and I will never ask more of myself ever again.
Depleted on all levels post submission. 3-month health blip came to an end in May and the procrastination to write began! A lot of inner work in the form of card readings, coaching, a retreat day, joining writing groups and putting a timeline in place for getting the book written.
The rare and unique offering of feedback on my proposal eventually came:
“You’ve made it clear that there is strong market for this book.
Your story is really moving. The strength you’ve shown in overcoming so many hurdles in your life is truly admirable.
Your messages are important and will help others who are struggling.”
Great confirmation of what I already knew to be true.
By August I am back in business with writing the book in a new and improved way. No longer am I triggered when writing and a goal to have it written by the next Hay House Writers Workshop in London end of October.
I didn’t make this goal. I got to ¾ of the way through my first draft instead and CHOSE TO CELEBRATE how far I have come in the last year – which is magnificent. How far we have come IS the journey, not the destination or how far we have to go.
I have a title, a hook, an outline, I am clear on the style of the book I am writing (teaching memoir), the journey I want it to take you (the reader) on. Additionally, I have been able to process the enormity of my lived experience and piece together the bigger pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, ie what it’s really taken me to get from where I once was to where I am now. It has taken A LOT of work to get this far.
Today (23rd November 2023) in week 9 of The Artist’s Way with
we were invited to make a deal as part of “Blasting Through the Blocks”. As well as coming across the anger that I feel of what I’ve had to go through (haven’t acknowledged this before - something for me to sit with), I concluded the section with:“The deal is that (irrespective of whether or not I get a publishing deal, irrespective of whether or not my book becomes the international best-seller it is destined to be) I’m teaching others as I go and the teaching element is WHY I am doing what I’m doing”.
This makes me feel good and will be a great motivator for getting me across the finish line. What a way to end this year!
More on the deets
Migraine and Me is a deeply moving memoir showing what happens when you wake up to chronic ill health and take on the fight for your life.
Currently at book proposal stage. The next deadline for submission with Hay House is in April 2024.
Thanks to reaching out and asking for help (twice), I’ve been able to draft an incredible outline for the book. An outline that will take you, the reader, on a journey in and of itself. An outline where you can practice working with your intuition and learn to pick up on intuitive hits. Packed full of messages for you to tune into, even on those days where you may struggle to read beyond the outline.
The book is split into 3 parts:
1. The Wake-up Call
Detailing all that was calling for my attention before chronic illness took hold and was at a time where I remained undiagnosed. Includes a time of extreme stress, detailing several life events that led to burnout and mental health breakdown, all alongside rapid deterioration of my physical health.
2. Unleashing the Warrior Within
What it took for me to wake-up to the seriousness of illness. I was now finding out the illness I told doctors I was living with for 20 years was the worlds 2nd most disabling disease a person can live with. At a time where I had only recently been diagnosed, I found myself disabled with no mortgage insurance, no sick pay and no immediate family to help. This part of the book shows how I drowned out the noise around me, starting to tune in to what I knew to be true and took back the reigns of creation for my own life. I found myself on a healing path and transformed my dire health and circumstances, against all odds.
3. Finding Freedom
Amidst catastrophic life events, losing all aspects of my life as I knew it and venturing off into the unknown, I found my true self. In rebuilding my life from the ashes, I redesigned and recreated my life, my way, on my terms. An intentional, slow lived life that opened up space and courage to dare to dream. I live a life I love and thrive, not in spite of all I’ve been through, but because of it.
One of the biggest takeaways I walked away from the Hay House Writers Workshop with last month was that presently, I am seen as the exception to the rule. One of the lucky ones, as though there are a chosen few of us who break free from the hold of chronic pain and chronic suffering. But once migraine warriors read my story and receive the downloads and activations that my teachings will share, I envision that what has happened to me will no longer be the exception, it will become the norm.
Thank you for all your interest, support, encouragement and questions. Keep it coming in the comments section below.
Please also share this post with others you may feel will find my story, and the writing of it, of interest.
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Wow Amanda what an incredible journey. I am so blown away by your fortitude in overcoming what you have and showing up for yourself and others. Can't wait to read the book
“My best is good enough and I will never ask more of myself ever again.” This is so true! Love hearing your process in this way 💗