Writing my Memoir “Donna Do – Meeting Myself Coming Back”

When I was a child, my nickname was Donna Do.

I may have taken that name literally as it describes me to a tee. Mum, who was a busy mother of six daughters used to say to me when she’d witnessed me running around chasing dreams, “You’ll meet yourself coming back!” I have settled on these two phrases as the working title. A memoir is not a whole life story but more a slice of a life wherein the protagonist learns a universal lesson after going through something. The story is personal, but the big picture is something others can relate to and have take-aways. Having lived a big and busy life I am spoilt for choice.

I decided the best way for me to begin putting down my memories was to name the chapters for the forty houses I have called home. That’s an average of one and a half years each. My memories are associated with where I lived. Along with the houses, I have had (some might say, too) many romantic relationships including three husbands. I have a three-page resume of jobs and ran several sole trader businesses including a milk run when I was nineteen. I was the first solo female to own a milk run out of Peter’s Milk Depot on Condamine Street, Manly Vale.

I’ve twice been a stepmother. After an ectopic pregnancy resulted in the loss of one fallopian tube and a further ectopic pregnancy was removed from the other, I undertook IVF for five cycles before giving up. I fell pregnant naturally after being told by a tarot card reader I would and had my two biological babies. Seventeen months apart. “Close enough to be twins,” she had said.

I made two fraught road trips around Australia, twenty years apart. I got lost walking in the desert on the first of those. But was found. I sailed to Lord Howe Island and back on a friend’s forty-three-foot yacht. I’ve built several houses, my major work being a mud house on the headwaters of the Clarence River which took twenty years.

My third husband was supposed to stay with me forever. Sadly, I was to become his carer and then his widow when he died from a terminal brain tumour eight and a half years after we met. My father died unexpectedly five days before my husband and we had a combined funeral for them. They loved each other and it comforted me to think of them wandering into the hereafter together. Within a couple of years, I was diagnosed with Oropharyngeal cancer. Surviving a life-threatening illness makes you live for the present. Especially after losing your husband. I try to live for him too. As a life affirming gift to self, in the space of one year, I went Bollywood dancing in India, walked a section of the Larapinta Trail in Central Australia for charity, flew to Cornwall England to attend a five-day expressionist painting class with an artist I met in India, and sailed on a tall ship from Ushuaia to Antarctica and back, just as Covid shut the world down. I came home on the second last Quantas flight out of Santiago de Chili before they stopped flying and Australia’s borders closed.

I, like Dad, have the gift of the gab and a love of words. I’ve been encouraged to write, which I greatly appreciate. My conscious goal to become a writer started when my two kids were small. My sister-in-law interviewed her neighbour in rural Dongdingalong, chronicling his life. I was struck by this concept. I wanted to help people tell their stories. I figured I would learn how to write my own story first so I’d know how to support others to write theirs. That was nearly thirty years ago.
I found my way to Southern Cross University and nine years later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Writing. I’ve written a lot, published a little, attended writing workshops, and taught memoir briefly. I write from the personal and believe if I cobbled together all the written pieces I have in the archives I’d have the makings of a book.

But for my memoir I feel to write fresh. To sit each day and put words on the page. To take the time to view my life and choices honestly and soberly. The females on Mum’s side sadly died with dementia. I hope I don’t have that gene. I covet Dad and his family’s lucid-‘til-the-end gene. Either way, I’m recording my memories while I can still put pen to them.

Only by writing down my memories will I find the story I most want to tell. What has driven me? What have I had to learn over and over and why? Can I forgive myself and accept my foibles? At sixty-five, I am single by choice for the first time and retired a few years early. I’m financially secure. I am reasonably fit. I live between my mud house at Paddy’s Flat, my sister’s house in Alstonville, my friend’s garden flat in Uralba, and my self-contained Toyota Hiace. In the past year I have crewed a couple of times for a family friend on his forty-metre yacht. And I am spending more time in Melbourne to be closer to my two adult children with whom I am hope to make new memories.

Having stepped back into my own life in early 2023 after a two-and-a-half-year relationship ended, I yearn to have a purpose. For a while there my once large circle seemed to become small. All things collided to allow space. I gathered up the bags of letters, archives of emails, fifty photo albums, greeting cards, journals, diaries and exercise books full of random writing that I have dragged with me from one house to the next. I spent regular time reading at my mud house, listening to writing podcasts, walking, meditating, laughing, crying and writing. The mud house has been a huge theme for me and was a fitting retreat to base myself to get the started.

Introducing my memoir which will be available at some time in the future. You’ll hear me jumping for joy from here. Some of my future blogs will speak to the process I experience in pursuit of a completed first draft. At this stage I have a ridiculous 113k words, many of which I will use and many that will be saved for future memoirs. I hope to write two or three. But I’ll be happy with one at this stage. I joined the Book Doula program which has been a fantastic support and motivation. If you need someone to guide you through birthing your book, you can’t go past Vanessa Barrington.

Please Note All Would Be Memoir Writers.

I am stepping into my big girl pants right here as I launch my website. I have been working towards this for a lifetime. If not now, then when. I am passionate about the craft of writing. And about life story. Of everyday people. My sister said, “You need some writing friends.”

I am interested in forming a memoir writing community through my website.

• I want meet with others who are writing memoir. Share work and discuss amongst ourselves. Set a time each week to write online using the pomadora method, bursts of writing timed, then a break, and do that a few times. I get so much writing done in these sessions.
• I have a Beginner’s Memoir Writing Course I’d like to run. I did this for two terms at ACE and it was a joy.
• I would like to run a Writer’s Circle. I have a book that would be a great guide. An oldie but a goody. I was extremely relieved to find it in my storage shed recently.
• And for those who live in the Northern Rivers NSW an in-person writing group. Location to be confirmed once interest is received.

If you are interested in any of these possibilities please write to me at donna@donnabyer.com, Dx