If you’re creating a book in later years, you could be considering a legacy project. The value of these creations lies in the eye of the beholder. However, it’s helpful to remember those books you write, especially about memory-laden stories, are beheld by people decades from now. A memoir is there to help the author sort out what happened. Nothing else is guaranteed to be achieved. Your legacy writing should aim for more, though. You want to bring the idea of largesse to your legacy.
I like the idea of largesse. It’s a gift, the payoff that is often measured in money but can be other things of lasting value. When your legacy turns into something that can help others, it goes way beyond your life. Your legacy writing could entertain while it shows how bravery changed things in your family, or how the lack of courage held back the joy that wraps around taking a risk. “Mistakes Were Made” was the made-up title of the memoir written by Enid in the novel The Corrections. She did that legacy writing as therapy. It would’ve been a better title if it would say “Mistakes I Made.” It starts to get useful if we can see how to move through our personal mistakes, so we get closer to the empathy we need to love more people. Especially any people who are different from us.
For example, you may not have suicide in your family history, but knowing about the depth of that loss could help you extend some hard forgiveness. The story of becoming the parent, or a child, of an addict is bound to disturb the family if it gets shared. Recovery memoirs are the number one version of that genre, and making them unique and yet resonant is the challenge we face. Even a novel, like a historical one about your great grandparents, can be a minefield to cross. How dare you think of our ancestor that way? Well, go ahead and dare. If the writing is honest and compassionate, if the story becomes much different than getting even about old wrongs, you’re creating largesse.
Thinking of a book as a legacy makes it seem more useful. At the same time, a legacy project might not have commercial zing. Agent, publisher, podcast interviews. We seem to want all of that just to believe a book is real. Perhaps that’s you, looking directly at a professional writing contract. However. Consider the fact that a legacy lifespan is not built upon market luck, but instead upon your drive. The wanting of a book is what brings it into being. Making it take up emotional space? That’s the work of revision. A seminar from memoirist Marion Winik taught me one way to think about revision. Winik said it’s about seeing again, seeing afresh. The deeper insight gives us deeper empathy for the players in your story. The depth attracts readers. It lures their hearts.
Largesse is the best outcome for a legacy book. Largesse shows up on the page when you invest in the feelings and refine them so they pay off in meaning. We’re always working toward making meaning while we create anything. If your family and friends learn more about the meaning of a part of a life, that’s really priceless.
