Hi friends,
Thank you for responding to my story about the day I got divorced. I wrote it for myself because it is an important day for me. But your comments, messages, hearts, and emails made me feel like something in my story resonated with you too.
As my gift back to you, I’d like to start showing you parts of my manuscript.
This is something that I’ve been wanting to do since I launched this newsletter. And it feels like it’s time.
So, here we go:
Tomorrow, I will tell you what happened on the day after my divorce. This unreleased chapter will go out to paying subscribers on Substack.
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First, some context so you know what you’re reading when it drops into your inbox:
How My Book is Structured
My book is the story of how I built the international jet-setting life that I always wanted when my American dream of getting married, white picket fence, etc. collapsed.
The working title is: What Happened After: Dispatches of an International Jet-Setting Divorcée.
It’s a narrative nonfiction or literary nonfiction book, which is a true story that reads like a fictional novel. Meaning there are characters, dialogue, setting, emotional pull, etc. Like your favorite novel, but it’s true. Transforming my life from events that happened to a story is why it’s taking “so long” to write.
This is not a “manual” on how to rebuild your life after divorce; it’s a story.
The book is told in chronological order and begins while I’m living in Japan. My divorce and things that happened while living in the US are flashbacks within the story, not the central plot of the book (that’s one of my favorite things about how my book has evolved). Interspersed through the timeline and the main plot are “subplots” where I pull out and write in a different voice (second person present vs. first person past).
The purpose of these subplot chapters is to add commentary that doesn’t fit in with the main plot of the book. Things like cultural commentary and anecdotes of what it’s like to live and work in Japan as a white heterosexual woman from the US; dating rules I wished I followed; things I wish I’d said to boys on dating apps, etc.
Some include jokes. Others are comedic relief wrapped around some tragically humorous experiences. Together, these chapters provide a small reprieve from the really hard chapters (it’s a book about rebuilding one’s life after divorce, remember).
This structure was the suggestion of my editor, Ali, at Indigo Editing. I’ve been working with her to turn my book from shitty-first-draft writing into the book that you’re going to enjoy reading. (I’ll share more of this experience of what it’s been like to work with a developmental editor on this project if you’re interested!)
The subplot chapters are working really well to help tell the nuances of the experience of the story. And they’re fun to write.
The chapter that will drop tomorrow is one of those subplots. I hope it’ll whet your appetite for more. :)
Until next time,
Xo,
Laura
P.S. Award-winning memoirist Mary Karr said that “divorce writing may be the toughest thing a memoirist can do other than covering a war.” That makes me laugh out loud with tears in my eyes given that this is my first book and, well, apparently tough from the get-go.