How to Write a Memoir with Tembi Locke

The moment you decide to pen a memoir, is the moment you sign up for an exercise in emotional courage. Writing about personal topics like love and loss can be extremely difficult, especially for first-time authors. But from these deep, personal, and often painful places can come the most beautiful stories and the most impactful memoirs.

One such beautiful story comes from bestselling author and actress, Tembi Locke. Her brilliant memoir about love and loss, From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily and Finding Home, is a shining example of vulnerable and honest storytelling.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Tembi about From Scratch, soon after it debuted. In our conversation, Tembi and I talked about the reasons she decided to write this searing love story about life before and after her Italian husband’s death from cancer; her writing process as a new author; and why writing memoir is so powerful. Yes, we covered just about all of my favorite things about memoir writing in one brilliant conversation.

Tembi Locke Shares Her Journey to Writing From Scratch

When Writing ‘From Scratch,’ Who Were You Writing For?

Tembi Locke: Throughout the book, I was writing for different people.

For much of it, I was writing for myself. As writers, we often write for ourselves to see if we can do it and make sense of it all. For me, I always learn more about myself and my experiences in the writing and rewriting process.

At certain points in the book, I was very aware I was writing for people who had never had experiences like mine—maybe they’d never been to Sicily, never lived in a small town in the mountains, and never experienced such a deeply old-world, agrarian way of living. In those moments, I knew that I needed to bring that piece to them like they were right there with me.

In other chapters, I was writing for people who have experienced loss. I really tried to bring my experience to bear on the page, hoping that someone else would see themselves in my story. In this way, I used the specific (specific details about my life) to get to the universal (by connecting my life to things that are universal for all of us).

In other moments, I was writing a love letter for my daughter.

What was the Origin Story for Your Memoir?

TL: I’ve been writing on and off my whole life and journaling since I was a teen.

When my late husband fell ill, I became a caregiver and was working less as an actress. My loved ones pushed me to find another creative outlet, so I started taking writing classes and enjoying them.

The writings from these classes actually served as the backbone for the book. The idea for the book didn’t come fully formed all at once. Instead, it was a slow layering process of all these essays and journals from that time.

As a new author, the idea of a book-length narrative was overwhelming, but it helped to be able to put all those little pieces together.

The pivotal moment came for me in Sicily after my husband passed. I got in the habit of sending update emails to loved ones about my time there, and my sister insisted that my story should become a book.

I thought about the idea of a book-length narrative for a few years after that, until finally I was ready and felt that it would hurt more if I didn’t write the book.

As I was sitting in Sicily with my mother-in-law and daughter, I wondered “How the heck did we all get here?” The goal of the book was to answer that question.

When I actually started writing, the writing process was very ad hoc. I was a working, solo mom, so I wrote whenever and wherever I could. There was no real structure to my writing process, so I had to accept that it wasn’t the ideal process, but I had to do it anyway and trust that I could get it done, even if I didn’t totally know how. This helped give me the drive to get to a finished manuscript.

How Do You Write About Love and Loss and Other Hard Topics?

TL: When I write, I like to explore things on the page. I find writing to be part of the healing process.

So, I start by getting it all out on the page. I just write to get all the feelings out and then I work to make sense of it later. When I come back to next day, I can decide how to go deeper and peel back the extra layers.

Writing this book required me to revisit the most painful times of my life, sit in those feelings, write about it, and then share it. It was definitely hard, so I relied a lot on creating rituals around the process.

I used rituals to help me get into and then out of the traumatic spaces. This helped me stay present in my own life. Wherever I could, I saved the harder sections of writing for when I knew I had enough time to linger in it and have good support from friends to help me through.

Of course, I cried a lot and had many sleepless nights, but I also had many moments of joy.

How Do You Decide What to Share in Your Story and What to Keep for Yourself?

TL: Many personal memories are not in the book; I saved them just for myself. Even though I kept these things for myself, I wrote everything out on the page. Then, after I wrote about it, I would sit with it and evaluate where it belonged.

If I felt better after I wrote it, then I knew it was meant to be shared.

If I was still uncomfortable and writing it didn’t make me feel better, then I knew it wasn’t ready to be shared.

Regarding my daughter, who is written about in the book, I was careful to maintain her privacy. At the end of the day, it was a book about my life not hers, so I didn’t feel the need to share too many personal details from her life. I stuck to sharing the information about her that helped move the story forward.

From Scratch the Movie!

In October, 2022, Tembi’s memoir, From Scratch was released as an eight-episode limited series on Netflix, created by Tembi and her sister, the author, Attica Locke; produced by Reese Witherspoon, and featuring Zoe Saldana as Tembi. Tembi is also working on a Waiting to Exhale Series on ABC with her sister. Let me know in the comments below which you liked better, the book or the movie.