memoir

Minimal Monday

~ danalaquidara ~ Leave a comment

It is such a perfect time for renewal, for clearing out the old and making room for something new to be born, created, or discovered. Can you feel it? I sure can. Perhaps we are all being challenged to come out of our usual patterns, and listen to what is calling us forward, lifting our energy, healing our hearts.

I think it is the right time for my book to be released too, and so it is. It will be available tomorrow on Amazon and (so I am told), shortly thereafter on Barnes & Noble. I will be riding the wave of this creation, and this season, to the best of my ability.

Happy Spring!

Minimal Monday

~ danalaquidara ~ Leave a comment

I’ve spent a fair amount of time lately getting various things in order so that I can fully focus on my memoir revisions. There is something about having my home, calendar and to-do list in good order that frees up my mind to write.

Doing deep work requires we stay in the moment. I don’t know about you, but loose ends tend to pull me right out of the moment. I feel fully prepared for this week of diving right in and doing the work to the best of my ability.

Last week I shared a blurb written for my book https://danalaquidara.com/2023/02/13/minimal-monday-46/

And as promised, here is another one:

“Dana’s book is a moving story of alienation from the child’s point of view. It is heartbreaking to see her try to make sense of the trauma she was subjected to as a girl. Everyone who works with children of divorce should read this book so they understand why a child may not “admit” to wanting to see a beloved parent and how loyalty conflicts can last well into adulthood.”

–Ginger Gentile, Director of the Erasing Family Documentary and Creator of Reversing Parental Alienation Consulting

Happy Monday!

Minimal Monday

~ danalaquidara ~ Leave a comment

In another month or so, I will be getting my manuscript back from the publisher and will have a week to make the requested changes. During that week, I imagine myself hiding away in order to fully concentrate on the revisions. That act of complete focus on one project is a luxury and a gift in modern times. I somehow feel both intimidated by the task and elated at the thought of it. Do you know what I mean?

In the meantime, each week I will share one the blurbs I’ve received for my memoir, YOU-KNOW-WHO. Here’s the first one:

Family custody stories invariably focus on the dramas surrounding real-time battles over children, the tug-of-war syndrome. But what of the long-term effects? And how those effects shape those same children long into adulthood? In YOU-KNOW-WHO, Dana Laquidara chronicles a different kind of trauma, the time-released microbursts that continue to resonate not for years but for decades. The author’s mother was exiled from her life when she was just four years old (and the child’s life was “cleaved into before and after,” as Laquidara so searingly writes), long before academic and legal studies into Parental Alienation had gained traction. It has taken the author a lifetime to process, to understand, to heal. Her journey is one that she recounts with skill and compassion and boundless love.

–William J. McGee, author of HALF THE CHILD, a novel about child custody and abduction

Minimal Monday

~ danalaquidara ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been collecting blurbs for my upcoming memoir. In addition, one writer pulled out some lines from my book that he liked a lot. I am sharing these lines below.


• I’ve become the best-behaved little girl, but my hair is still unruly.

• She will tuck our mother back into the past, not worthy of any more effort, and I will do the same.

• Once Catholics, we had stopped going to church several years ago, jumped right off the moving sidewalk of sacraments before her Confirmation.

• I can feel her regret that is so vast it could swallow her; I think her grief might turn her to particles, to the dust in the desert she lives in.

• In this moment, the art is everything.

Happy Monday and Happy Creating!

Minimal Monday

~ danalaquidara ~ Leave a comment

It is just over three months away from the publication date of my upcoming book, You-Know-Who: An Alienated Daughter’s Memoir.

Here are just a few things that are happening in preparation for that:

* I have begun to ask for comments on my book to use for back cover blurbs, press releases and my webpage.

* Awaiting the digital galley of my book and will soon be rereading it to look for any edits the publisher or I may have missed.

* Planning my trip to Athens, Greece where I will speak at the International Conference on Shared Parenting, an event very relevant to the topic of my memoir.

I have worked on my memoir for so long that you’d think I’d be ready to have it out in the world by now. And I am, sort of. But there are moments when I feel like I need another year, another decade, a lifetime. There are some things we have to do before we feel ready, because feeling completely ready may never come.

Happy Monday!

Minimal Monday

~ danalaquidara ~ Leave a comment

I am having a bit of trouble with deciding how to end my book and I think I know why. Life is fluid, always changing, and I believe it is good to allow ourselves to change too. Limiting a story- and in the case of a memoir, half a lifetime – to the finite, physical containment of a book feels a bit confining. Today’s ending may not be tomorrow’s ending; there is always more to come.

I have never been a particularly nostalgic person and I think it is because I want to believe the best is yet to come. I want to feel like I am growing, changing for the better, and open to what is ahead. I don’t ever want to feel stuck or like I am clinging too tightly to what is or what was.

My memoir will have its ending like all books do. My story, on the other hand, will never be bound to the pages. The true ending will always be unwritten.

Happy Monday evening!

Minimal Monday

~ danalaquidara ~ Leave a comment

I wanted a book cover that depicted the main challenge in my story and I think this does. The child (me) has the fading memories of a mom (You-Know-Who) who seems to have disappeared. I’ve been reluctant to share my cover because it represents the realness of having my story published, and out into the world. Although I am immensely grateful for this, and have high hopes for it to serve the greater good, it is more out of my comfort zone that anything I have ever done before.

My intention is that my story will help shed light on the pathology of attachment-based parental alienation, and give voice to the alienated children and parents going through this today. My words are meant to inform and heal.

I asked a memoir coach recently, Does the cover look too spooky?

Her response: No. Your story IS spooky. What happened is spooky. Own it.

So here it is. I am sharing it here first, and owning it.

*If anyone is interested in being a beta reader, reading an early copy and sharing your feedback with me, please use the contact form to let me know! (or simply email danalaq@gmail.com). I could send it to you on November 21st and would need it back two weeks later, on December 5th.

Happy Monday!

Minimal Monday

~ danalaquidara ~ Leave a comment

I must admit, in light of Elon Musk’s recent shenanigans, I was happy to have the perfect excuse to ditch Twitter. It’s not as though I really needed an excuse, but until the quit-twitter bandwagon, I had been letting inertia keep me there. I was an inactive user (wait, is that an oximoron?) I had created the account long ago, back when I thought I had to do All the Things, and then I felt inadequate because I was too overwhelmed and inconsistent to actually partake in any meaningful way. I do appreciate that many people will miss the old Twitter; I am just not one of them.

I don’t want to do All the Things. I want to do a couple things well. I want to be happy with how my memoir is turning out, and once it’s published I want to do my part to get it in the right readers’ hands, those who will benefit from my story. I want to do this mindfully.

At a time when writers and other artists and entrepreneurs are being told to be heard, play big, and be seen, be everywhere, all I want to do is the opposite of that. More and more, I just want to be quiet. I want to keep writing and sharing my writing, but beyond that I want to be still. I crave to be in nature, and cook creative and healthy meals, and, borrowing from James Taylor, to shower the people I love with love.

It must be the act of writing memoir, the calling forth of my memories, regrets, and truth that is causing me to feel, I don’t know, reverent? Humble? I am at peace with the process but I require a lot of reflection, presence, and solitude to nurture this process and to allow the right words to come through me. And I am beginning to trust that this is enough for now, and that things are going to unfold as they should. I believe that my story will shed light, educate, and offer hope. I believe it so much that I don’t want to shout it. I want to whisper with my whole heart.

Or maybe I’m just lazy. But I don’t think so.

Perhaps it is partly due to the stage of writing that I am in, or my age, but I think it’s more than that, and I am curious to find out where this feeling takes me.

I know I am not the only one tired of all that steals our attention when we just need to be still. We are all finding our way to our balance, our sweet spot, the outer reflection of our inner worlds. It looks different for each person and it is never a linear path, is it?

Minimal Monday

~ danalaquidara ~ 2 Comments

One of my favorite and most challenging areas to simplify is my writing life. My memoir coach, the talented and magnificent Marion Roach Smith, has told me that every scene should move the story forward. (You can find Marion here: https://marionroach.com/)

The writing advice that we should kill our darlings, a phrase coined by William Faulkner, is ever-present in my mind these days. It means that writers “must ruthlessly eliminate any words, characters, side plots or turns of phrase that we personally love but that do nothing for the story.” Memoir should not be a recounting of everything we remember. It needs a theme, and the particular scenes that support that theme. Everything else needs to go.

Rather than calling it killing my darlings though, I prefer to say clearing out my writing clutter. It suits me better. And a major part of my revision process has been to do just that. Chapter by chapter, I am applying my love for decluttering, clarity and simplicity, so that every scene is poignant and nearly every word is necessary. Who would’ve thought my passion for decluttering and organizing would serve me so well in writing? I think Marion will be proud.

Minimal Monday

~ danalaquidara ~ Leave a comment

“At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.”

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

I love that quote and I believe in it with my whole heart. Any worthwhile commitment made with sincerity and certainty, even if we haven’t spoken it aloud, will reveal all manner of support. But it seems that something much less fortunate can also be true:

The moment you commit to something big or new or scary, your reptile brain tries to keep you safe by sabotaging you.

How can both of these things be true? Aren’t they contradictory?

When I finally knew with absolute certainty that I would launch my memoir into the world, I found a publisher. And when I agreed to a deadline, all sorts of other “needs” cropped up; I suddenly needed to help others, to travel, to throw a party, enter a race, and cook nightly gourmet meals.

The best explanation that I can come up with is this: Every day, and perhaps even every moment, we are choosing between our higher and lower selves. Just because our higher selves set a valuable goal and we have the means to achieve it, doesn’t mean our lower brains won’t try to lure us back to safety, familiarity, or laziness. And it really gets tricky when the so-called distractions are good, noble pursuits.

How do we know when we are engaging in “shiny new object” syndrome (SOS), and when we are simply adding more fun, meaning, or creativity to our lives? When is it self-sabotage and when is it just living?

I think that is something we all have to answer for ourselves. I’d love to ponder this more, but you’ll have to excuse me; I’ve got a party to throw.