Memoir Writing

Yesterday I was reading in an old issue of Writer's Digest (from this summer I think) a column about memoir writing. The columnist had written a memoir of his adolescent years as part of his master's thesis and looked at it recently and found it just awful.

Likewise, my beneficial friend (BF) had been blogging recently from his journals. which he is using to write his own memoirs. As noted earlier, his life has been eventful and certainly worthy of publication. And he is definitely a talented enough writer to do the job.

Both of these have led me to consider the genre of the memoir, my life history, and my memoir, in particular.

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I wrote one once, you see, or what I saw then as something that would become one in the future. Then it was a journal but, because I just knew I was going to become a rich and famous author some day, it would become the foundation of my memoirs.

At least that was how it started. In junior high, I started a journal in a five-subject notebook that was scavenged from my classes. I don't even know what I wrote exactly except that what may have started as a record of day-to-day events morphed into a fantasy of life where I hiked the Appalachian Trail and built myself a loft bedroom in my parents' house and at some point ended up in to hospital and had sex with my boyfriend in a hospital bed (!!!)

I filled up three partial wire-bound notebooks before eventually hiding them away. In my outward life, I do recall that I had a major falling-out with my first real friend, used to get blinding migraine headaches, had what amounted to a nervous breakdown, and seriously considered committing suicide. I used to hide in closets, tried to see how tight I could pull a scarf around my neck and how long I could keep it there, and used to get so mad that I would see how small of a ball I could twist a coat hanger into. I obsessively read an awful novel called The Other by Tom Tryon and was particularly enamored with the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. She killed herself, you know.

Let's just say I was a really screwed up kid and leave it at that.

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But I don't have the journals any more. When I was a sophomore or junior in college, I was cleaning out my closet at home and came across the notebooks. I was so embarrassed by them, I hand shredded the pages and threw them out. Now I'm sorry for that. I wish I had them to read so I could get into the head of that screwed up kid again.

I had totally blocked out the scarf episodes and it wasn't until about 6 months before my older sister Jane passed away that she reminded me of that. I think there were probably other incidents that may have been scribbled there in those notebooks that I've found too painful to remember.

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I have always thought that memoirists (and sometimes bloggers--like this!) are narcissists par excellence. Me me me yada yada yada. Let me post more pictures of me me me. (Note there are no pictures of me--yet! I actually hate to have my picture taken but I'm going to as my BF if he will do the honors the next time he visits. He is very good at many things ;)

But I think that memoir for me is more about self discovery. (And that is the cool thing about blogging as well. I can write it here. If anyone else chooses to read it, they can. Otherwise, it's for me.)

I have read others say the same about writing poetry; they write poetry first and foremost for themselves. I write prose, creative nonfiction (essay), for myself.

Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way recommends morning pages. These are three handwritten pages of whatever comes to mind every morning.

I have been doing morning pages for at least 5 years now, possibly more. I have missed days and sometimes even weeks and there was a time where I did stop but I came back to it. There are some days when I do not get to finish all three pages but thankfully those are in the minority as well. Morning is not always the clearest time for me to think and there are days when I will write my morning pages in the afternoon and those will be much more philosophical or at least coherent. But often they will be about the stories I am working on so if I ever do become famous and some future biographer gets to comb through the pages, they will certainly have something to read...

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Is it possible that an average life with little excitement can become a good memoir?

I was not mistreated as a child. My parents were not rich and famous. I did not do anything infamous or spectacular during my lifetime (so far.) Short of doing the James Frey thing and making up half my life (did that in my adolescent journals!), I would have only my own voice and outlook and understanding.

But is that enough to work with?

Pinky wonders...