Are you writing a memoir?
Did any of Linda’s warnings hit home?
Do you have more questions?
There is a memoir in my future, but not yet. Have some other projects in the hopper that will take precedence. However, it was one of the best explanations I have ever seen about writing a memoir with a common thread that can create long term interest and impact for the reader. There was also a substantial amount of her content that applied equally to fiction writing.
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I began ages ago and have a pile of short stories/ scenes so it’s great that Linda has given me some idea as to what to do with them.
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I just finished watching Linda’s session and it was packed with insight and wisdom. I really enjoyed it.
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Funny, because I am in a similar situation. I have never set out to write a memoir. But I am in a writers’ group called “The Story Tellers” where we meet each month to read vignettes we have written about our lives. It is almost cathartic.
As a result, I have a whole collections of those stories. After her talk, thinking about looking for that common thread and purpose she talked about, and selecting a few of those vignettes that fit that thread. Creating with that as a starting point sounds like an interesting way to write a memoir.
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Me too @JohnHornbeck, I signed up to a class where I thought I could write family stories down, because I felt they are disappearing as the generations move on. My tutor was a stickler, and said u get the title is write YOUR life, right? Many of my class mates knew where they were going. Most started at year dot and moved forward chronologically. I wrote randomly and haphazardly. Whatever came to me. Then I had a bunch of stories I couldn’t figure out how to put together. So it was great to think in terms of crafting a story and looking for threads. The hard bit will be discarding🤣 It takes such a lot of effort to write, but at least I have a direction to make a start in now. Linda’s passion for her subject was inspiring.
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I wouldn’t fret that much about the discarding @Suo2328. Some of the stories you don’t use may turn into short stories or even as part of another book. Possibly a fictionalized version. In the book I have coming out shortly, I completely removed two chapters. The chapters were interesting but they did not fit into the primary story. They seemed out of place. And they were. So, I have plans to develop each of those “chapters” into the basis of two more books.
As Stephen King says in On Writing: “Kill your darlings , kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” But I would add – never ever bury them, because you don’t know how you might resurrect them in the future.
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