A Flash Memoir: Ties

With the creative work on my client's project all wrapped up, I am moving towards using this blog in a new way. I must admit that my own longer memoir projects (The Bitter Carmelita; Outskirts of Love; The Good Twin) have taken a back seat lately; just can't get excited about stirring those pots that have simmered so long on the back burner.

Still, while rolling around an idea for something completely different, I revisited two of my favorite bloggers: Lisa Reiter at Sharing the Story and Charli Mills at Carrot Ranch. Both of them have some great flash fiction challenges this week, so to get my engines rolling, I am taking them on. I invite you to try your hand at one or both of them as well, and to join me as I delve more deeply into the genre I call "flash memoir."

The Memoir Writer as a Boring Drunk

I started this post sometime back and kept it as a draft, but even though the book I set out to write for my client is about to be submitted to a publisher, (more on this in my next post where I reveal his identity!) I love the point, so here it comes, late to the party.

A quote I came across by Annie Dillard has sat on my shoulder these last months, whispering admonitions into my ear as I veered from the comforting path of "editing" onto the fearsome trail of the re-write. It was a journey I had balked at undertaking.

Ms. Dillard says this about the memoir: "You have to take pains in a memoir not to hang on the reader's arm, like a drunk, and say 'and then I did this and it was so interesting.'"

Now, even though it was not my story I have told this time around, I took her advice to heart. I asked myself, in trying to glean from my client his entire story, was I including passages of no real import? Was I boring the reader?