Expansion of the Memoir Universe

Where else could you find Audre Lorde rubbing elbows with John McCain?

Everywhere I turn memoirs are falling out of the sky. Not that this is exactly a new phenomenon. In 1998, in his book Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, William Zinsser observed that the last decade of the twentieth century--a decade graced by the publication of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, Pete Hamill's A Drinking Life, Mary Kerr's The Liar's Club and Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life--was "the age of the memoir."

If Zinsser could claim then that "Never have personal narratives gushed so profusely from American soil as in the closing decade of the twentieth century," how much greater is that geyser of narrative now, facilitated as it is by the word processor, desktop publishing, CreateSpace, etc., etc., etc.

Publication or Bust: On Contracts, Publicists, and Other Loose Ends

Setting out on the last stretch toward the land of milk and honey (i.e., the book in hand!)

What happened to October? They must have skipped it this year. At any rate, despite my galloping rate of jotting here once a moon, I got in nary a post the whole month.

So, what's the jig scribbler?

Naturally I assign blame to the nearest culprit, the BOOK. Though I shouldn't malign it so; it has been the source of my continuing enlightenment in the field of publishing.

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?

Writing a Novel Line by Line or Scene by Scene

A year and a half ago, I primed myself for my memoir project by reading a number of books on writing. Now, with the way opening up for my own writing project, I find myself reflecting on the process.

While having gained some useful insights from those books, in hindsight, I think I still approached the writing of my client's story the way I had approached other kinds of writing, such as the thesis for my Masters degree or the annual reports required in my position as a academic program director. I did my research, took copious notes, and then outlined the whole shebang, adding to it as I gathered more details and color-coding sections to align with characters or places or time periods.

Another Bite-Size Memoir

Mother With Sick Child by Vasily Perov 1878

While I think about the direction this blog will be heading, I continue to explore the circle of bloggers that Lisa Reiter has introduced me to. And, since Lisa puts a new Bite Size Memoir challenge up each week, I have again decided to use it as a taking off point for my own writing. This week's challenge is to write ten statements or a 99-word reflection on CHILDHOOD ILLNESS.

I have opted for the ten-statement format. Here we go.

Flash Fiction and Memoir

Over the last month I've had the pleasure of exploring a new blogging community through Lisa Reiter's Sharing the Story. You will recall that I've had some fun with Lisa's Bite Size Memoir Challenge. This week I blog hopped from Lisa's site over to a place called Carrot Ranch, run by a gifted writer named Charli Mills. I don't say "place" lightly here, and if you are hankering for a Western getaway, do visit the ranch.

Charli runs her own challenge, not with memoir but flash fiction. I love how she describes the essence and benefits of writing in this format. For Charli:

. . . flash fiction presents us with stories as flashy and minute as minnows in a stream. Each week I feel child-like in the wonderment of how stories can burst to life and be told in 99 words. Practicing weekly flash within a dynamic literary tribe certainly charges my batteries.