When anybody starts out with a memoir, you get the impulse to tell your own story with your own voice, and you get all that out in one fell swoop sometimes.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When you are writing a memoir, you have the advantage of knowing how it all ends. It's just taking your life apart and putting it together again.
A memoir takes some particular threads, some incidents, some experience from a person's life and gives an account of it.
By definition, memoir demands a certain degree of introspection and self-disclosure: In order to fully engage a reader, the narrator has to make herself known, has to allow her own self-awareness to inform the events she describes.
A memoir forces me to stop and remember carefully. It is an exercise in truth. In a memoir, I look at myself, my life, and the people I love the most in the mirror of the blank screen. In a memoir, feelings are more important than facts, and to write honestly, I have to confront my demons.
In memoir, you have to be particularly careful not to alienate the reader by making the material seem too lived-in. It mustn't have too much of the smell of yourself, otherwise the reader will be unable to make it her own.
A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.
The reason I like writing a memoir is because it isn't preachy.
I will say, with memoir, you must be honest. You must be truthful.
In a memoir, your main contract with the reader is to tell the truth, no matter how bizarre.
One of the most challenging aspects of writing a memoir is finding your own voice, and you should be very careful about being influenced by someone else's voice.