This is a review of a book I recently found, The Memoir Project by Marion Roach Smith. I have been looking for ideas and inspiration to help get me back in my posting groove. I found this book at the library, and thought I was checking out a book that might give me some ideas to use for posts, but what I found was much more useful. Marion Roach Smith has in my opinion written a very helpful how-to book. Writing a memoir is just the example she uses, but as she also points out her storytelling technique can be used for really any form of writing. I am intrigued. The following are a few excerpts and ideas that I have picked up so far.
The quotes shared really struck a note with me. Flannery O’Connor said that anyone who survives childhood has enough material to write for the rest of her life. You need to learn how to dig among your stuff to get what you need. I have been more of a raker than a digger. Reading this book makes digging sound a whole lot more interesting. William Maxwell, the fiction editor of the New Yorker for 40+ years, believed that to write, all you need is to remember the slam of your childhood home’s screen door. Write about what you know. It’s like Dorothy’s ruby-red shoes, you’ve had it on you all the time. It’s what you’re doing with those details that’s the problem. A memoir should not be a volume of facts about your life, you don’t need to share the color of the paint on the door that slams and whether or not it is a glass or screen door. Share the memory the slam triggers, not a description of the door.
Another point shared is what Ernest Hemingway taught us in the last century: what you leave out of the story is perhaps more important than what you put in. It does me no good to know someone’s height, weight and eye color if those details do not drive the story forward. Again, writing a memoir does not require studious and accurate facts.
To write with intent, the author adds that you must also, “Be hospitable.” You must create an atmosphere you can sit down and write in regularly. Prepare a clean writing area and use it, regularly. This is not the place for your past due taxes, bills or other distracting things that weigh on you. This is a place that is well lit, maybe with that cute little lamp you bought on Ebay. It is also, as stated before, to be clean. I have read this from several other tipsters as well, Darren Rowse from ProBlogger for one. Then, at a designated regular time each day, report for work. Create an environment that helps you write, not distracts you from it.
This is my new assignment. I have my lovely new sewing desk, but apparently this has not been the place for me to sit down to write. But I do have a nice nook beside it that if I clean it up and keep it clean I could use. I think I will be doing that shortly.
Marion Roach Smith also suggests a tip from her husband that I really like: buy a small pack of inexpensive spiral pocket notebooks. Start taking in your landscape, wherever you are, make a note of ideas while they are fresh in your mind. Turn the notebook sideways to jot down ideas about the why and where. Turn it vertically to report the who, what, when and where of a topic. These simple triggers help you connect with those screen door slams and childhood survival skills, they become your triggers to connect with the idea and bring it back to life in an article, blog post, etc. We have all had memory triggers hit us with various things: scents and smells, taste and touch. Maybe the way someone holds their head when they are speaking to us. Using the notebooks in the way described can trigger us when writing out the ideas as well.
Writing a memoir is about telling the truth. Whose truth? We won’t remember most things that happened to us the way our sister or our aunt will. Powerful phrases to use are: “Here’s how I see it,” or “Here’s how I felt,” or “Here’s how it happened to me.” Make no claim that yours is the only version of the truth. It is just your version. Roach Smith uses examples of Emily Dickinson’s poetry to explain her definition of writing your truth. Basically, tell your memoir from your point of view, not trying to claim that yours in the only view there is.
I would highly recommend this book. It has a way of jogging things loose and giving you ideas beyond what you would expect. I’ll let you know if I learn anything else.
On an unrelated side note, today is one of several binary calendar days we are having this year: 10/01/11. Since I am dating Binary Man, I thought I would mention it. 
Thanks, Angela
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