Thinking About Memoir by Abigail Thomas

Read: July 10-15, 2012

Read: in a few hours really didn't take days

Pages: 128

This was a quick read with a lot of really good insight and suggestions on how to get started writing a memoir. The book is very casual and informal. From what I can gather the author carries a diary around with her at all times and makes random notes and observations which later serve to jog her memory and help with her later writings. This book seems to be compiled with a lot of these little musings that start with one detail or memory and spiral off into something else. After each story there is a writing prompt encouraging the reader to actively engage with the book and start writing down their own memories.

While I only did one of the exercises I intend to look back through for more exercises that I might like to write with a given prompt. I really liked the format and thought this was a great starting point for someone considering the idea of writing their own memoir. The author makes the point that really by the end you should have a lot of fodder for your own potential memoir if you simply follow her prompts to write. Then once you go back through these writings if you start seeing a theme or that most of the memories appear to be around the same time then you have likely found your beginning for your memoir. The job then becomes more focus around that particular time.

I really liked the following quote from the book:

"If you are plagued by the question of who is going to find it interesting, please remember that most of us are curious about each other's lives. My rule of thumb is that if you find it interesting, chances are good that is is interesting."

I liked this because it only encourages you to write. There is no discouragement in this book which is great! The way I always thought about it was that it would be great for future generations in the family to read about the person in their memoir. So that was a good reason to write. But this quote made me realize that just maybe other people would be too. 

I'll leave this with one more quote from the book which I think captures the idea of memoir perfectly:

"Writing memoir is one way to explore how you became the person you are. It's the story of how you got here from there."