Writing your story is only part of your task. You will also need to read memoirs. Reading a variety of memoirs will provide inspiration as well as provide a context for your project.

This week I read Mennonite in a Little Black Dress and found it one of the most delicious reads in a very long while. Rhoda Janzen uses wit, humor, compassion and love to tell the story of her life. She maintains a fine balance, telling the tough bits and poking gentle fun at her reactions to them. This balance is what makes the book such a readable delight.

It is a very challenging to tell of difficult life events without sounding maudlin or unduly sorry for yourself. Not everyone can see the humor in life’s disasters, much less write about these events with enough distance and compassion to make a stranger want to read them.

The purpose of your memoir will be unique to you.  Do you want to set your story in the context of a particular culture and time as Janzen does? Do you want to share the bare facts, to leave a record of your experience? Are you writing for publication (you may not know that yet) or are you writing first to understand?

I suspect that Janzen, a published poet, wrote many many pages before she arrived at the understanding of her life and the charming authorial ‘voice’ evident in her memoir.

I give this memoir: ✭✭✭✭1/2 Highly recommended

Legend:

✭✭✭✭✭ – Amazing

✭✭✭✭ – Highly recommended

✭✭✭ – Recommended

✭✭ – Reservations

✭ – Stinker, give it a pass

I’m in the process of creating relevant Memoir Creator content and feeling enormously energized by this. It is fun and exhilarating to work on posts, content, ideas and my dreams for this blog, all at the same time.

But busy, oh my MC is busy with this, even in the middle of the night when by rights MC should be getting her rest.

Reading memoirs is a delicious and inspiring past time. Perhaps you’ll find a style of writing and a writer’s voice that really appeals to you.

Keep a list of what inspires you and share your thoughts in the comments please. If you find something you really don’t care for, you might want to tell us about that too, but please do so in a thoughtful and considered way, not just telling us that so and so’s book sucks.

We play nice here!

So far my all time favourite memoirist is Annie Dillard, but as it has been a long while since I’ve read her books, I’ll have to dig them out, read them again before I can tell you which book(s) in particular appeal to me and why. Stay tuned…