Memoirist writing about writing?

Sohia Rose

Will write for coffee
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 31, 2006
Messages
436
Reaction score
36
Location
United States
Just curious how many of you memoirists are writing a memoir about writing?

During the course of writing my memoir, I felt the need to keep a journal about the process of writing a memoir, the frustrations, the adventures, the feedback (okay, my angst too :D ). I tried to ignore putting my thoughts/feelings into a journal, but somehow writing about it makes me feel better (and it's cheaper than therapy!).

What about you?
 

johnrobison

A Free Range Aspergian
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 5, 2007
Messages
694
Reaction score
148
Location
Amherst, Massachusetts
Website
www.johnrobison.com
If you want to interest a publisher in your memoir, and you are not famous, you need to have done something the public - at least some portion of it - will want to read about it.

Examples might be walking the Appalachian trail, being the youngest person to get admitted to Harvard, or even the life of a doctor on an Indian Reservation.

If writing was a key to something else - such as leading you out of madness or extreme depression - there might be something there.

If you wrote a huge bestseller and came out of nowhere, people might want to read "how I did it."

Otherwise, I don't think writing about writing is a topic for a memoir. It's a topic for articles in a writing magazine or a how-to book about being a writer.
 

Anthony Ravenscroft

Scribble, scribble, scribble
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 21, 2006
Messages
609
Reaction score
58
Website
www.crossquarter.com
There is certainly room for metafiction, where the telling of the story becomes part of the story. Look at Hunter Thompson's "gonzo journalism" or the fiction of Barry Malzberg or films like Sherman's March or Gladiatorema or the final act of Walker.