Introspections
ONCE AGAIN, THE OTHER DAY—IT DOESN’T MATTER WHICH OTHER DAY—I WAS SEIZED BY THE IRREPRESSIBLE DESIRE TO WRITE A MEMOIR. AFTER ALL, EVEN KIDS ARE DOING IT DESPITE THEIR HAVING SO LITTLE LIFE TO REMEMBER. SO, I MOUSED MY WAY OVER TO THE FAVORITE WEBSITE FOR NARCISSISTS OF ALL AGES, I-ME-MY-MINE.COM, TO FIND THE BEST RECIPE FOR PENNING A MEMOIR. IT SEEMS TO INCLUDE SOME PARSLEY, SAGE, ROSEMARY, AND THYMELY ADVICE, AND HERE’S WHAT I FOUND:
If you want to write your memoir, then follow these easy steps. Despite what you think you learned from Saint Augustine, don’t call it your confessions. Nobody cares, because everyone is confessing and being forgiven for being the criminal victim of a victimless crime (whatever that means). Despite the success of Malcolm X, don’t call your work an autobiography. That is strictly college-entrance essay material, and you’re not writing for the admissions office, but instead for a mass market if you can get it. 118 | A P R IL 2019
Despite the sales of Karl Ove Knausgård’s voluminous My Struggle, you probably won’t be that interesting for six volumes. Besides, you don’t want to be confused with Adolf Hitler, whose memoir bears the same title. Why didn’t someone tell Knausgård? Whatever you do, keep from calling your outpouring a diary. First, you’re no Samuel Pepys, and second, you’ll sound too much like a teenage girl. Consequently, only your parents and your nosy siblings will be interested in the book. Don’t write a travelogue because you’re neither Rebecca West nor are you John Steinbeck. Don’t use “Remembrance” in your title because you’re no Proust. Keep from calling your volumes Childhood and Youth because God knows you’re no Tolstoy. I was losing patience. The site was telling me what not to do, but when would I learn the how-to? Finally, at the bottom of the page, came the recipe. Before you give your work a title, write it. Be sure to include as many of the following elements as you can squeeze in. Keep in mind that you do not have to be original. You might find that your experiences duplicate those of more famous memoirists who are no longer read, so go for it. To paraphrase a wise man: “A hack borrows. An artist steals.”
