For ages, the idea of crafting a memoir had lingered in my mind.
In fact, it was the first big project I embarked upon as I gained a bit of confidence in my writing journey, capturing numerous tales from my life. However, those initial attempts resulted in lackluster stories about my birthplace, my residence, and my school days. It took me a while to grasp that no one cared about these mundane details. Instead, people were intrigued by the trouble I got into with my headmistress, the eerie experience of walking alone in a dark alley, and the frantic moments when my younger brother went missing.
Yet, these were merely disparate anecdotes, and I didn’t know how to seamlessly weave them into a captivating narrative.
Memoirs are a beast of their own kind. You don’t know how to begin them and where to end them. You have to select a theme so that the stories you include complement it rather than take the readers on another trajectory. Remembering stories from your life is another challenge.
Then there are other questions:
Will I be offending my spouse/relative/friends by including a story that involves them?
Should I use their real names or hide their identity altogether?
Should I tell my dark secrets or just keep it a lovey-dovey non-confronting account?
And most importantly one needs a literary expression that makes even mundane writing a pleasure to read. Something that comes after years of practice and only if the Literary Gods are kind to you.
All these reasons discouraged me from venturing into memoir writing.
Then, something unexpected happened.
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