Writing a memoir is recalling something that brings delight to readers.
As a form of nonfiction, the memoir is writing about past events in a certain point significant to the author.
Compared to the autobiography that is the chronological life of the writer himself, and the biography that is writing another person's life; the memoir remembers something special, like how you baked cookies, burned it, and still everybody ate.
The writer remembers something so beautiful in a memoir, how it happened, and when it happened - although sometimes, the pain that goes with it can be harrowing.
"It is also a work of history, catching a distinctive moment in the life of both a person and society grounded in a particular time and place," Zinsser explains.
Examples of Memoirs
No Longer at Ease Chinua Achebe Out of Africa Isak Denisen Report to GrecoNikos Kazantzkis Out of Place Edward Said One Writer's Beginnings Eudora Welty To write a memoir, keep a notebook, some sketches, clippings, and journals, among others.
Reading a memoir, you can feel you're in that time and place.
That's the point of the memoir: to be in that time and place.
Maybe it sucks, as reading it can be so gripping and writing it can be so harrowing.
I read Danton Remoto's "Landscapes of Feelings.
" The memoir clearly writes about his experience during his grandmother's burial, and those remnants of memory while he was with his cousins and other relatives.
A line says that " a cry came.
" And that his aunt's sobs felt very sad, "...
knowing she was weeping not only for my grandmother but for all of us, the living, the dying and the dead.
" This came into me so much.
Let me share this one: During the wake of my mother, when everyone tried to hold his tears.
I didn't know from which part of the world we came.
Some relatives, friends, and I joined a group praying in one corner of the cemetery.
They gave us flowers.
My sister was about to ask, why were they in the front seats, when we were the immediate family of the dead.
"Who are these people? Are they part of the memorial services?" Suddenly, someone told us the name of the dead person.
There will be a blessing.
We made our exits slowly; we got into a wrong wake.
Each one of us, holding a laughter.
We walked again and went to another cemetery corner with other relatives and friends.
My daughter was ready to check for the food distribution, when she found out that it was another dead person.
"It is not grandma," she was hiding her laughter ready to burst.
Finally, my brother guided us following the other cars.
"There, finally that is mother's burying place.
" All of us - my siblings, my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandchildren and our close friends laughed out loud.
In place of all the wail and tears we were holding, mother wanted us to be happy.
We were all laughing while mounds of earth start to cover the white coffin.
White orchids came falling, and knowing that mother was in this comedy truce with God's angels, we were all bursting with laughter.
Mother had graduated from cancer.
The angels were there.
God sees us all, the living and the dead.
Rose flores martinez 7.
20.
2010