Friday 18 February 2011

My motivation or lack thereof

I'm now devoting four hours a day to my memoir, which means I've had to rearrange my daily social schedule. No more loitering in front of the TV watching reruns of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, or  looking at endless Facebook photographs of some stranger who leads an infinitely more exciting life than I ever will, or trying in vain to complete a Times Cryptic Crossword on my own.

I've spent the best part of this afternoon re-reading the Holy Grail of Memoirs, which lists several major reasons why people are motivated to write a memoir:
  • To gain a deeper understanding of yourself and your life
  • To heal the past and create hope for the future
  • To create a legacy for your family
  • To expose injustice or abuse
  • To settle emotional scores -- from anger and revenge to acceptance and forgiveness
  • To present a point of view about a controversial issue
  • To share with the world your unique experiences with travel, education, illness and recovery, family, or a spiritual quest
I'm not going to say which of those reasons specifically apply to my memoir (that will only spoil the surprise), but I think there's probably a little bit of everything swirling through the memories in my head. Well, maybe not the settling of emotional scores. That's not for me. I'll leave that to the far-reaching powers of my voodoo dolls.

Back to work now!

6 comments:

Rachel said...

Good luck!~ I am most certainly looking forward to reading them.

mary anne said...

I love reading biographies,so go ahead and good luck to you.

Mary Schneider said...

Hi Rachel, Thanks for the good wishes.I've certainly got some work to do now.

Mary Schneider said...

Mary Anne, Thanks for showing your support. I'll be sure to let you know when I'm done.

august said...

Best of your luck. I'm sure your memoir will definitely be very interesting read judging by your weekly column which I look forward to every Monday!

Mary Schneider said...

Hi August, Thanks for being so encouraging. Much appreciated.