Who am I?

I am a writing and publishing guru. What I dont know about the market just isn't worth knowing. So what if I'm unpublished? I choose to give other writers the gift of my wisdom and experience* that the other 500,000 writing blogs out there fail to give.
* No actual experience

Monday, July 25, 2011

Memoir

I was browsing through a catalogue of writing courses, when one jumped out at me and hit my funny bone (rather than my pain centres): Write Your Memoir in Paris. Holy cow! Even if I was a part of the target audience for this course (now, don’t tell me you have no image of the sort of person who would fly to Paris – from Australia, not London – with a bunch of strangers and a teacher just to write a memoir) I just think it would be too ridiculous to consider.

Come on, surely the course’s main attraction is the bragging rights it would confer on all who attended. If I was going to write my memoir, I think I’d visit locations that might – yanno – trigger some memories!

Besides, I’m under no illusions that my memoir would have any appeal outside my family, old friends and ex-boyfriends – and most of them would only read it to see if I’d written anything actionable! (Actually, hub might read it to discover if there was anything I’d kept from him).

I'm sure that I’d get bored with it in ten seconds flat and suddenly find myself writing about all sorts of adventures that stray from the truth. Just a little. That’s why I write (and mainly read) fiction.

Let’s face it though, if I was going to Paris for a week or so, I reckon I’d deserve to be hit around the head for not going out and enjoying the sights and sounds. Why sit with my head down, detailing the time my teddy bear had to get shaved because someone smeared chewing gum through its fur, when there are sights to see and patisseries to fail to resist?

This would be one of the few times anybody would be justified in yelling: “Go and procrastinate! Now! Traipse around the cobbled laneways then have a three hour lunch!”

Ahhhh...

6 comments:

  1. I want to take that class!

    No, really, I just want to go to Paris and eat pain au chocolat every morning.

    ReplyDelete
  2. suddenly find myself writing about all sorts of adventures that stray from the truth. Just a little

    But, but, but ... I thought the trend in memoirs was to fictionalize them.

    Frankly, I would just like to have lived the life where I could afford to jet over to Paris to indulge in a memoir-writing course for a week and then hang about and sight-see along the Seine.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @ Karen
    Yeah, me too! And have 5 different sorts of brie for lunch and half the contents of a choclaterie for a snack, and then for dinner...

    ReplyDelete
  4. @ Phoenix
    I'm obviously out of date as far as memoirs are concerned - I always thought they were a cross between a confessional and a brag. But I guess there might be a few out there that exaggerate the contributions the writer made to humankind. Like those written by politicians, p'haps.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love your blog! Love the name, it's hilarious! This post was awesome.

    I'm definitely thinking about writing a 'memoir' in Paris. If that's what it'd take to get to the main attraction! If it was that simple to ask my husband and voila I'd be there it'd already be done.

    Then I'd claim writers block!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for that, Jen. Sounds like you've got a plan there!

    ReplyDelete