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On-Demand Memoir: Publishing Online for 3 AM Googlers
Memoirs are popular. Everyone's got a story to tell. I stumbled onto the form soon after I started my web diary in 1999, when I was bored with rants about work and someone invited me to join her Memoir ring. I was hooked. A crazy quilt of childhood and coming-of-age stories began to fill my online pages.
I wrote for myself. I disguised names and places. I figured that my storytelling should be fascinating enough without anyone taking issue with my "facts." No one paid attention. Without much thought, I began revealing names and places.
An example. In 1971, I joined Green Valley School, an organization that combined a Sixties commune with a residential center for troubled kids. It was my Peace-Corps thing. I put in 18 months, married the headmaster and got the hell out. In 2004, I started writing about it online -- life through the eyes of an unworldly 22-year-old.
Surprise. People found me. "I was there!" Turns out Green Valley had been a crossroads for all the bizarre experiences anyone who lived through the Sixties could have. Maybe like making your home at Woodstock. Without the music. And with lots of disturbing adolescents who'd been ejected from their families.
My memoirs became something Googled at 3 AM by sleepless 50-year-olds, looking for their past. Looking for themselves in someone else's story. It wasn't me they were searching for but a place in their minds, a time in their lives. Do you know me? For five years now, every few months a former student or staff emails me with his or her own story to tell. Their memories are vivid after 40 years -- funny, tragic, mystical, angry -- it was one of those kind of places.
This makes me wonder about the purpose and format of memoirs. If I had published my little tales in a book, they would have been static, no doubt buried now in the out-of-print bin. Because they were part of my online stream of consciousness, they became relational -- part of a complex network of memories, linking together a set of people with very different experiences in a shared place. We're aging now. Some of us are dying young. Some are only now surfacing memories of the unspeakable. Some are reconciling with the ghosts of those dizzy days.
I'm wondering about the experience of others in trying to make their memoirs more of a process than a product.
I wrote for myself. I disguised names and places. I figured that my storytelling should be fascinating enough without anyone taking issue with my "facts." No one paid attention. Without much thought, I began revealing names and places.
An example. In 1971, I joined Green Valley School, an organization that combined a Sixties commune with a residential center for troubled kids. It was my Peace-Corps thing. I put in 18 months, married the headmaster and got the hell out. In 2004, I started writing about it online -- life through the eyes of an unworldly 22-year-old.
Surprise. People found me. "I was there!" Turns out Green Valley had been a crossroads for all the bizarre experiences anyone who lived through the Sixties could have. Maybe like making your home at Woodstock. Without the music. And with lots of disturbing adolescents who'd been ejected from their families.
My memoirs became something Googled at 3 AM by sleepless 50-year-olds, looking for their past. Looking for themselves in someone else's story. It wasn't me they were searching for but a place in their minds, a time in their lives. Do you know me? For five years now, every few months a former student or staff emails me with his or her own story to tell. Their memories are vivid after 40 years -- funny, tragic, mystical, angry -- it was one of those kind of places.
This makes me wonder about the purpose and format of memoirs. If I had published my little tales in a book, they would have been static, no doubt buried now in the out-of-print bin. Because they were part of my online stream of consciousness, they became relational -- part of a complex network of memories, linking together a set of people with very different experiences in a shared place. We're aging now. Some of us are dying young. Some are only now surfacing memories of the unspeakable. Some are reconciling with the ghosts of those dizzy days.
I'm wondering about the experience of others in trying to make their memoirs more of a process than a product.
Comment
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Comment by Michelle Cacho-Negrete on August 4, 2009 at 4:19am -
I always feel that memoir writing, if presented in a way that is not self-indulgent, can be help if presenting how universal difficult experiences and poor self-esteem can be. I'm often asked, at readings, if it's difficult for me to reveal as much about myself as I do. I find that once I have shared an experience the "sting" often vanishes as others relate to it.
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Comment by Susan Barrett Price on August 3, 2009 at 8:30am -
Heather, I like the thought that "someone out there needs us" when it comes to memoir. You can start feeling self-indulgent about spending too many hours documenting the pieces of yourself. But when I've been a part of someone else's search for the puzzle pieces -- that does feel like a service.
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Comment by Heather Summerhayes Cariou on August 3, 2009 at 7:54am -
Oh, and I meant to add, about looking for self in someone else's story, that's why Memoir is so important. I believe we heal each other and teach each other how to live through the sharing of our stories. A friend of mine, Jan Phillips (www.janphillips.com) says that someone out there needs us - so we should live our lives so they can find us. It's the same with memoir. Someone out there needs to hear your story.
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Comment by Heather Summerhayes Cariou on August 3, 2009 at 7:51am
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Memoir is always process. Memory itself is process, always mutable. Writing should never be thought of as a product, persay, though attention to craft is necessary, especially in a final draft if one decides to publish. I love what you said about readers "looking for themselves in someone's story." That's exactly why people read, I think! A great site with more about memoir is www.womensmemoirs.com
Heather
www.sixtyfiverosesthebook.com
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