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racheladventure's review against another edition
4.0
Writing About Your Life by William Zinsser is a sort of metacognitive how-to book. The majority of the text consists of his own autobiography sprinkled with bits and pieces of invaluable advice to writers. He does more showing instead of telling. In general, I liked his approach and found it to be a quick read. There are some gems of advice I will quote later in this review, but I have to admit, I wish there was more dissection of his own writing going on. I would have liked to see some “non” examples in addition to his writing exemplars. What did other drafts look like? I valued the moment when he shared a sample of his writing that was culturally insensitive and juxtaposed it to a more redeeming piece he wrote later on once he realized that it was not okay to use “the literary convention to treat indigenous people as comic props” (71). That is the kind of thing I would have liked to see more of. I would have loved some more think aloud stuff going on to try and piece together what he is doing.
Here is a collection of some of the most notable quotes I found in the book:
• “I didn’t set out to write about any of those themes…those other themes came tugging at my sleeve. And of course they belonged in my story” (5).
• “Writing about one’s life is a powerful human need” (6).
• “Beware of deciding in advance how your memoir or your family history will be organized and what it will say. Don’t visualize the finished product at the end of your journey; it will look different when you get there…trust the process, and the product will take care of itself…think small” (6).
• “Remember this when you write about your own life. Don’t rummage around in your past for “important events…write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory…think small and you’ll wind up finding the big themes in your family saga” (7).
• “There are many good reasons for writing that have nothing to do with getting published” (7).
• “There’s a gap between wanting to write about your life and actually sitting down and doing it” (7).
• “To write well about your life you only have to be true to yourself” (8).
• “Happy is bad news for writers. The only ones who can make a go of it are songwriters” (11).
• “Be content to tell your small portion of a larger story. Too short is always better than too long” (16).
• “Specific detail is the foundation of nonfiction writing, and nowhere is it more important than in a memoir” (18).
• “In a lifetime of travels no city has called me back as often as Rome” (21).
• “The craft I wanted to learn would not be mastered without hard and steady application” (21).
• “The point is people. Look for human connection as you make your journey. Connect us to the people who connected with you” (23).
• “My memoir has unity of point of view. It’s told from the perspective of the boy I was at Deerfield, not the grown-up I was when I wrote it” (25).
• “Get your unities straight before your start. Choose one time frame—one version of your remembered truth—and stay with it” (26).
• “One of the pleasures of writing a memoir is to repay the debts of childhood” (27).
• “The problem is that an interesting life doesn’t make an interesting memoir. Only small pieces of a life make an interesting memoir” (29).
• “Is there a story I can tell her?...Tell stories whenever you can. People love to be told stories” (30).
• “One reason I enjoyed using that story is that I’ve never seen it written or heard it told by anyone else” (32).
• “One of my most-reprinted articles…pleaded for the right to fail…especially its young people…Often the only way for boys and girls to find their proper road is to take a hundred side trips, poking out in different directions, faltering, pulling back and starting again…’Don’t be afraid to fail.’ Failure isn’t the end of the world. Countless people have had a bout of failure and come out stronger as a result. Many have even come out famous” (40).
• “Your biggest stories will often have less to do with their subject than with their significance: not what you did in a certain situation, but how that situation affected you” (41).
• “Given a choice between two projects—the one you feel you ought to write and one that sounds like fun—go for the one you’ll enjoy working on. It will show in your writing” (48).
• “Travel writing: the writer is a patsy, a rube, someone a little out of his depth. This gives the reader the enormous pleasure of feeling superior” (50).
• “Writing is such hard and lonely work that I look for any opportunity to cheer myself up” (50-51).
• “Always make sure your readers know what they need to know at every stage of the journey” (53).
• “God gave writers the asterisk” (54).
• “Always look for ways to break your long projects into manageable chunks of writing time and energy” (59).
• “In May 1954 I finally saw the girl I wanted to marry…I made a double proposal: that we get married and take a trip across the heart of Africa” (63).
• On travel writing: “Its roots were not in journalism but in humor writing: the lighthearted travel book and the comic novel. Often the two were interchangeable” (71).
• “I seem to have felt that my first obligation was to entertain the reader and only secondly to understand and explain the cultures I was writing about. I now see that I had those priorities exactly backward” (72).
• “But the worst thing about this kind of writing is that most of it isn’t true” (74).
• “Overnight, the genre was extinct. The colonial powers were ousted by indigenous people everywhere who were understood to have their own cultural integrity. They were no longer called “natives” and they weren’t “picturesque.” Travel writers would have to work harder to tell their story. It had been much too easy for much too long” (74).
• “In the magazine articles that I wrote about those trips I learned to leave my cultural assumptions at home. I now try to catch the intention of every place I write about: to see it for what it is, or for what it’s trying to be, not for what I might have expected or wanted it to be. Travel writing is not unlike detective work; it depends on the gathering of dozens of small details” (75).
• “I’ve used writing to give myself an interesting life and a continuing education” (83).
• “Tell your story plainly and its deeper truths will emerge” (104).
• “You must relentlessly distill and condense” (107).
• “A memoir doesn’t try to be comprehension; it’s only a slice of one person’s life or one family’s life” (111).
• “If your sister has a problem with your version of the story, she can write her own version” (112).
• “Treat the past and its participants with fairness and respect” (112).
• “Don’t waste energy railing at the publishing profession. It has been careless with writers forever and isn’t going to change” (126).
• “I’ve never spent any time moping about rejection…Don’t weaken yourself with negative energy. If you’re a writer you’ll need all the positive energy you can generate” (127).
• “Your options are not as limited as you think” (134).
• “The best books…are written out of some inner core of conviction” (154).
• “Good advice for a writer to keep in mind: make your writing useful” (156).
• “Select, focus and reduce…believe in the validity of…life and…write about it with confidence and enjoyment” (158).
• “Good writers make their own luck” (159).
• “I decided that although nobody’s life makes any sense, if you’re going to make a book out of it you might as well make it into a story. I remember saying to my wife, “I am going upstairs to invent the story of my life”” (162).
• “We like to think an interesting life will simply fall into place on the page. It won’t; life is too disorganized” (162).
• “They assume that they start at the beginning (“I was born”) and summarize the high points of their life in chronological order. I don’t think writing works that way….Here’s the advice I give: Go to your desk on Monday morning and think of some event that’s unusually vivid in your memory…On Tuesday morning, do it again…Do that every day—preferably, at the same time of day…Keep this up for two months, or three months. Don’t fidget. Don’t be impatient to start writing your “memoir”—the one you had in mind before you began. Then, one day, take all your entries out of the folder and spread them out on the floor” (165).
• “All writing is talking to someone else on paper. Talk like yourself” (166).
• “In the course of writing this memoir I’ve learned all sorts of things, quite inadvertently, about myself and about various relationships. But these things are not important to the book, and I easily leave them out. I leave out many things that were important to my life but of no concern for the book” (166).
• “Keep your unities intact….Now all you have to do is start. Please trust the process. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself” (167).
• “The past is better confronted than avoided—a valuable lesson for all memoirists fearful of opening Pandora’s box” (168).
• “You, too can use writing to break out of society’s confining boxes. Be true to the culture you were born into. Have the courage to tell your story as only you can tell it” (170-171).
• The best books are ones “written with love. They elevate the pain of the past with forgiveness, arriving at a larger truth about families in various stages of brokenness. There’s no self-pity, no whining, no hunger for revenge…We are not victims, they want us to know. We come from a tribe of fallible people, prisoners of our own destructiveness, and we have endured to tell the story without judgment and to get on with our lives” (172).
• “If you use memoir to look for your own humanity and the humanity of the people who crossed your life, however much pain they caused you, readers will connect with your journey. What they won’t connect with is whining. Dispose of that anger somewhere else. Get your intention clear before you start and tell your story with integrity” (173).
• “Why was I the chosen witness?...Writers who go on spiritual quests put themselves in a position to observe spiritual transactions. But I could also argue that I was put there by God—A god who wants to make sure his best stories get told. Most people are on some kind of pilgrimage, whether or not they recognize it as such. If you put your writing in the form of a quest you will make a connection with your reader that will surprise you with its power” (182).
• “Tell ordinary stories and write out your own humanity” (200).
“Write about things that are important to you, not about what you think readers will want to read, or editors will want to publish or agents will want to sell…If it’s important to you, it will be important to other people” (202).
“It comes down to permission. I’m struck by how scarce the commodity is” (215).
“When you write, call on the best of your character. And make sure you’re living the life you want to live” (216-7).
“If you feel a certain emotion while you’re playing the piano...your listeners will feel it, too….It’s the same advice I give to writers” (222).
“Old age hasn’t turned out to be a closing door” (225).
“it’s a privilege to write for one other person. Do it with gratitude and with pleasure” (228).
Here is a collection of some of the most notable quotes I found in the book:
• “I didn’t set out to write about any of those themes…those other themes came tugging at my sleeve. And of course they belonged in my story” (5).
• “Writing about one’s life is a powerful human need” (6).
• “Beware of deciding in advance how your memoir or your family history will be organized and what it will say. Don’t visualize the finished product at the end of your journey; it will look different when you get there…trust the process, and the product will take care of itself…think small” (6).
• “Remember this when you write about your own life. Don’t rummage around in your past for “important events…write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory…think small and you’ll wind up finding the big themes in your family saga” (7).
• “There are many good reasons for writing that have nothing to do with getting published” (7).
• “There’s a gap between wanting to write about your life and actually sitting down and doing it” (7).
• “To write well about your life you only have to be true to yourself” (8).
• “Happy is bad news for writers. The only ones who can make a go of it are songwriters” (11).
• “Be content to tell your small portion of a larger story. Too short is always better than too long” (16).
• “Specific detail is the foundation of nonfiction writing, and nowhere is it more important than in a memoir” (18).
• “In a lifetime of travels no city has called me back as often as Rome” (21).
• “The craft I wanted to learn would not be mastered without hard and steady application” (21).
• “The point is people. Look for human connection as you make your journey. Connect us to the people who connected with you” (23).
• “My memoir has unity of point of view. It’s told from the perspective of the boy I was at Deerfield, not the grown-up I was when I wrote it” (25).
• “Get your unities straight before your start. Choose one time frame—one version of your remembered truth—and stay with it” (26).
• “One of the pleasures of writing a memoir is to repay the debts of childhood” (27).
• “The problem is that an interesting life doesn’t make an interesting memoir. Only small pieces of a life make an interesting memoir” (29).
• “Is there a story I can tell her?...Tell stories whenever you can. People love to be told stories” (30).
• “One reason I enjoyed using that story is that I’ve never seen it written or heard it told by anyone else” (32).
• “One of my most-reprinted articles…pleaded for the right to fail…especially its young people…Often the only way for boys and girls to find their proper road is to take a hundred side trips, poking out in different directions, faltering, pulling back and starting again…’Don’t be afraid to fail.’ Failure isn’t the end of the world. Countless people have had a bout of failure and come out stronger as a result. Many have even come out famous” (40).
• “Your biggest stories will often have less to do with their subject than with their significance: not what you did in a certain situation, but how that situation affected you” (41).
• “Given a choice between two projects—the one you feel you ought to write and one that sounds like fun—go for the one you’ll enjoy working on. It will show in your writing” (48).
• “Travel writing: the writer is a patsy, a rube, someone a little out of his depth. This gives the reader the enormous pleasure of feeling superior” (50).
• “Writing is such hard and lonely work that I look for any opportunity to cheer myself up” (50-51).
• “Always make sure your readers know what they need to know at every stage of the journey” (53).
• “God gave writers the asterisk” (54).
• “Always look for ways to break your long projects into manageable chunks of writing time and energy” (59).
• “In May 1954 I finally saw the girl I wanted to marry…I made a double proposal: that we get married and take a trip across the heart of Africa” (63).
• On travel writing: “Its roots were not in journalism but in humor writing: the lighthearted travel book and the comic novel. Often the two were interchangeable” (71).
• “I seem to have felt that my first obligation was to entertain the reader and only secondly to understand and explain the cultures I was writing about. I now see that I had those priorities exactly backward” (72).
• “But the worst thing about this kind of writing is that most of it isn’t true” (74).
• “Overnight, the genre was extinct. The colonial powers were ousted by indigenous people everywhere who were understood to have their own cultural integrity. They were no longer called “natives” and they weren’t “picturesque.” Travel writers would have to work harder to tell their story. It had been much too easy for much too long” (74).
• “In the magazine articles that I wrote about those trips I learned to leave my cultural assumptions at home. I now try to catch the intention of every place I write about: to see it for what it is, or for what it’s trying to be, not for what I might have expected or wanted it to be. Travel writing is not unlike detective work; it depends on the gathering of dozens of small details” (75).
• “I’ve used writing to give myself an interesting life and a continuing education” (83).
• “Tell your story plainly and its deeper truths will emerge” (104).
• “You must relentlessly distill and condense” (107).
• “A memoir doesn’t try to be comprehension; it’s only a slice of one person’s life or one family’s life” (111).
• “If your sister has a problem with your version of the story, she can write her own version” (112).
• “Treat the past and its participants with fairness and respect” (112).
• “Don’t waste energy railing at the publishing profession. It has been careless with writers forever and isn’t going to change” (126).
• “I’ve never spent any time moping about rejection…Don’t weaken yourself with negative energy. If you’re a writer you’ll need all the positive energy you can generate” (127).
• “Your options are not as limited as you think” (134).
• “The best books…are written out of some inner core of conviction” (154).
• “Good advice for a writer to keep in mind: make your writing useful” (156).
• “Select, focus and reduce…believe in the validity of…life and…write about it with confidence and enjoyment” (158).
• “Good writers make their own luck” (159).
• “I decided that although nobody’s life makes any sense, if you’re going to make a book out of it you might as well make it into a story. I remember saying to my wife, “I am going upstairs to invent the story of my life”” (162).
• “We like to think an interesting life will simply fall into place on the page. It won’t; life is too disorganized” (162).
• “They assume that they start at the beginning (“I was born”) and summarize the high points of their life in chronological order. I don’t think writing works that way….Here’s the advice I give: Go to your desk on Monday morning and think of some event that’s unusually vivid in your memory…On Tuesday morning, do it again…Do that every day—preferably, at the same time of day…Keep this up for two months, or three months. Don’t fidget. Don’t be impatient to start writing your “memoir”—the one you had in mind before you began. Then, one day, take all your entries out of the folder and spread them out on the floor” (165).
• “All writing is talking to someone else on paper. Talk like yourself” (166).
• “In the course of writing this memoir I’ve learned all sorts of things, quite inadvertently, about myself and about various relationships. But these things are not important to the book, and I easily leave them out. I leave out many things that were important to my life but of no concern for the book” (166).
• “Keep your unities intact….Now all you have to do is start. Please trust the process. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself” (167).
• “The past is better confronted than avoided—a valuable lesson for all memoirists fearful of opening Pandora’s box” (168).
• “You, too can use writing to break out of society’s confining boxes. Be true to the culture you were born into. Have the courage to tell your story as only you can tell it” (170-171).
• The best books are ones “written with love. They elevate the pain of the past with forgiveness, arriving at a larger truth about families in various stages of brokenness. There’s no self-pity, no whining, no hunger for revenge…We are not victims, they want us to know. We come from a tribe of fallible people, prisoners of our own destructiveness, and we have endured to tell the story without judgment and to get on with our lives” (172).
• “If you use memoir to look for your own humanity and the humanity of the people who crossed your life, however much pain they caused you, readers will connect with your journey. What they won’t connect with is whining. Dispose of that anger somewhere else. Get your intention clear before you start and tell your story with integrity” (173).
• “Why was I the chosen witness?...Writers who go on spiritual quests put themselves in a position to observe spiritual transactions. But I could also argue that I was put there by God—A god who wants to make sure his best stories get told. Most people are on some kind of pilgrimage, whether or not they recognize it as such. If you put your writing in the form of a quest you will make a connection with your reader that will surprise you with its power” (182).
• “Tell ordinary stories and write out your own humanity” (200).
“Write about things that are important to you, not about what you think readers will want to read, or editors will want to publish or agents will want to sell…If it’s important to you, it will be important to other people” (202).
“It comes down to permission. I’m struck by how scarce the commodity is” (215).
“When you write, call on the best of your character. And make sure you’re living the life you want to live” (216-7).
“If you feel a certain emotion while you’re playing the piano...your listeners will feel it, too….It’s the same advice I give to writers” (222).
“Old age hasn’t turned out to be a closing door” (225).
“it’s a privilege to write for one other person. Do it with gratitude and with pleasure” (228).
justplainbeth's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
bootman's review against another edition
5.0
I wrote a sort of memoir years ago, and I wish I had read this book before writing it. It almost makes me want to go back and rewrite it at some point. Like is other book, Zinsser provides a ton of great advice while also reminding you to cut a lot of the stuff you don’t need out of the book. Great book for anyone planning on writing a memoir.
seapeanut's review against another edition
Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past by William Zinsser (2005)
booksaremysuperpower's review against another edition
3.0
A great book for those who love to write and tend to gravitate towards personal stories. Be forewarned, though: this is less of a "how-to" manual and more of a "memoir with a few guidelines on how to write memoirs". Zissner gives some writing advice, but mainly shows you how memoirs and personal stories are best crafted by sharing his own stories. Those who really want a step by step guide wouldn't gain much from this book, but I enjoyed it.
spinnerroweok's review against another edition
4.0
This book is two books in one. The first part is a "how to" on writing your memoir. The second part is the memoirs of William Zinsser. I was surprised by what a page turner it was. Each story was fascinating combined with a section on why each one worked so well.
ralovesbooks's review against another edition
5.0
Would recommend: Definitely
This book cements William Zinsser as my favorite writer about writing. I would LOVE to meet him someday, if I weren't legitimately afraid of being a blabbering idiot. He is just SO GOOD.
This book cements William Zinsser as my favorite writer about writing. I would LOVE to meet him someday, if I weren't legitimately afraid of being a blabbering idiot. He is just SO GOOD.
fallchicken's review against another edition
3.0
This book was a bit disappointing. It was an entertaining read, if you just consider it as a collection of Zinsser's own stories. In the first few chapters, the stories are interrupted to explain the techniques being used. In later chapters, he seems to have gotten bored with this. As for writing, it seems like the standard sort of information about writing well. In a later chapter, this is a tip on getting on with recording your own story.
A nice bit of serendipity, Zinsser mentions Clifton Fadiman and I've recently read a book, [b:Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader|46890|Ex Libris Confessions of a Common Reader|Anne Fadiman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170343840s/46890.jpg|1468318], by his daughter.
A nice bit of serendipity, Zinsser mentions Clifton Fadiman and I've recently read a book, [b:Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader|46890|Ex Libris Confessions of a Common Reader|Anne Fadiman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170343840s/46890.jpg|1468318], by his daughter.
willwrite4chocolate's review
4.0
I'd read some of his other books and this was more of the same although still included helpful reminders.
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