Week 5: Embarrassingly a true story

When I think about writing a memoir I think about my senior year where I wrote a memoir called "How to write a memoir when you have no memories". It ended up being a piece of writing I was proud of and as I read Stephen Kings memoir it felt similar to my own as I am someone with few small memories that I just dumped on to paper. Fluidity plays a very important role in my memories as I have trouble remembering them. Although I believe its important not to lie to your audience I think its okay to add a detail here or describe something as more important then it was. Growing up I always wished my life was a movie, have the perfect relationship, have lots of friends, get into trouble but get good grades. But our lives are not movies, mine in particular. There is not perfectly timed plot twists or perfectly flawed characters. This is why movies based on true stories always have to spin the story slightly to create more drama. When the script sticks too close to real life it becomes boring. I am not the same person in my stories as who I am in real life, because if I was,

no one would want to listen!

I spend most of my time watching movies in my room, going to work and doing school work. I eat chicken and rice for three dinners out of my week and I hang out with one friend about once every two weeks. These are bad things but they are also not interesting for a reader. Myself in my writing is inquisitive, always talking as though she is outside of situations, she's hanging out with friends, and is slightly nervous but she always grabs someones hand first and always says the right thing. She is genuine but she is not real. I have come to appreciate that line as long as the girl I claim to be me in stories is genuine then she is as real as my reflection in the mirror. But once she loses that then I have lost my creditablilty.

One of my favorite memoirs is We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly a True Story by Josh Sundquist.  https://www.teenreads.com/reviews/we-should-hang-out-sometime-embarassingly-a-true-story This is a link to a blog that talks about the main premise. But in short it's about Josh who at the age of 25 realizes he has never had a girlfriend so he decides to conduct a science experiment where he goes back to each girl who he could of had a potential relationship with and ask them "what went wrong"? He gives background on his memories with each girl, creates a hypothesis, and then meets up with them and asks for their side of the story. It's extremely funny and retells what many have experienced, the almost relationships and how much those can shape you. I think he is good at using fluidity as he recalls these girls as perfect in his mind, beautiful, funny, smart but the ones who ruined everything. And then he meets up with them again and they are human, they had imperfections and more importatnly he realizes that what really went wrong each time was him, and his lack of confidence in himself. To be honest it wouldn't bug me if this story was completely fiction, because it felt so real and the message it conveyed to me was enough.

This would have been a great blog series as recalling old people you liked is one of my favorite things to write about. And putting it on a blog would be a great way to get feedback but could also be hard to have people comment on your relationships and choices. It is tricky trying to share your life with others because your memories can never be fully for them. But we still try as without sharing our memories we keep them alone. Which is far too sad to think about for too long.

Week 5: Claws of Time

In all honesty, truth is subjective. Anyone can say that this flag is blue or this number is nine, but perception of the world around is becomes much more than simply seeing what it is. Not only do our higher brain functions interfere with direct, unimpeded translations - for the better - but even memory recall is an extremely poor way to try and understand what the truth of the matter is. In fact, almost every single time one recalls a memory, it changes just slightly - not enough to necessarily be alarming or cause issues, but usually our brain simply fills in blanks that are otherwise unneeded due to how memories that are unimportant or not extreme such as trauma or intense joy like marriage. Put simply, memories, like many things, fade with time. It's impossible to sit down and write exactly how one felt at any specific time before the present, and even as time moves on your perception is being altered just by writing it down.

No one wants to write down words and then be criticized for what they feel is fair and just, no one wants to have to write anything and then realize that they made a fool of themselves the next day; so instead, we put on facades and never go too deep, either that, or by the next day out perceptions and feelings have changed on the matter and we will have different, perhaps wildly differing opinions.

In terms of transferring to a blog - honestly, I feel that a memoir is already only an over-sized blog post! There is very little breaking them apart besides the fact that they are usually much larger than the average size of a post on a blog or Facebook update, but otherwise they still accompany many of the things that make memoirs popular - an inter-personal look at one's feelings, thoughts, emotions, and perceptions as they travel through life. And, just like a blog or any other personal writing, a memoir is just as susceptible to personal biases and only what the writer has seen themselves.

Week 5: A Rosy Past

The past will always feel more comfortable then the present. It is concrete, something that cannot be changed. One can always convince themselves the past is better then whatever is hidden in the fog of the future. This presents itself when writing a memoir. An author can spin some lofty moral or lesson from a certain event because that is how they themselves wish to view it, even if at that moment it was actually far more mundane. However this is certainly not at the fault of the author; no one can truly prevent their memories from warping over time. Moreover, it is somewhat necessary to add some embellishment to make a recounting more exciting. There is no point in realism for the sake of realism. I don't feel a more manufactured telling of an event is made lesser so because of the added frills. All that matters is the pint the author was trying to make.

Week 5: Three Sides to Every Story - Yours, Mine, and the Truth

There is a certain amount of accuracy in the statement about "Three Sides". When we tell stories, we are telling them from our own perspective. There is a bit of a filtration that happens where we relate events through our own lens and experiences. Just as someone else would share a story from their perspective. I think that the "truth" is a bit of a misnomer though...there are facts like, "we were at this place, it was this date, so and so was there, you said this, I said that...", but all the rest is our perspective of those facts.

Fluidity in writing happens because of distance, perspective, and experience; distance from the event, our perspective of the facts, and our growth/age/reflection/experience shape our recollection of an event. Fluidity to me isn’t an untruth, rather it is an evolving understanding and shifting version of one’s perspective. As an example, for me to say that I once sprained my leg and developed an opioid addiction that spiraled me down into a struggle with substance abuse, failed relationships, lies, shame, and a repetitive cycle of failed rehabilitation would be a complete and total fabrication. But for me to reflect upon the time that I sprained my leg and inject how I felt then based on who I am now isn’t necessarily untrue, but it is a changing understanding of the event and how it shaped/impacted me.

I’m not one who reads many memoirs. When I’m not reading textbooks I tend to indulge in fiction or films as my source of entertainment. However, I wandered over to my bookshelf for this post and found two memoirs that I totally forgot I had read: “American Sniper” by Chris Kyle and “Lone Survivor” by Marcus Luttrell. I know these are both films, but before watching them I decided to read the books. I also read, but could not find, Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”. I’m not a fan of war, but for some reason I’ve found these stories so compelling. Probably my favorite of the three is “American Sniper” (https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062290793/american-sniper/)  For those who haven’t read it the book follows the story of Chris Kyle. He works on a ranch as a cowboy with a career in rodeo all but over. He is searching for his purpose since college wasn’t for him and decides to enlist in the Navy and then to become a SEAL. After the terrorist strikes of 9/11 he is sent to Iraq where he talks about his experiences as a sniper. His story follows the experiences “in country”, the loss of close friends, and the challenges in acclimating back to a life at home away from the war. The story ends with him finding a post-war purpose and bringing his life back into focus after his service. Toward the end of the book Mr. Kyle writes, “I’m not the same guy I was when I first went to war. No one is. Before you’re in combat, you have this innocence about you. Then, all of a sudden, you see this whole other side of life.”

I think it would be disappointing to know that Chris Kyle had blurred the lines between fact and fiction. I know that there had been some commentary/feedback about his book and criticism for things that he had said or included. But, I think that he is telling his story and experience through his vantage point and his memory/recollection of events. It’s almost certainly skewed through his lens, but as long as he hasn’t told outright untruths or made stories up (like James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces”) I can live with and accept what is in the book as Chris Kyle’s truth.

I think that this story would have been an interesting blog. In the book Mr. Kyle describes events and activities that his team undertook in an effort to “win” the war on terrorism. However, I think those things would be less critical to discuss in a blog and the focus would be better served to talk about his mental and emotional challenges after his war experience. It feels like it could be something that would be focused on war veterans as a way to relate/understand what they’re experiencing as well as serving as something for civilians to understand the effects that war has on service men and women. Almost like an online “support group” blog. Overall, I feel like Mr. Kyle could have served as an inspiration to many people in regards to processing feelings and finding hope/purpose after going through such a difficult experience like fighting in a war.

Week 5: Lies My Favorite Author Told Me

While the power of an eyewitness testimony in the courtroom can offer a compelling testimony directly from an eyewitness of the incident, it is also a highly studied area of psychological research. Research repeatedly shows that the memories of an eyewitness can be flawed or biased, and their testimonies should be taken with a grain of salt (Laney, et al., 2020). It has been revealed that, “they (like the rest of us) can make errors in remembering specific details and can even remember whole events that did not actually happen” (2020).

With that being said, while the accountability of memory is diluted in the setting of a courtroom, this is apparent in other aspects of recollection as well. It should be determined that we must take all human recollection with a grain of salt because, well, we are all human too. It is impossible to ensure that every writer, (and especially every good writer), has the ability to embody 100% truthfulness to the Nth value in order to secure our own personal trust in the content of their writing that we value so near and dear to our hearts.

In the article “Nothing But The Truth? On Lying And Memoir-Writing”, Maddie Crum makes a similar argument. Crum argues that the memoir author owes the reader the desirable effects of understanding the author’s emotions in full at the time of the experience. In describing how exactly a memoir should resonate with the audience, Crum states that, “if a memoirist can achieve that — and if she must take a few liberties in truthfulness to get there — then she’s done something right” (2015).

As I share a similar point of view as Crum on the purpose of a memoir, I must insert an excerpt from one of my favorite memoirs, if not my absolute favorite.

 Chelsea Handler will forever be one of my favorite comedians. From stand-up to her late night talk show, Chelsea Handler offers laugh out loud content through the most comedic personal stories of her childhood and young adulthood, highly emphasizing how ridiculous her family was. She writes with irreverent humor and sophisticated wit in every book she has published, attending to self-deprecating humor in her explanation of events.

Black Listed-- Chelsea Handler

I was nine years old and walking myself to school one morning when I heard the unfamiliar sound of a prepubescent boy calling my name. I had heard my name spoken out loud by males before, but it was most often by one of my brothers, my father, or a teacher, and it was usually followed up with a shot to the side of the head.

I turned around and spotted Jason Safirstein. Jason was an adorable fifth-grader with an amazing lower body who lived down the street from me.

I had never walked to school, had a conversation with, or even so much as made eye contact with Jason before. After lifting up one of my earmuffs to make sure I had heard him correctly, I nervously attempted to release my wedgie while waiting for him to catch up. (A futile effort, as it turned out, when wearing two mittens the size of car batteries.)

“I heard you were going to be in a movie with Goldie Hawn,” he said to me, out of breath.

Shit. I had worried something like this was going to happen. The day before, I had forgotten my language arts homework, and when the teacher singled me out in front of the entire class to find out where it was, I told her that I had been in three straight nights of meetings with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, negotiating my contract to play Goldie Hawn’s daughter in the sequel to Private Benjamin.

The fact that no sequel to Private Benjamin was in the works, or that a third-grader wouldn’t be negotiating her own contract with the star of the movie and her live-in lover, hadn’t dawned on me.

“Yeah, well, that was kind of a lie,” I mumbled, recovering my left mitten from in between my butt cheeks.

“What?” he asked, astounded. “You lied? Everyone has been talking about it. Everyone thinks it’s so cool.”

“Really?” I asked, quickly changing my tune, realizing the magnitude of what had happened. It occurred to me that this was the perfect opportunity to get some of the respect I believed had been denied me, due to my father dropping me off in front of the school in a 1967 banana yellow Yugo. It was 1984, and my father had no idea of or interest in how damaging his 1967 Yugo had been to my social status. He had driven me to school on a couple of really cold days, and even after I had pleaded with him to drop me off down the street, he was adamant about me not catching a cold.

“Dad,” I would tell him over and over again, “the weather has nothing to do with catching a cold. It has to do with your immune system. Please let me walk. Please!”

“Don’t be stupid,” he would tell me. “That’s child abuse.”

I wanted my father to know that child abuse was embarrassing your daughter on a regular basis with no clue at all as to the repercussions. Word had spread like wildfire throughout the school about what kind of car my father drove, and before I knew it, the older girls in fifth grade would follow me through the hallways calling me “poor” and “ugly.” After a couple of months they upped it from “ugly” to “a dog,” and would bark at me anytime they saw me in the hallway.

Our family certainly wasn’t poor, but we lived in a town where trust funds, sleepaway camps, and European vacations were abundant, along with Mercedes, Jaguars, and BMWs — a far cry from my world filled with flat tires, missing windshield wipers, and cars with perpetually lit CHECK ENGINE lights.

The idea that showing up at school in a piece of shit jalopy led to me looking like a dog didn’t make much sense in my mind. It really irked me that I had to be punished because my father thought he was a used car dealer and insisted on driving us around in the cars that he couldn’t sell. I wanted to tell my classmates that I didn’t like his cars either, and I certainly didn’t like being called a dog. I hadn’t had a low opinion of myself before then, but after being called the same nickname for six months straight, you start to look in the mirror and see resemblances between yourself and a German shepherd.

https://laughspin.com/book-excerpt-chelsea-handlers-are-you-there-vodka-its-me-chelsea/

I would argue that this book has the potential to be transferred to a blog post, although I would not be in favor of the content serving only as blog entries, because I believe that may strip the reader of a more intense connection to the author. 

I admire Handler’s work because her writing creates a strong sense of connection with the reader. “Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang”, and the rest of her memoirs, place the reader in her shoes and allow them to really feel like they know exactly what went on in her head in that instance. I read this book of Chelsea’s specifically during a hard time in my life. This book has taught me that when we find ourselves in very unpleasant and undesirable circumstances, it does not mean the time spent in these circumstances is time wasted. I learned as the reader that it is incredibly important to find the humor in every life experience, and if you can, you will keep your sanity. Making jokes about a negative experience you have had in your life, one that you lacked control over entirely, can ultimately be comforting and inspire those who share similar experiences to make light of their situation as well. 

Considering the fact that Handler has another book titled, “Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me”, I can’t say that it would really shock me if some of these memories were extremely embellished. She has even stated in a book that, “my tendency to make up stories and lie compulsively for the sake of my own amusement takes up a good portion of my day and provides me with a peace of mind not easily attainable in this economic climate” (Handler, 2010). But, how could we blame the author? I don’t think only legitimate memories of, “I had coffee, egg whites, 1 piece of whole wheat toast, and 3 grapes for breakfast on the 5th of February” will sell a book. I believe there's a fine line between embellishment and flat out lies, and if I really enjoy a memoir and I support the author, I don’t feel deceived if I happen to be reading a few white lies in between the pages. 

With that being said, if I had found out this memoir was not all fully true, I could care less. I think the message Handler has to offer is even more powerful than the individual stories themselves. I don’t think an author should be bound to writing strictly veracious content when 

they have something to share. The distinction between perception and reality plays an important role in the process of writing a memoir in the first place, and who are we to determine someone else’s perceptions to be false?

https://nobaproject.com/modules/eyewitness-testimony-and-memory-biases#content

Week 5: Nothing but the Truth (and a few creative liberties)

They say the human mind will be the last frontier. Not space, not the ocean, but our very own brains.

One of the many remarkable things about our minds is their memory. Not necessarily how exceptional it is, but rather how fallible it can be. Perhaps you’ve looked at a picture of yourself from many years ago, an event at which you could have sworn you had been wearing your favorite pink blouse, not that summer dress. Or perhaps you’ve reminisced with a friend about your 7^th birthday party, and he claimed there had been vanilla cake when you know very well it had been chocolate, only for your mother to walk in and tell you there was no cake because you had asked for sugar cookies that year instead.

Sound familiar? No? Well, case in point.

Such blips in our memory are often harmless— hilarious anecdotes we’ll tell our kids about one day. But when it comes to writing these potentially false memories down, and especially when publishing them as a memoir, we may run into some issues.

In her article “Nothing but the Truth?: On Lying and MemoirWriting” Maddie Crum writes, “There is, after all, a fluidity between who we were to other people, who we thought we were, who we think we were, and who we think we are now.”

Our thoughts and perspectives change gradually over time. This is not an overnight process, hence the “fluidity” that Crum speaks of. But because of this fluidity, we often look at the past through the biased lens of the present. This makes human memory fallible and malleable, which will always inevitably affect nonfiction writing.

However, I would argue that this is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, as Crum states, “The desired effect [of nonfiction] is to allow listeners, and readers, to feel how we felt, not to merely be aware of the literal circumstances lending to the feeling.”

Of course, completely making up things that never even happened in the first place would defeat the purpose of nonfiction entirely, but considering memoirs, and nonfiction in general, as an art form should, in my mind, allow for some creative liberties. Twisting the details of your story or slightly changing the chronology of events to a certain extent shouldn’t be cause for alarm as long as these alterations serve a stylistic or thematical purpose in the work.

My absolutely all-time favorite memoir (and book for that matter) is Educated by Tara Westover. In this memoir, Tara tells her story starting in her childhood when she grew up in the mountains of Idaho in an isolated Mormon community. She had several siblings, and her parents never let any of them see a doctor, even for severe injuries, or go to school because they distrusted the government. Tara and her family would also store canned peaches in their basement and always have a “head for the hills” bag ready to go in case the Second Coming of Christ should surprise them. Eventually, however, she manages to escape her sheltered home and abusive family and goes to college, where she struggles to adapt to a world she never knew. Later, she attends Cambridge and Harvard University and earns a doctorate degree. By the end of her story, she has decided to live estranged from her parents and some of her siblings.

There is some controversy around this book, specifically about the truthfulness of the narrative since Tara’s parents claim the story did not happen the way it was written. However, given the extreme isolation and distrust Tara describes in relation to her parents, it does not surprise me that they would make such a claim. Additionally, in the first line of the first chapter, Tara acknowledges the malleability and unreliability of memory discussed above: “My strongest memory is not a memory. It’s something I imagined, then came to remember as if it had happened.”

One of the biggest reasons why I love this book so much is because of what it teaches the reader about education. By reading this, I learned the value and privilege of an education and that education does not always need to be linked with school. School is merely a system through which education is provided but becoming educated can also manifest itself as a new perspective and the willingness to change old ways of thinking. The last line of the book really drives this concept home:

“You could call this selfhood many things. Transformation. Metamorphosis. Falsity. Betrayal. I call it an education.”

This memoir teaches its readers to separate school and education and what an education can encompass outside of the system it’s associated with, such as the development of a new selfhood.

I strongly believe that Educated works best and is most powerful in its complete novel form and therefore likely would not function well if transferred to a blog format. In order to split it into blog posts, it would likely have to be shortened and the scenes condensed, which I fear may take something away from the story.

As for how my reading experience would change if I were to learn that Tara blurred the lines between fact and fiction, I’m honestly not sure. I think much of the story’s power lies in its presentation as a memoir, but given the traumatic nature of Tara’s childhood, it wouldn’t necessarily shock me if some of the events were not entirely accurate. Again, given the fluidity of human memory, it seems unlikely that any memoir is 100% truthful. But like Crum says, the goal is to get the reader to feel what the author felt, not necessarily know exactly what happened to them.

And that is something Tara does exceptionally well.

Week 5: The Blurring of Fact and Fiction

The lines are blurred between who we think we are and how others see us. But the intersection of these lines is the tricky part; how much of ourselves is a fantasy of narcissism distant from reality? How well do these two people mesh? In the instance of autobiographical forms of writing, how honest are authors being of portraying an equal amount of both? I think it is hard to portray one's self badly to others in the format of a book. No one wants to see themselves in a negative light, and no matter how hard some might try to create an equal balance of their perception and the world's, there is always going to be a subconscious push towards a positive portrayal of themselves. So no, nothing in a memoir is going to be completely from the reality, 

but there is a difference between events that happened and events that absolutely didn't happen- fact or fiction. And those are lines that autobiographical writers must be certain not to cross. 

The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir by Maude Julien serves as an almost fantastical book placed in reality. Her life was so unbelievably difficult as a child that it seems like it could not possibly be real. Ever since she was born, her father told her that she was the only girl in the world; and he treated her like it. He sheltered her away from the outside world, training her to be otherworldly. Her father raised her to be superhuman, and he was disappointed when she did not live up to his standards. She was so shut off from the world that she could only find solace in her dog, her horse, and later in life, piano lessons. Here, she writes about her pet dog, saying "Luckily for me there's Linda. She came to the house at about the same time as us. We grew up together... When she wags her tail it brushes my face. It tickles. It makes me laugh" (Julien 6). Her animals were an escape from her reality, but they were punished just as Julien was- locked inside without love. She writes, "...from that day until the end of her life, Linda is locked in her kennel from eight in the morning until eight at night. She trusted me and I didn't see it coming. She is trapped because of me" (Julien 8). It's a tough book to read, but it still enters my mind 5 years after I read it, because it taught me that no matter how bad things are, there is still strength in myself to persevere. However, if the book was a mix of fact and fiction, I would feel a little betrayed. If someone stated that it was a true story and revealed later that many of the events were fictional, it would be like lying to the reader. However, the text was translated from French to English, so some meaning becomes lost, and if her portrayal overemphasized some aspects without blatantly making them up, then it would be the author right to do so. It was her life, after all. Who am I to say it wasn't?

There is a potential in her memoir to be a blog, as every chapter could serve as a new post. They all center around her life, but different events that stood out to her for each chapter. They are not lengthy and would be interesting to an audience, but I think the book would lose some meaning if it was used as a blog. There would be less seriousness about it, and it seems less believable if it was self-published on the world-wide web. I think it serves its purpose best as a book.

Julien, Maude. The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir. 2014. 

The Only Girls in the World. Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/book/show/ 

     34599653-the-only-girl-in-the-world. 

The Only Girls in the World by Maude Julien. One World Publications, 

     oneworld-publications.com/the-only-girl-in-the-world.html.