Tara DaPra’s piece bought me back to the Autobiography class I took last semester. Our professor said from day one, “This class should really be called Memoir, because autobiographies and memories are two completely different things.” Rather than write a chronological overview of our life, she asked us to focus on one significant theme in our life. Just like DaPra write, the draft of my memoire was essentially like a diary. I let it all out, plain and simple. It wasn’t until after I read through my word vomit that I noticed threads.
It was a pretty cool moment when I realized, “Wow! My life is like a novel!” The writing process reminds me of a puzzle—all the pieces jumbled up in a box (metaphorically speaking, the box is your mind, the puzzle pieces your significant life events). Its when you Tbegin to sort the pieces into categories that you see a fraction of the big picture.
I’m sure there are a lot memoires that have served as a therapeutic balance in the writer’s life. And there are those, like Lucy Grealy, that envision their work as art. Either way, art and therapy go hand-in-hand. Ultimately, it’s what the writer wants that will determine their work’s fate. Unfortunately, readers read in black and white. They’re not programed to know exactly what the writer intended. We make a lot of assumptions and judgements about the writer meant, but we’ll never really know unless we ask.
As for the Veterans Project piece, it was interesting to see how many veterans sought out this creative outlet in writing. If they were to ever publish a memoir, it would clearly be for therapeutic reasons rather than literary. That also makes me wonder what the therapeutic difference is between writing and publishing. Does sending your work out into the public have a bigger impact on the writer? Is the healing greater? That might be something interesting to consider in your research.
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