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David de Young's avatar

Echoing what Jennie said in the preceding comment about advice coming at the perfect moment. I'm writing a memoir and am struggling with ennui around some of the narrative of events I know are quite important. It's probably more interesting to explore why my current self feels that way now, when I didn't ten or twenty years ago. What has changed that makes me question revisiting some of these events? There's an element of self-psychoanalysis that can be introduced that helps me develop the thought arc.

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Jeffrey Gibbs's avatar

I love this, though your posts sometimes make me feel like I just started learning about writing -- but it's exciting, too. Techniques 4 and 5 were some that I used in my memoir. Curating research I think could have a post all its own. About why it's necessary, ways to do it, where to start and where to stop. I think my last book taught me a lot about this. By the way, I think you had a good formulation with this line, "in a society that was pathologically uninterested in my experience."

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