You Are the Protagonist (memoirs need ideas too) with Rachael Herron

<p>But wait, isn’t a memoir a book about my life? What do you mean, I need an idea?</p><p>We mean, you need an idea. Because your whole life is… really not book material. But one thematic chunk of it? One recurring event, one series of catastrophes, one relationship, one moment that changed everything? </p><p>Now you’re talking—and so are we, to the amazing <a target="_blank" href="https://rachaelherron.com/">Rachael Herron</a>, host of the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.howdoyouwrite.net/">How Do You Write Podcast</a>, author of <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9781940785417">Fast Draft Your Memoir</a> and leader of a recurring, very hard to get into multi-week class of the same name. We talk about what does and doesn’t serve as memoir material and how to get from a vague glimmer of an idea to something that will carry you (and your reader) through chapter after chapter, and we quote a line from Cami Osmond: In memoir there’s the <em>what</em> and the <em>so what</em>. </p><p>Go where the sparkle is.</p><p><strong>A few assorted links from the pod:</strong></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9781585423347">The Art of the Book Proposal</a>, Eric Maisel</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780143038412">Eat Pray Love</a>, Elizabeth Gilbert</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9781250812483">Broken</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9781250077028">Furiously Happy</a>, Jenny Lawson</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780062223074">The Art of Memoir</a>, Mary Karr</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780061628351">Devotion</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780525434030">Inheritance</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9781101974261">Hourglass</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780061826696">Slow Motion</a>, Dani Shapiro</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/978045149