Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past

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Everyone has a story and once we know our story we can be who we were created to be in a world hungry for connection, understanding, communication and collaboration instead of more war and political and civil chaos. "Writing About Your Life: A Journey Into the Past" by William Zinsser is a book I shall always have in my personal library because its wisdom is timeless. Also, reading it helped me write my book "Distilled Wisdom for Growing Older Without Growing Old" also available on Amazon, with an appendix filled with easy ways to get started!

I read a few of Zinsser's other books before this one and I'm glad I did. "On Writing Well" is excellent. This book is more memoir than how to write. It's interesting overall, but not captivating. There is some good advice on writing at the very end, but if I had read this Zinsser book first, I would never have read the others -- and that would have been a real loss.

In Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past, William Zinsser uses the main technique of the master teacher: he demonstrates what he is trying to teach.In the first of a series of mini-memoirs about his life,​ Zinsser tells the story of a phone message left on his answering machine from a woman who has a question about a paint primer that Zinsser's father had manufactured years before. In referring to an article he wrote about the message and the phone call that followed, the author shows how the work dealt with a number of themes: fathers and sons, family expectations, and filial duty, among others.He tells us that he did not start out to write about these themes, but that they naturally evolved from the message and the phone conversation that followed. He then connects this to the two main premises of the book:1. "Beware of deciding in advance how your memoir or family history will be organized and what it will say."2. "Write about small self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory."Zinsser uses this technique throughout the book; he shares an incident from his past, and then emphasizes a particular point about memoir writing.Besides the teaching aspects of the book, another strength is the writing maxims sprinkled throughout. Some examples:"Go with what interests and amuses you. Trust the process, and the product will take care of itself.""Too short is always better than too long.""All writers are embarked on a quest of some kind, and you're entitled to go on yours.""Look for the human connection as you make your journey. Connect us to the people who connected with you.""All writing is talking to someone else on paper. Talk like yourself."In addition to helpful maxims, Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past reflects Zinsser's articles of faith (as stated in his signature work, On Writing Well) about what good nonfiction writing exhibits: humanity, clarity, simplicity, and vitality.With so many books available on this topic why choose Writing About Your Life? Because William Zinsser is a master teacher. Reading Writing About Your Life (and On Writing Well) would be an excellent preparation for anyone thinking about writing a memoir.

What I thought would be an instruction manual on how to write memoirs turned out to be a moving memoir about the author’s life. Embedded in a series of short narratives, many of them excerpts from previously published articles, are William Zinsser’s comments that illustrate how and why his approach to writing one's story is positive and effective. I discovered through reading this book about writing about your life, that I was increasingly immersed in the author’s life experiences. One of my favorite quotes toward the end of the book is, “Most people are 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 readers that will surprise you with its power.” I came away wishing I could have met Mr. Zinsser, who led such a rich life, or sat in any of his inspiring class lectures to hear his stories in person. Short of that, I will refer back to this book to revisit its many lessons.

William Zinsser’s charming “Writing about Your Life” is less a how-to book in writing creative autobiography than it is well-told stories of fascinating moments in the author’s life. Early on in the book, these remembrances serve as illustrations for Zinsser’s points about memoir writing. As the book continues, there is less instruction and more storytelling.Zinsser notes at the start of Chapter 3, “The problem is that an interesting life doesn’t make an interesting memoir. Only small pieces of a life make an interesting memoir. The rest is just getting through the day....” This book is chockablock with engaging and amusing “pieces of a life.” To be sure, Zinsser offers solid, useful advice on writing, e.g., that “ultimately it’s people--memorable people--who make certain places stick in our minds forever. Look for those people, wherever you go, and tell us how their story intersected with your life” (p. 79). But it’s really the author’s anecdotes about meeting memorable people in fascinating places that captivated this reader. A writer would do well to absorb the advice, and mostly, just imitate the master.

I have read many books about how to write memoir, or how to write about yourself. The answer is given in this highly readable book.Read this book, and if what you have in mind is to write about your life, the answer is simple, Write about what you know about your life. Don't write any old thing or about it all from the time you were born until the time you think you have figured out how it will all probably end.Write instead about those ever memorable events in your lifetime to date that taught you a valuable lesson or made you more humble for the experience you had occasion to share. Your life is not a totality of "this happened and then this happened, forevermore." It's the best stories, shared or experienced, that you recall and tell with splendor and modesty. Better yet, read the book, and you will learn what I mean.