How I Wrote a Memoir: Part III

Early Snippets from College Heartbreak Become Integral to Future Work

My UCI Extension Creative Writing workshop in 2007 provided early practice for my nonexistent memoir, but it would be another seven years before I would say, “I’m writing a book.” At this stage, I didn’t believe I was capable, nor did I know what kind of book I wanted to write. But a decade after my college boyfriend broke up with me, I was still trying to piece together why, which is why I was compelled to write a vignette about him for Lesson 7 during this online class, a few details of which were later expanded into scenes and included in my manuscript; a few details of which I had forgotten until rereading them recently; and a few details I discarded when I later crafted my experiences into a cohesive whole. In this early piece, the first sentence isn’t true:

How I Wrote a Memoir: Part II

A Critique of My First Workshop Essay

Imagine a thirty-four-year-old transplant sitting at her soon-to-be fiancé’s oak desk in a suburban home north of Atlanta, Georgia, across the street from the cul-de-sac moms who lounge in lawn chairs in the driveway chatting, while their husbands work and their toddlers tumble in the grass. In 2007, I imagine I was invisible to the neighborhood Southern ladies because I was a childless, unmarried Californian with a job. It didn’t take much to determine we had nothing in common.

How I Wrote a Memoir: Part I

In this blog series, I will explore my writing process from my first workshop to completed manuscript.

In 2007, seven years after completing seven years of college, I decided to take writing seriously. At thirty-four, I was a Southern California woman living in a small Georgia suburb north of Atlanta, in love with a man who’d soon give me a giant ring I would return before my thirty-fifth birthday to move home. When I believed I was in Georgia forever, feeling homesick, not writing, and longing for a creative community, I signed up for an online UCI Extension Creative Writing course.