Table Of Contents

Part I: Writing Down Your Stories  1
   one That Which Is Most Personal Is Most Common  2
   two Hot Heart, Cold Eye: The Inconvenient Importance of Craft  8

Part II: The Personal Essay  11
   three Elements of the Successful Essay  12
         KEEP IT SMALL | 13
         WHAT QUESTION DRIVES YOUR ESSAY? | 14 
         WRITE ABOUT THE MOMENT SOMETHING CHANGED | 15
         BUILD THE ESSAY | 19 
         OUTLINE THE ESSAY | 22
         WRITE THE EPIPHANY | 24
   four What’s Your Angle?  34
         YOU HAVE A SUBJECT—BUT DO YOU HAVE AN ANGLE? | 35  
         HOW TO FIND AN ANGLE | 37
         HOW TO USE SETUP | 40 

Part III: Techniques and Practices for Essay and Memoir  43 
   five Tone: How to Assert a Specific Temperament  45 
         ARE YOU FUNNY? | 47
         BE A SCREWUP | 54
         WATCH YOUR TONE | 56
         FINDING YOUR VOICE: DO YOU SOUND LIKE YOU? | 59
   six Image: The Luminosity of the Particular  62
         USE YOUR SENSES | 65
         BUILD IMAGES WITH SPECIFIC DETAILS | 69  
         THE DREAD NECESSITY OF INNER EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE | 75
   seven How to Trick Yourself into Writing 80
         APPLY PART A (BUTT) TO PART B (CHAIR) | 82
         WRITE EVERY DAY | 85
         NO TIME TO WRITE? CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY | 86  
         LOWER YOUR STANDARDS | 87
   eight It Takes a Village: Working with Other Writers  90 
         HOW WRITING PARTNERS MAKE YOU WRITE | 91
         HOW THE WRITING PARTNERSHIP WORKS | 93
         TAKE CLASSES | 96
         JOIN A GROUP | 98
         FEEDBACK: HOW TO GIVE IT | 100
         FEEDBACK: HOW TO TAKE IT | 104
   nine Revising Rewriting Your Work  108
         STEP BACK FROM YOUR DRAFT | 110
         FIX THE BEGINNING | 112  
         FIX THE ENDING | 114
         FIX IN GENERAL | 116
         FIX THE SENTENCES  | 121
         HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOU’RE FINISHED? | 126

Part IV: The Memoir  127
   ten Planning Your Memoir  128 
         WILL YOUR IDEA WORK? | 129
         USE REFLECTIVE VOICE | 134  
         DO YOUR REASEARCH| 141
         ORGANIZE YOUR MATERIAL | 144
         WRITE A DISCOVERY DRAFT | 145
   eleven What Goes In, What Doesn’t  148
         IDENTIFY YOUR DESIRE LINE AND OBSTACLES | 148  
         DETERMINE THE PIVOTAL EVENTS | 151
         DRAW THE ARC | 154  
         STRENGTHEN THE ARC | 158
         WHY IT’S CALLED CREATIVE NONFICTION | 163
         HIRE AN EDITOR | 164
         CONSIDER A NONCONVENTIONAL STRUCTURE | 166
   twelve How to Write Narration and Scene  168
         THE USES OF NARRATION | 168
         WRITE COMPELLING SCENES | 170  
         BRING YOUR MOM TO LIFE | 175
         USE DIALOGUE | 180 

Part V: Getting Published  183
   thirteen Words for Money: Selling Your Essays  184
         WHERE TO FIND A MARKET | 188
         HOW TO FIND HOOKS | 193  
         A WORD ABOUT RIGHTS | 195
         HOW TO SUBMIT | 196
         HOW TO HANDLE REJECTIONS | 200
         HOW TO HANDLE ACCEPTANCES | 202  
         GET YOUR WORK OUT THERE | 203
   fourteen Publishing Your Memoir  204
         FIND AN AGENT | 205 
         PREPARE TO OBSESS OVER THE QUERY LETTER | 207
         PUT TOGETHER THE PROPOSAL | 209
         YOUR NEW JOB: PROMOTING YOUR BOOK | 213
         SHOULD YOU SELF-PUBLISH? | 215
         WHAT IF MOM READS IT? | 218
         CONSIDER YOUR OPTIONS | 220
       
   What You Get When You Write from Life  225
   Appendix  231
         READING LIST | 231
         USEFUL TEXTS | 231
         WRITING EXERCISES | 232
         TRICKS OF THE (COMPUTER) TRADE | 241  
   Contributors  243  
   Index  244  
   About the Author  248