Over the years I’ve picked up the notion of reading and rereading three, and only three, books as models while writing. My practice was first to read some of Wild, my morning book, and then to read and edit my memoir printout. I felt I was seeing my material with a colder eye, and placing it or cutting it for effect, not using it because I loved it or because I hoped it was working.Īt the start of July I printed out hard copy of my manuscript and also began rereading Cheryl Strayed’s Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. I threw out the first act of my memoir in June-it was too slow to start-which helped me cut forty pages, and I broke up two chapters on my father and threaded him throughout. The trail was always there, that was the great constant, but I was always different on the trail.-Cheryl Strayed in an interview The challenge there was to convey what was happening inside of me. For Wild it was about me walking alone through the wilderness for 94 days it could have been really boring. Reading my memoir printed out like this, two pages on a sheet, helps me see it in a new way.Ĭheryl Strayed’s memoir is narrative-driven but reflective.Įvery book has its inherent impossibility.
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