Today was the final day of the Sacramento State University Writers' Conference; I arrived on Friday and have been meeting with writers and speaking since early on Saturday morning. This afternoon I was off-duty and walked to a nearby Borders (pictured above)—the first time I've walked into a bookstore flanked with palm trees.

But down to business.

Saturday (early morning): Manuscript Critiques
Before the conference, I was sent 20-page manuscript samples from five writers. Four of the five were memoir or life story manuscripts. Let me state right out that memoir is difficult to do well, yet lots of people are attempting it. If you're not a celebrity, then your story has to survive on the art and craft of the writing, or your sharp and unique perspective—no easy feat for a new or inexperienced writer. Of the manuscripts I read, they tended to be:

• Very raw and personal. This makes it difficult to revise with the requisite distance. Some of the manuscripts I read used excerpts from journals/diaries, which is usually not a good idea if we're talking about producing publishable work.
  
• Lacking a story arc. The reader needs to have a reason to keep reading, to feel like they are in the hands of an experienced storyteller. Even the life or the experience seems chaotic and without shape, there needs to be a shape and order on the page.
  
• Cathartic. Writing is an excellent way to find or make meaning out of painful and confusing experiences. But such writing isn't necessarily publishable. Personal essay and memoir has to go beyond a cathartic experience (that benefits the writer alone) and give the reader a compelling reason to keep reading.

Saturday (mid-morning): Speed Pitching
I participated in a two-hour pitch session, where writers had three minutes to pitch their projects to editors/agents, one-on-one. Again, I encountered many writers trying to tell their life stories or family stories.

RED FLAG: Memoir & Life Story
I can't begin to tell you how often I hear the following at writer's conferences (and from writers all over the map):

• "My friends and family love my stories. They said I should write them down."
• "I wrote this just for my family, but they said it should be a published book."
• "My [family member] had an amazing life. Her stories deserve to be written and published so they're not lost forever."

What I'm about to say may appear cold, unfeeling, or downright mean, but:

OK: Your life stories or family stories are unique and deserve to be shared. But do they deserve book publication? Or, more importantly, do you have the talent to tell these stories through the written word so that they do deserve book publication?

Everyone forgets that writing is a craft that takes years of dedication and practice to become skilled at. If you haven't been practicing the craft for years, there is little chance that your initial efforts to write your life story or memoir will be publishable, and even then, only with an incredible amount of hard work and revision.

The same is true for fiction writers, of course. Very few novelists ever publish their first manuscript. Or second. Or third. Or fourth. It takes time before you get good—in any genre.

The truth is: You could have the most sensational, unusual story ever, or the most boring story ever, but whether it's successful on the page all depends on your skill as a storyteller and as a  writer—and not everyone has this skill. Period.

Friends and family give bad advice. Don't forget that. They may love your stories, but they also love you (presumably!). That's why they're telling you to write and publish.

When I meet discouraged memoirists and personal essayists, I think (unashamedly): Good! It's good that you're getting tired of it, that you're getting frustrated. It means you don't have what it takes, and you need to move onto something else. Book writing and publishing is not a money maker, it is not going to bring you fame and celebrity, and it will not bring in a flood of readers. It will likely disappoint. If you must have something for posterity, self-publish. Or save your money and save your stories in a Word document that you back up on multiple hard drives.

OK. Off soapbox.

Keynote: Dinah Lenney
Now that I've said my piece about aspiring memoirists (apologies to all memoirists!), let me talk about Dinah, who gave the keynote and has a published memoir. Her talk focused primarily on memoir, and it was the best talk I've ever heard on the genre. Generous, honest, funny. Her main point was that memoir is a performance that's driven by your voice or your presence. It's not necessarily the content, but your "cover" of the content. That is: Memoirists "cover" the past, take on the past, riff on the past, filter it and interpret it for an audience. She also had a great quote from Stendhal, "The heart can make anything seem important."

It reminded me of a series on storytelling by Ira Glass. Here's the first in the series. (I may have already referenced this before, but it's worth referencing again.)

My Sessions
For those who would like the PowerPoint presentations from my sessions (as PDFs), here they are!

• Craft a Salable Nonfiction Book Concept: NonfictionBk.pdf (894.3 KB)
• The Times They Are A-Changin': Times-Changin.pdf (926.16 KB)

Many thanks to the board members of the Sac State workshop, particularly Amy Ruddell, Verna Dreisbach, and Bill Pieper. If you'd like to read some blog posts about the conference, visit this site.