Write what you know

Everyone is writing a memoir these days. After thumbing through a few of them at the bookstore, hoping to find something inspirational -- isn't that a major reason one would want to pen a memoir? -- I realized that there are a whole lot of people out there with a whole lot of personal problems. I had to double check that I wasn't in the fiction section. These stories are inspirational, all right -- they inspire other people with tragic lives to write their memoirs. "He thinks he had it tough, having no father and being abandoned by his mother at age 2 and being raised by abusive cockatoos? I can top that."

It hit me then that I can never write my memoirs. My life has not had enough misery, enough angst to tell a good story. My life has been too happy. Happy and simple.

A popular author wrote about this topic in my writing magazine. Like me, she'd grown up in a wholesome suburb, had parents who loved each other, and got along with her siblings. Her life hadn't had much trauma. She knew she wanted to write, but "write what you know" didn't seem like it would work for her: she didn't know anything.

Ah, a kindred spirit! I thought as I started to read her article. I eagerly scanned it for tips on what to do about this lack of traumatic experience -- after all, she is now a successful author, so she must have some good ideas to pass along.

It turned out that what she lacked for in experience she decided to make up for in research. Not armchair research, such as I am fond of, but research that got her out among diverse people, doing things like, oh, sampling beaver innards in Alaska. So much for a kindred spirit, I thought. Sure, it'd be a great experience to write about, but the rub is I'd have to experience it. Blechh.

"Well," I sighed to Joe, "I guess I am doomed to write about can openers. That's about all I know."

He tried to make me feel better. "But you write the funniest stories about can openers I've ever read," he said.

In a choice between (a) a miserable life and a bestselling memoir, (b) eating beaver innards and authoring popular fiction, and (c) can openers and a loving husband, I'll take (c) any day.