“You really bared your soul,” a reader wrote after reading Fire in the Heart.
Gah! That’s the thing about memoir. Unless you are reading one specifically for nature essays or for descriptions of what it is like to hike a long trail (and there are plenty of those out there), most good memoirs have to have a human element. Otherwise, what’s the point? Some, of course, go too far, wallowing in a bunch of self-absorption and angst. You don’t want to put it ALL out there! But many would-be memoirists don’t include enough.
It’s hard to describe the feeling of having something so persoanl out there. Yes, I didn’t HAVE to write it. It’s my own fault, much like those annoying people who complain about snow in winter and heat in summer. You chose to live there! Give it a rest. It’s like this though: You are merrily writing away, and then somehow you get an agent, and then somehow, you get a publishing contract. Yay! Excitement ensues. Until..you actually hold a copy in your hands.
OH CARP, you think (mispelling on purpose because I find it funny). I am going to be truly known!
Gasp.
Well, here goes nothing. T minus seven days until official release.
Here is a great article on writer terror. The picture below comes from the same source. https://brevity.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/on-writers-terror/