Accidental Lessons, David Berner – Author Guest Post

Accidental Lessons is a remarkable memoir by successful Chicago journalist David W. Berner. Berner takes the reader inside his own personal journey; a heart wrenching and inspirational account of self-discovery. After a series of personal upheavals – his marriage falls apart, his father becomes terminally ill, and his career crumbles – this respected reporter makes a difficult decision that changes his life forever. Berner takes a job in a public school outside Chicago where the students are facing traumatic obstacles – dysfunctional families, gangs, and drugs. What he learns from them teaches him invaluable lessons about himself, who he is, and why he became a journalist in the first place – to seek out the truth and give voice to those who need their story told. You can visit his website at www.davidwberner.com or www.accidentallessons.com.

AUTHOR GUEST POST…The Tough Work of Memoir

I am frequently asked these questions: How tough is it to write about your own life? Is writing memoir cathartic, therapeutic? And, when do you know not to go too far and turn meaningful memoir into insufferable drool?

My memoir, Accidental Lessons – A Memoir of a Rookie Teacher and a Life Renewed, took six years of my life to write. And because much of my recent writing work is memoir or creative nonfiction based on personal experience, I find that time can reveal whether the material is worthy of sharing. If it resonates with others, letting the story sit for a time, ferment and seep into itself is an essential step. And that’s why these questions are not so easily answered.

Writing a personal memoir is packed with anxiety. For a memoir to be successful, the author cannot compromise on honesty. He opens himself up to the world for all to see, analyze, and judge. If the reader doesn’t like the story, some might consider that an indictment of one’s life. Philip Gerard, in his book Creative Nonfiction, insists that in memoir the narrator must “put himself on the line.” He writes that the author of memoir “has no buffer, no illusion of narrative distance, between himself and his subject.” Clearly, writing memoir takes guts.

But like the fiction writer, the author of personal memoir must also develop convincing and compelling characters, and that means the memoir’s narrator must also be a believable character. To accomplish this the writer must illuminate the persona of the narrator. This means revealing the narrator’s personality, his joys and fears, his motivations, his attributes, and his faults. In fiction, writers develop characters they hope the reader can see as authentic, but they can make up details of a life to meet the needs of the narrative, change entire personas to make the storyline work. In memoir the writer still must reveal elements of the narrator’s character and present them in ways that engage the reader and make the narrator compelling, but it must be done in the framework of reality and truth. The writer can’t make it up. And for the memoir to be successful the reader needs more than the facts. He needs intimate details about the narrator’s persona. I had to be willing to do all this to make the story work.

Lee Gutkind, in The Art of Creative Nonfiction, writes about authoring first-person narratives and asks, even demands, that the writer dig deep. Gutkind writes,“Tear yourself inside out. Unearth, dramatize, relive bad memories, frightening and life shaping-experiences. Tell humorous anecdotes about growing up on a farm or in the inner city.” In writing memoir, digging deep is part of the process. It’s dirty, backbreaking work. And yes, it’s tough, therapeutic, and, if the writer is not careful, can be insufferable drool.  And goodness knows, you don’t want insufferable drool. The writer certainly doesn’t and the reader doesn’t either.

So, is it tough, therapeutic? Yes. Both. But when it’s over and it resonates, memoir writing may be an author’s most rewarding work.