July 13, 2009
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deeply inspiring writing for (non)writers
r says i have been a little bit "in love" with dave eggers these days. how can i help myself? away we go wonderful. zeitoun wonderful. so i indulged myself and got three more books from the library today either written, edited or prefaced by dave eggers. the first one, the autobiographer's handbook, had an introduction by dave eggers which i found to be so profoundly at the core of who i am as a writer. i crookedly (in my excitement) scanned the introduction for you, in hopes that you'll want to go get the book and start writing for yourself. one of the best things eggers says in this introduction is that everyone should write a memoir - not so that it will be published, but so that you can leave your legacy. so that your children and your children's children will know that you lived an incredible life. no matter how mundane the details, each human experience is imbued with thoughts, situations and people who other generations will find profoundly insightful and interesting. do it because one day you will die, and without that record, all we will know is your name and the number of years that you lived. just as we wished we knew more about our grandparents and our great grandparents before, we write to know where we came from, and maybe where we are going.
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