Under Construction - MHWA Retreat

Some people argue that memoirs are self-indulgent and exploitative. Do you agree or disagree with those people? Why?

I guess they could be but not necessarily. I think writers of memoirs are courageous for sharing their personal journey with the rest of the world, no matter what that journey looks like. They could be exploitative if it's written by some celebrity who isn't popular anymore as a way of getting attention or something but I haven't read (or heard) of any celebrity memoir of this kind yet. I believe celebrities are the targeted group for this kind of business though. For example, I've read that Lana Del Rey is preparing her book of poetry (not songs) to be published. She shared random snippets (nothing special from what I've read) and I don't think poetry book is something she really needs as a star because she is already an amazing songwriter, a singer, an admirable one. Sure, poetry book isn't a memoir, maybe I'm getting off of the topic here, but I just want to explain how a celebrity can easily go and write a book for literally no reason.

Would you ever consider writing a memoir based on your life? Why or why not? What would you include or exclude?

This was the main reason why I joined WdC- I wanted to write a biographical novel about my cruise ship experience from the point of a crew member. I thought that was a really good idea because I didn't run into many books of the same sort back in 2013. When I did NaNo in 2015 I realized that's not going to be as easy as I thought it would be not because I couldn't write a 50k novel (I did) but because of WHAT I wrote about. What I once thought would help to get it off of my chest it only made me feel worse. There was nothing inspiring, interesting, fun in all that mess so the story that is still locked in my portfolio here on WdC will never see the daylight. I wouldn't have the strength to do that to myself and the people I encountered on that journey.

Have you ever read any memoirs? If so, which ones have been your favorites? Are there any memoirs on your to-read list?

The one biographical story I've read as a part of the school literature was "The Zoo Station" (in German "Wir Kinder won Bahnhof Zoo"). It was written by a woman who went through child prostitution and drug abuse at the age of 14 in the '70s in Berlin. The book stayed with me to this day because it definitely formed my opinion about drug abuse. I did read "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank and "Memoirs of Geisha" as well.
If I am to pick up biographies from the shelf, it would probably be by someone who succeeded in life regarding business like Steve Jobs maybe or Elon Musk.