Category Archives: Laos

Memoir Writing: No. 1 Wallowing

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Step One in writing a memoir is to acknowledge that you have a lot of stuff; you’re not sure where it is or where it will go but you know you have it.

Step Two, start rounding up the stuff.

No — No — No.

That’s all wrong.

Before you start gathering all the stuff, write an outline … on paper … in pencil.

I recommend paper so you don’t wear out your backspace key. Or your printer’s ink cartridge.

The outline for this puppy is going to change a hundred times … the first day.

Okay, so BEFORE you outline, just jot down ideas … in no particular order. Stuff you want to remember. Incidents. People. Places. (This jotting down process can be lengthy, and I recommend using a steno pad or a three-ring note binder. The steno pad is easier to carry around.)

My first list went something like this: Memoir … for kids … Laos after expelled from Viet-Nam … draft status … mugged in Bangkok … Hotel Constellation … crotch rot / writing in underwear. WHERE ARE JOURNALS. START THERE.

And so on.

During my 1991 effort to organize things, I compiled my handwritten lists and typed them into a computer file named “Elements.” The header for the file read “EVERYTHING THAT COUILD POSSIBLY GO INTO THE BOOK.” That file was later subsumed into a file named “Plan,” and on it went.

Elements_Everything Better

I believe in wallowing. Just soaking up information and generating impressions. I keep doing it until I get bored. Then I stop and try to find something constructive to do. Or move on to another project.

So, Step No. 1 to writing a memoir is to wallow in information, impressions, and sensations. Also, alcohol.

(To be continued.)

Memoir Writing: A How-To

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A funny thing happened on the way to my conversion from reporter/columnist to fiction writer: I wrote a memoir.

It was unintended, which is to say, never intended, never planned, never imagined.

But my wife made a special request, and, well, here we are.

First, I’m old but not that old. Which is to say, I do have some things I remember.

Second, I thought I had something worth remembering and writing about. You see, while other men of my age cohort in the Baby Boomer Generation were moving heaven and earth to avoid the draft and stay out of the ugly, bitterly divisive and deadly war in Viet-Nam, as a second year student in college I actively pursued that goal, to witness the war from Vietnamese eyes. That out of the ordinary experience, while not unique, was worth remembering, especially since it involved getting kicked out of Viet-Nam and spending two years in Southeast Asia.

Over the years, I tried unsuccessfully — really unsuccessfully — to write up the 10 or 12 most interesting stories from that formative period. Eventually I let it drop and the boxes of journals, notes and books from that era filled the least accessible storage space in our basement. (Photo of the boxes coming to a post soon.)

Third, as I was struggling to learn the ins and outs of novel writing — it’s harder than it looks, even for a long-time journalist who knows his way around a dictionary — life handed my family one of those crises that make everything (and I mean everything) pale in comparison. My concentration went out the window, and I simply could not write one more detail that needed to be invented.

My wife’s solution: Pick up the memoir again. You don’t need to make anything up. You just have to remember.

Thank you, honey. That was good advice.

And so, about a year later, I wrapped up HIDDEN WAR: A Memoir of the CIA’s Secret Crusade in Laos.

And here’s how I did it:

(To be continued.)

BTW, we weathered the crisis, and I am now immersed in rewriting the first book in what I expect will be the Demon series: Mark of the Spider. It’s coming along nicely — all right, in fits and starts — but I’m back on fiction.