Writing About Your Life

Title: Writing About Your Life
Author: William Zinsser
Publisher: Da Capo Press

I picked up this book a few weeks ago to help me loosen up at the keyboard, to journal better, and to blog better. If you read this blog frequently you know I need all the help I can get! While Writing About Your Life is more about writing memoir than blog articles, I’ve still found it a huge help, and hugely entertaining.

William Zinsser is the author of On Writing Well, which is widely respected as the classic guide to writing non-fiction. He started his career at the New York Herald Tribune, has written for a number of magazines and has 17 books in publication. He has a lot of knowledge to share about writing, to say the least. But while the writing advice that he gives is fantastic, my favorite thing about Writing About Your Life is that he uses examples from his own writing to illustrate his discussion points. He interrupts his own fantastically written memoirs to explain why he chose to use certain bits of his story, or how he made certain decisions for the piece. The memoirs are so engrossing that after I finish a chapter I have to go back through and re-read the skill sections – I become so interested in the stories he’s telling I forget I’m supposed to be learning! I can already see that this is a book I’ll be revisiting many more times to come.