Adair Lara

Part I: Writing Down Your Stories 1
one That Which Is Most Personal Is Most Common 2
two Hot Heart, Cold Eye: The Inconvenient Importance of Craft 8
Part II: The Personal Essay 11
three Elements of the Successful Essay 12 KEEP IT SMALL | 13 WHAT QUESTION DRIVES YOUR ESSAY? | 14
WRITE ABOUT THE MOMENT SOMETHING CHANGED | 15
BUILD THE ESSAY | 19
OUTLINE THE ESSAY | 22 WRITE THE EPIPHANY | 24
four What’s Your Angle? 34 YOU HAVE A SUBJECT—BUT DO YOU HAVE AN ANGLE? | 35
HOW TO FIND AN ANGLE | 37
HOW TO USE SETUP | 40

Part III: Techniques and Practices for Essay and Memoir 43
five Tone: How to Assert a Specific Temperament 45
ARE YOU FUNNY? | 47
BE A SCREWUP | 54
WATCH YOUR TONE | 56
FINDING YOUR VOICE: DO YOU SOUND LIKE YOU? | 59
six Image: The Luminosity of the Particular 62
USE YOUR SENSES | 65
BUILD IMAGES WITH SPECIFIC DETAILS | 69
THE DREAD NECESSITY OF INNER EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE | 75
seven How to Trick Yourself into Writing 80 APPLY PART A (BUTT) TO PART B (CHAIR) | 82
WRITE EVERY DAY | 85
NO TIME TO WRITE? CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY | 86
LOWER YOUR STANDARDS | 87
eight It Takes a Village: Working with Other Writers 90
HOW WRITING PARTNERS MAKE YOU WRITE | 91 HOW THE WRITING PARTNERSHIP WORKS | 93
TAKE CLASSES | 96 JOIN A GROUP | 98
FEEDBACK: HOW TO GIVE IT | 100
FEEDBACK: HOW TO TAKE IT | 104
nine Revising Rewriting Your Work 108
STEP BACK FROM YOUR DRAFT | 110 FIX THE BEGINNING | 112
FIX THE ENDING | 114
FIX IN GENERAL | 116 FIX THE SENTENCES | 121 HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOU’RE FINISHED? | 126
Part IV: The Memoir 127 ten Planning Your Memoir 128 WILL YOUR IDEA WORK? | 129 USE REFLECTIVE VOICE | 134
DO YOUR REASEARCH| 141 ORGANIZE YOUR MATERIAL | 144 WRITE A DISCOVERY DRAFT | 145
eleven What Goes In, What Doesn’t 148 IDENTIFY YOUR DESIRE LINE AND OBSTACLES | 148
DETERMINE THE PIVOTAL EVENTS | 151 DRAW THE ARC | 154
STRENGTHEN THE ARC | 158 WHY IT’S CALLED CREATIVE NONFICTION | 163
HIRE AN EDITOR | 164 CONSIDER A NONCONVENTIONAL STRUCTURE | 166
twelve How to Write Narration and Scene 168 THE USES OF NARRATION | 168 WRITE COMPELLING SCENES | 170
BRING YOUR MOM TO LIFE | 175 USE DIALOGUE | 180

Part V: Getting Published 183
thirteen Words for Money: Selling Your Essays 184 WHERE TO FIND A MARKET | 188
HOW TO FIND HOOKS | 193
A WORD ABOUT RIGHTS | 195 HOW TO SUBMIT | 196 HOW TO HANDLE REJECTIONS | 200
HOW TO HANDLE ACCEPTANCES | 202
GET YOUR WORK OUT THERE | 203
fourteen Publishing Your Memoir 204
FIND AN AGENT | 205
PREPARE TO OBSESS OVER THE QUERY LETTER | 207 PUT TOGETHER THE PROPOSAL | 209
YOUR NEW JOB: PROMOTING YOUR BOOK | 213 SHOULD YOU SELF-PUBLISH? | 215 WHAT IF MOM READS IT? | 218
CONSIDER YOUR OPTIONS | 220
What You Get When You Write from Life 225
Appendix 231
READING LIST | 231
USEFUL TEXTS | 231
WRITING EXERCISES | 232
TRICKS OF THE (COMPUTER) TRADE | 241
Contributors 243
Index 244
About the Author 248