Maya Angelou had a tough life. Like absolutely horrible. She enjoyed the little things in life more than I would if I was going through what she did. Maya was raped and abused. And she blamed herself for it. She blamed herself for her rapists death. She traveled unwillingly. She just had a messed up, complicated life. But, in the end of all of her struggles came a great Memoir.
How can I even start to write a memoir without those struggles? I'm growing up in a loving safe household. We always have just the right amount of money and I don't worry about my safety to much. If I'm not struggling, how can I make my memoir interesting? I would have to talk about the main struggle in my life, which compared to so many authors is nothing. I will have to learn how to incorporate excruciating detail into every single thing I tell about my life.
I can learn a lot from Maya Angelou. Her persistence in life throughout her hardships inspire me to fight hard regardless the circumstance. She learned to make the nice parts of her life super interesting to read, which I can use when writing my own memoir. She uses interesting details with everything she writes and uses topics or events to go into other events smoothly. She makes her writing interesting whether its a good or bad experience. I need to learn from this book how to take my good experiences and make them entertaining for everyone.
In the end, Maya Angelou's struggles taught me, as well as many other people what a good memoir consists of. Not just hardships, but a good, descriptive way of writing. I thing we can all learn to value our privileged lives just like Maya continued to value hers regardless.
In terms of making the memoir interesting, I think it's key to remember that Angelou could have had this same life but been a careless writer. Then her story would not be as amazing. Likewise, you can have a pretty stable life, but if you are a great writer, using literary devices, you can tell a powerful story, even from a place of privilege.
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