Bad Boy Post #2

As I was thinking about what I might write my memoir about, I began to wonder how authors choose that.  How exactly does one decide what parts of their life they could write a memoir to include?  My guess would be that one thing to consider is, is it a topic you can write a lot about?  You would probably want to choose something you have a lot of experience with so you’ll have a lot of things to say about it.  I’m not quite sure if you’d want to pick something you have particularly strong opinions about, because on one hand that could end up turning it into something more reminiscent of a persuasive essay.  On the other hand, it might be a good thing because then the reader learns more about you and you give them something to consider.  Another thing I’m wondering is, do the things you write about need to be related?  In Bad Boy, Myers connects most of the topics he mentions in one way or another.  They all fit it with each other.  Two things I considered writing a lot about in my memoir are figuring out what friends really are, and music.  Both of these things have been constants in my life, even though they’re almost entirely unrelated.  As I said in my previous post, I don’t really think a lot of the things in my life would form a coherent story if I were to write about them.  I’m not entirely sure if they need to, though I get the feeling they probably should, since it won’t really be a good read if they don’t.  I’m also wondering if the things you write about need to have some kind of meaning to them, or leave a message for your reader.  I’m not sure the topic of music would do that.  Sure, it tells about how I’ve changed over the years, but it’s not really a super deep topic.  It’s just my music taste.  I suppose I could use it as a way to tell about what kind of person I am, but I’m honestly not sure.  I guess it does tell a lot about my influences when I was younger, and I could probably make a story out of that if I included some other elements.  Those other elements would be very different, probably, which takes me back to my earlier question: Does everything in a memoir have to be related to some kind of central idea?