Naked, Drunk, and Writing: Shed Your Inhibitions and Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay

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 Whats Your Angle?  34          YOU HAVE A SUBJECTBUT 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 YOURE 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 Doesnt  148          IDENTIFY YOUR DESIRE LINE AND OBSTACLES | 148            DETERMINE THE PIVOTAL EVENTS | 151          DRAW THE ARC | 154            STRENGTHEN THE ARC | 158          WHY ITS 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