Kindle Notes & Highlights
the thing they all have in common is that you—the human behind the writer—are the protagonist and/or the narrator in each piece you will produce.
By actively looking for meaning in your writing practice, you are effectively formulating a kind of personal manifesto substantiating your values and beliefs, which you can revisit and add to as time goes on and your writing practice develops.
Self-writing which is designed to be published and read is about telling our stories for the reader’s sake instead of purely for ourselves.
The autobiography writer, on the other hand, needs to write in a style that represents the truth of what really happened in a way which sustains the reader’s interest—even when all the facts aren’t necessarily interesting. The emphasis is on setting the record straight.
Whereas the point of memoir and autobiography is to tell our life stories, whether literally or literarily, reflective writing hinges on our thoughts and thought processes, the way we learn, the way knowledge changes us, and our emotional and intellectual responses to the things we bear witness to.
The aim is to communicate a story from your life that has a theme of social significance which readers will be able to relate to.
