“We hope for a linear method of writing. Do A, B, C, and voilá—your memoir is before you, sprung like a cake from a pan. But look at your life: A often doesn’t lead to B or C. And that’s what makes it compelling—how things worked out in the wrong places or were a disaster when they were supposed to bring happiness. . . . And because life is not linear, you want to approach writing memoir sideways, using the deepest kind of thinking to sort through the layers: you want reflection to discover what the real connections are.”
—Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
