Don't Make It Up

The last rule of memoir club: don’t make it up. If you don’t remember or you don’t have artifacts, ask everyone around you. Take this opportunity to interview all the crushes you ever had. Small details trigger other memories or might lead to questions that wouldn’t normally arise. (Why didn’t you take me to prom? Did we smoke weed and THEN go to Subway or go to Subway and then smoke weed?) Details are important and getting them right is what makes writing good. This is your life but there were witnesses and they can help piece together what happened. It’s not always what you think or what you remember.

JAIME LOWE