What Am I Writing?

As I work on my memoirs, I’ve been struggling with the designation. Is it memoir or memoirs? Or is it neither?

Actually, I’ve already answered that last question to my satisfaction. Although my intent is to cover my entire life using a loose chronological structure, the manuscript (or manuscripts, as I explain below) does jump forward and back at times. It is an informal account that keys in on my emotional reactions to those “small” moments that had a significant psychological effect on me. In addition, the first part has a theme based on my identity as a preacher’s kid. So my work in progress is memoir, or memoirs, rather than an autobiography.

But that still leaves the first question unanswered: memoir or memoirs? I hear the two used interchangeably and find myself doing so, too. Even dictionary definitions tell me that they mean the same thing. Researching the issue, however, I came across two blog posts that, while not necessarily authoritative, provide a distinction that works for me.¹ According to them, writing “a memoir” means you are focusing on a particular aspect of your life, while writing “my memoirs” means you are covering your life to date. That doesn’t necessarily make it an autobiography, however, since an autobiography focuses on facts while memoirs look at the author’s memories and highlight the feelings and reactions those memories and experiences produce.

So I’m writing both a memoir and my memoirs. I’m splitting my memories into two parts—one from my growing up years when I was saddled with the unwanted distinction of being a preacher’s kid, and one from college on where I learned to create my own identity. Part I is clearly a memoir, singular, and the two together are my memoirs, plural.

But I still don’t know whether I should tell people I’m writing a memoir or my memoirs.

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¹ See http://memoirmind.blogspot.com/2016/09/memoir-vs-memoirs.html and www.albertflynndesilver.com/blog/memoir-as-opposed-to-my-memoirs/ (both accessed 8/4/19).