Augusten Burroughs
"Stop thinking about all the reasons you have not to write your memoir and what people in your family might think and just get busy writing it."
— Augusten Burroughs
for Creatives | artist integrity, creative fear, writing, feedback/criticism/rejection, memoir, Augusten Burroughs
"You can't lie to yourself if you're going to be a memoirist. Our personal failures and limitations and weak or fragile spots are the most interesting things to read about. Again, it comes back to telling the truth as opposed to the thing we wish were true or ought to be true or assume at first glance to be true. I think a memoirist really has to be willing to—not necessarily comfortable with—revealing their deepest emotions, motivations, and actions on the page for anyone to view and judge."
— Augusten Burroughs
for Creatives | creating isn't easy, artist integrity, writing, feedback/criticism/rejection, memoir, Augusten Burroughs
"My books are always a process of discovery. I almost never have any idea what I'm doing until I'm actually doing it. In fact, I think every time I've had a plan or an idea, it has been entirely sidelined by whatever I uncover while writing."
— Augusten Burroughs
for Creatives | intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, pantsing vs. plotting, novel writing, creating in the moment, Augusten Burroughs
"As a general rule, I won't ever cut anything because I feel it makes me 'look bad' or is personally humiliating. I am impervious to those considerations. I lack a sense of personal discretion or protection in my work because I feel like, if this is what I do for a living, I have to do it 100 percent or not at all."
— Augusten Burroughs
for Creatives | artist integrity, creative fear, writing, editing, feedback/criticism/rejection, Augusten Burroughs
"I don't think one has to have a 'dysfunctional childhood' in order to write a fascinating memoir, but there definitely needs to be something. And that 'something' could even be a gift for the observation of tiny, daily life."
— Augusten Burroughs
for Creatives | artist in the art, writing, artists must EXPERIENCE, memoir, Augusten Burroughs
"Memoir is not court stenography. But neither should it be fiction."
— Augusten Burroughs
for Creatives | literary fiction, nonfiction, writing, memoir, Augusten Burroughs
"Thrilling as it may be to read about something extraordinary and entirely foreign to our own experience, it's also wonderful to encounter ourselves on the page, to feel the rush of 'that's me, exactly!'"
— Augusten Burroughs