Wait a minute! Maybe it is the Cuban Missile Crisis, or some similar event of historical importance. If so, you must be accurate. Punctiliously accurate. You cannot make shit up.
But what if it's just your life you're writing about? Can you make shit up if there are gaps in your memory, and you can't, or can't be bothered to, find out what actually happened? Who would know or care?
When I began working on my memoir Love Child, someone asked me, "So, are you going to interview your family?" Weirdly, the thought hadn't occurred to me. "Yes!" I said, since "no" seemed to be an unacceptable answer. Clearly that's what I was supposed to do: find out what actually happened when I hit gaps in my memory or my understanding.
So, good girl that I’d raised myself to be, I did. There was this awful Thanksgiving which my sister Anjelica tried desperately to make a happy family occasion. I asked her why it was so awful, and she didn't even remember it had happened. There was the time when my stepmother put all my stuff out in the driveway because of a dispute over where I was going to live, and neither she nor Anjelica could remember what the argument was about.
Well, that didn't work.
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