Summary
Chapter 14 (Writing About Yourself—The Memoir): We need to narrow our focus and write something true but unique to show our personalities in memoir.
Words and Expressions
Now he can hardly believe what a liberating journey he is embarked on how much he is discovering about his father that he never understood,...
1 embarke on 从事，着手
I embarked on reading On Writing Well two weeks ago.
,and this chapter is not intended as a license to prattle just for therapy.
2 prattle v. 东拉西扯
The teacher likes prattling in the class.
Nobody but a Chinese-American woman could have made me feel what it's like to be a Chinese girl plunked down in an American kindergarten...
3 plunk down 砰地一声掉下来 （这里形容中国女孩突然移民到美国，念美国的幼儿园，给人一种因为太突然所以一下子懵掉的感觉。）
The accident plunked down in his life and he lost everything.
What Virginia Woolf intimately wrote during her lifetime has been immensely helpful to other women wrestling with similar angels and demons.
4 wrestle with 与...搏斗
He keeps wrestling with the lung cancer.
Thoughts
The best gift you have to offer when you write personal history is the gift of yourself. Give yourself permission to write about yourself, and have a good time doing it.
看到这段话，我想起学生刚刚结束的期中考试。语文的作文题目是“快乐的童年”。令人没想到的事，要求600个字，有些同学40分钟内都憋不出400个字。他们竟然在十二年的人生中找不出一个快乐的点。因为他们认为作文是为老师而写，写作要考虑老师的要求。他们从没有想过为自己写点什么。他们也许所有经历过的写作都是作业和考试中出现的。哪怕是日记也是家长要求并检查的。这些学生似乎从来没有想过写一些自己想写的，属于自己的，有关自己的。而这个写作过程中是一件愉悦的事。他们不能说，不敢说的是可以在文字中为自己发声的。也许学生们还太小，希望不久的将来，他们会发现自己是personal history中最好，最丰富的礼物。
