But I still don’t want to read what most people have to say about themselves if it’s just to tell their story. I want it to be art, meaning that I want it transformed, juxtaposed, collaged – worked on like metal sculpture, each sentence hammered, gleaming, honed. For me, the sentence is where it’s at – the way the story’s told – not simply the story behind the language. The action of telling is fine: kudos for you and your confession, your therapy, your bravery in releasing your story to the public. But telling is performing, even if it seems effortless. […] Given the endless possibilities of the sentence on the page, I expect to see a little fucking craft. I guess I want awareness, a sense that the writer has reckoned with the self, the material, as well as what it means to reveal it, and how secrets are revealed, how stories are told, that it’s not just being simply told. In short, it must make something of it self.
Of course some lives – many even, and most, if not all – are interesting when looked at closely enough, and preferably with an angle of refraction or reflection. But the memoirified superreal liveblogging culture in which we live has suggested to us – readers made writers, we are all potential content creators, even if we no longer have the time or inclination to actually read – that we should ourselves, unmodulated, automatically matter to strangers. – Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir, Ander Monson