Bad Writing Habits

A word to the wise, or the would-be wise, out there. There is a very common pitfall that memoirists run into, so I thought I'd save everyone out there some wasted time by addressing it. I call it the Summary Syndrome. I can't tell you how many would-be memoirists out there, whose work I have read, tend to tell their stories like this:

I think life is bla bla bla. I really got in touch with this feeling during the past few years when I bla bla bla, and it's been touching. Deeply touching. I'm just immersed in the profundity of bla bla bla. I probably learned all this back when I was seventeen years old and got kidnapped by sailors, then left on a deserted island to die, then fell in a well, then was rescued by a team of geologists, then fell in love with one of them, had his baby, got cancer, got cured, and built up a fortune 500 company from scratch that distributes my famous cancer cure. Now that I recline here in my hammock on my private island it occurs to me that bla bla bla and the world is bla bla bla. I'm so glad I bla bla bla. 

What I'm saying is that folks tend to summarize the best, most eventful, parts of their lives, sometimes in a single sentence, while the rest of the book rambles on about philosophy. Philosophy is great, folks, but it needs to be incorporated into the action of the story of your life. Don't fall for Summary Syndrome!