The Memoir Writer’s Blog is our on-line magazine. It contains a collection of over 500 stories and articles to inspire you to be a better and more prolific writer and provides the technical knowledge and practice to make this happen.
You can make a success of your memoir writing.
We ought to know: we have worked with thousands of people and have been centrally involved in the production of hundreds of published memoirs.
We’re not going say it’s easy to write a memoir, but we are most definitely going to affirm that you can do it. Huge numbers of people write and finish their memoirs every year. Many have gotten their start by studying the Memoir Writer’s Blog. These people are, for the most part, just like you, people who started to write one day and persevered to the end.
I have learned so much from your blog. There is content for every issue and need a writer might have. Thank you for being so generous with your information.
—Mark Manzone
a memoir writer who is still at it!
Let the Memoir Writer’s Blog—which is our online magazine as well as our online memoir university—help you start, write, finish and publish your memoir as it has helped many others. Go from wannabe to published writer.
Just-in-time learning
The beauty of the Memoir Writer’s Blog is that you can access the information as you need it. Our blog is “just in time learning” at its best.
Before you know it, you will have a memoir in hand—a memoir that you will be proud to share.
If you want to know about what other services we provide besides the Memoir Writer’s Blog, click here.
NB: We also offer a Memoir Professional Blog for people who wish to teach, coach, edit or ghostwrite memoirs.
Memoir Writer’s Blog Posts
Why You Should—and How to—Write Strategically!
Ought memoir writers to write strategically?
We writers are artists. Most of us cultivate inspiration and are happy when we are under its influence. However, there is no one reading this who is unaware that writing can be pick-and-shovel work and it can be hard going sometimes—there are days when we would rather clean out the garage or the refrigerator than sit down to write. So…why not make the most of our work and learn how to write strategically?
We all love inspiration, but the problem with inspiration is that, while it can make the experience of writing today an excellent one, inspiration does not concern itself with the need we may have to think of our writing in a practical way. For instance, if I have something to say, how can I best approach making my statement available to the largest audience possible or to derive from the writing the best support? Another “for instance” is how can this writing support me financially? (While financial support may seem farfetched to some readers of this blog, it is possible.)
Examples of how to write strategically
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
How to Write a Successful Memoir: One Memoir Writer’s Experience
Congratulations to author Dennis Blue who received the 2019 Christian Indie Award in the business category for Through the Eyes of a Fisherman. Dennis is truly one of those authors who was a pleasure to work with. He brought much thoughtfulness to bear on his task, and we are so proud to see his efforts rewarded. I recently had the opportunity to interview him about his experience writing his recent books, Running the Good Race and Through the Eyes of a Fisherman. I am pleased to share his “One Memoir Writer’s Experience.” —DL
Talking with Dennis Blue about his writing
Denis Ledoux: Can you tell our readers what your book is about and why you were impelled to write your book? What was driving you to spend the time, energy and money to get this book out into the world?
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Instead of A Writing Prompt – Five Tips for Creating a Memory List
As people are writing a memoir they will sometimes say, “I want to write my stories but I have forgotten so many details. Is there any way I can get them back? Should I use writing prompts or is there something instead of a writing prompt?”
There is one tool above all others that makes the experience of life writing successful. That tool is not a writing prompt: it is the Memory List. No other exercise opens up the process of life writing as quickly and as surely as the thoughtful and thorough compilation of such a list. It’s simple, and as a first step, it’s crucial.
Let me tell you about the Memory List (a general term for your list of memories).
Your Memory List is always a work in process because the more you remember and jot down, the more you’ll recall. You will return to and rework your list again and again as you write your life stories. In short, it will serve as an excellent writing prompt without being a writing prompt.
1. The Memory List consists of short memory notes (three to five words is sufficient) of people, events, relationships, thoughts, feelings, things—anything—from your past.
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Writing a Non-Fiction Book
Writing a non-fiction book is possible!
A common lament, I hear from writers goes like this, “I wanted a book, and I got off to a good start writing a memoir. I’ve always wanted to write a book, but then I just stopped. I don’t know why.”
What I have sometimes found is that people approach memoir-writing as an easy access to becoming “an author.”
“It’s my life after all,” people say. “I ought to know enough about myself to write a memoir without too much of a problem.”
Well, yes and no. It’s clearly your life, but feeling your way through it deeply enough to write about it with any insight, is not a sure thing.
“My own book”—the words convey an excitement and an importance that can be satisfying. And the memoir seemed an entrance, but the fact is that some people may not have the sensibility to write a memoir or may not be ready in their experience of their lives to undertake the project.
A special phrase–“My own book”
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Core Focus for Writing a Memoir
DL: While this post is geared to those individuals who are writing memoir for family and friends, if truth be told, this post will also be of great help to those who are writing memoir for a larger audience. Core Focus for Writing Memoir is about basics.
Five Tips for Focus for Writing Memoir!
Is your family one of the many whose history is at risk for getting lost to future generations because no one has written it down?
Writing your lifestories—even just a few—is a great way to memorialize your family and to keep the experience of your life—and theirs—from being forgotten. The details you take for granted or consider obvious will most likely be lost to the next generation unless you make the effort to record them in writing.
Writing down a memory and sharing it with others is a way to celebrate your life and your family. Writing a memoir is not as hard as some people think—anyone who is willing to follow the few simple steps I will outline below will be off to a great start at writing autobiography or family history, but ou must focus for writing a memoir. More and more people—in fact, many who, at first, think they can’t—are succeeding at exploring, honoring and preserving their pasts in this way.
Follow these five tips for remembering and writing a pleasing and meaningful lifestory that will honor both your family and yourself and create a legacy for your children—or even the world.
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
The Work of Writing a Memoir Can Be Hard: Do it!
No one said it would be easy to do the work of writing a memoir!
“Writing is hard,” you realize again as you look at your production for the day. “Perhaps I’m not cut out for this work of writing a memoir.”
To your dismay, you have been writing in snippets for many days now. In the mornings, when you show up at your laptop—later and later it seems, you must face, as does every writer, a demanding master: your daily writing. Why can’t writing be more fun? Why can’t it be—well, to tell the truth—less hard?
Oh, how you wish it were the end of your scheduled writing period for the day! Why did you think you could do this book-writing thing!
“Whom am I kidding?” [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
How Memoir Coaching or Editing Works
There’s often only a permeable line between memoir coaching and editing. In practice, as we writers at the Memoir Network work with a writer, we find myself slipping from coaching a memoir writer to editing the manuscript we are working with and back to coaching. That’s how organically close coaching and editing really are. Depending on the state of your manuscript, coaching or editing or both are called for.
Choosing memoir coaching or editing–How it works
Generally, I, or the editor who has been assigned to you, read sections of your manuscript—say 20-30 pages—and return this edited portion to you with comments and suggestions—and sometimes edits [also known as suggested corrections]. All our notes are done in Microsoft Text Edit—which you can learn in minutes. Manuscripts are returned as an attachment—but snail mail can work well, too, but it is too slow for most people.
I find working on a short segment of your manuscript—20- to 30 pages—to be more effective for contributing to the quality of the memoir than reading the entire text. Sometimes, of course, I have a question on, say, page 17 and then you might protest, “But, this is answered on page 85! You haven’t read the whole manuscript yet!” [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Do not waffle in telling the truth
“I have permission [as a memoir writer] not to waffle in my writing,” I was recently informed by a memoir writer.
“Not to waffle” somehow missed the point for me.
Certainly, the memoir writer has permission “not to waffle,” but there is more that is incumbent on the writer. S/he has the obligation not to waffle. As memoir writers, “not to waffle” means to tell our truth about what happened. This is a must. Over the years, I have been amazed at how I can pick up waffling and how, in a workshop setting, others can too. Waffling just comes across waving a “red flag.” So…
Yeah, don’t do it!
But beyond “not to waffle” is telling the truth, the searing truth.
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
How Long Should It Take to Write a Memoir? Set a Deadline!
How Useful Is A Memoir Timeline?
Have you ever wondered, “How long should it take to write a memoir?”
One answer, of course, is that it takes as long as it takes. While so true, this answer is not useful to those writers who are trying to get their duckies in line—looking at where the time is in their schedules to write, knowing what support to ask from their life partners, etc.
I’ve come up with a calculation for those people who want some sense of how long writing a memoir might take. The following time frame is realistic for any writer who needs a timeline to complete a 200-page memoir. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]