As a memoirist, do you accept that your family, your friends and your acquaintances are characters in your story? Easy, proven tips for adding feelings to a memoir

As a memoirist, do you accept that your family, your friends and your acquaintances are characters in your story? Easy, proven tips for adding feelings to a memoir
Many memoir writers are under the impression that you need to have an extensive vocabulary to write. An extensive vocabulary can only help you–if by “extensive” you mean many precise words—not just “big” ones. More important is using precise language. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
Many memoir writers are under the impression that you need to have an extensive vocabulary to write. An extensive vocabulary can only help you–if by “extensive” you mean many precise words—not just “big” ones. More important is using precise language. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
Over the years, I have found that the concepts of destiny and fate, which explained so many things for Greeks in the centuries before the Christian era also explains so much about the characters of a memoir.
The November is Memoir Writing Month program will be back on November 1, 2020. Meanwhile, why not go to our overview of writing resources? It will direct you to the programs and materials—many are free—you can most use at this time in your memoir-writing journey.Whatever you do today, write a bit on your memoir. November […]
My most recent book, A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage, made its way to publication. To launch it, as many readers know, I created an advanced reader community and was able to gather 90+ people who volunteered to write a review for Amazon.
I’m finished writing the text for my next book, A Sugary Frosting/A Memoir of A Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage. What follows is a synopsis of what I am doing to promote the book so that its natural audience is aware of it.
Note: This is the 2nd article in a series of 4 on the writing process of A Sugary Frosting published in 2016.
Post 1: I Finish A Sugary Frosting: Notes on the Memoir Writing Process
Post 2: Mechanics of Writing a Memoir: It’s not all Inspiration
Post 3: Preparing for A Successful Book Launch
Post 4: Better Book Production is Possible
The mechanics of writing a memoir involve the work of writing a story and how life can insert delays & provide contemplative times, yet leave time left to write.
I started to write the memoir seriously in May of 2015. Since I continued to be active in the daily running of my business, The Memoir Network, I could commit myself only to writing 30 minutes a day—but, and this is important, to show up every day for the writing. 30 minutes a day may not seem like much, but it adds up to 3 1/2 hours a week. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
Note: This is the 1starticle in a series of 4 on the writing process of A Sugary Frosting published in 2016.
Post 1: I Finish A Sugary Frosting: Notes on the Memoir Writing Process
Post 2: Mechanics of Writing a Memoir: It’s not all Inspiration
Post 3: Preparing for A Successful Book Launch
Post 4: Better Book Production is Possible
It’s 2016, and I am in the very last days of the memoir process and polishing A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage, the early lifestory of my deceased spouse, Martha Blowen. It’s a time to make sure I have written what I want to write and to check grammar and spelling before it goes out to a copy editor.
I had promised Martha that I would write her stories so that our grandchildren would know something about her. In May 2015, I began gathering the stories she had written of her life. My intent was to create a booklet of these stories. But, to be honest, it has never appealed to me to write booklets. I like to write books. That’s what I do and that’s what I do well.
As I read through Martha’s stories, in a few instances, I understood that some were fragmentary and needed filling out. I knew the story she was trying to convey but then I had lived with her for 31 years. Would someone who did not know her—our grandchildren, for instance—appreciate the tale? So, I tweaked the stories to make them more complete, more meaningful. Good work, I thought.
Then there were all the other stories that she had not written that I knew to be important to her and that I felt our grandchildren would want to know. I had heard Martha’s stories many, many times and so it was not hard for me to write them. Soon I had composed more stories then Martha had left behind. Well, why not write these down, too—so I wrote them.
Now the stories were adding up to a life, to a memoir.
As I am always urging anyone who works with me whether in coaching, in editing, or in ghostwriting, I created a memory list. This is a list of any and all memories related to a topic. It is both a fantastic recall exercise and an organizer for a memoir.
As you can imagine, A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage inevitably began to grow and grow. Soon it was well beyond the booklet stage. I continued writing, realizing I was creating a full-length memoir. As I wrote, there arose the standard question of where does the memoir end, where does this memoir of Martha’s early life come to an end. There was a natural curve to her story – and that was the life she had spent with her parents in the parsonage. After that, she lived a different life energy. (I write about life phases on my blog and why they are so important in memoir writing.)
I identified two things as interesting in the story. One was that it portrayed the story of a subculture in America in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s—in this instance, life in an Anglo-Protestant parsonage. A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage was also a necessary prelude to a series of two journals that I will publish in the next year or two. These journals, which are collations of Martha’s and my journals, are about the two years after Martha had been stricken with intraductal breast cancer and during which it progressed through her body. These journals are full of her illness, her resistance, and her time of acceptance. This was, of course, my time, too, of resistance and acceptance.
Martha died on August 18, 2008. There was a long time during which I was unable to write about her. Eventually, however, after a couple of years, I was able to work on her journals and her stories. I created a book of the first year from the two journals she and I had kept. The book of the second year is still in process.
My original intent had been to make these two journal books my next publishing project. But when I thought about it, I felt these journal manuscripts had something missing. What was missing, I believe, was a large historical context – “historical” meaning her earlier life: what context did she come out of? What influences had marked her for life?
I will write more about the memoir writing process in the next post.
[A Sugary Frosting was published in both hardcopy and e-version on March 30, 2016. I welcome any reader who is interested in writing a review for A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage to be in touch with me for a complimentary e-copy.]
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
Why does a Book Tour Work? It does so because it allows people to know, like and trust you—essential characteristics of any selling and buying relationship. Why a Book Tour Works is an original contribution to LinkedIn’s Pulse. Pulse is a blog on LinkedIn for people to post on topics of their expertise. The post […]
If you want to learn how to write vividly, use the following tips for avoiding vagueness in writing your memoir. When a manuscript slips into a vagueness, the reader reads and rereads and does not quite “get it.”
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