Add Depth To Your Memoir
It’s time to add depth to your memoir. Here are links to five information-packed articles that are sure to make you think more deeply about your writing—and help you in the important task of re-writing your stories and vignettes so that they form a more coherent and meaningful whole. (more…)
Don’t Wait To Write Your Story!
It is later than you think. In the years I have been helping people write memoirs, I have seen people die and people grow too old. The energy not only to write deeply but to write a memoir at all has been lost to them; their stories have been lost. We go through our days […]
Truth in Your Memoir – Three Tips For Including Safe “Guess-timates”
When writing a memoir or family history, you will inevitably come across bits of information that you want to include, but which you cannot verify… (more…)
Memoir Ghostwriter – Five Questions to Ask When Interviewing
Working with a memoir ghostwriter can bring you great joy as you collaborate to produce the book you have so long dreamed of. On the other hand, it can be a nightmare. Here are five questions to ask the references your writer has given you about working with him or her. (more…)
2 Causes of Memoir Writer’s Block: Not Telling the Truth or Writing Unimportant Material
Many writers suffer from writer’s block, yet few understand—and much less resolve—its possible causes. There are a number of reasons that contribute to difficulty—especially blockage—in writing. In memoir writing, the infamous “writer’s block” can result from avoidance—that is, you don’t want to deal with uncomfortable material and so you “block.” (more…)
How to Solve a Wrong Narrator Problem
This was created as I struggled with choosing the narrator’s voice for a memoir on my early life. The memoir had been stalled by simply not having the right voice. (more…)
Who Cares About My Memoir?
Have you ever asked, “Who cares about my memoir?” A perennial, and perhaps inherent, challenge every memoir writer faces is that of audience. Specifically, every writer is saddled with the incapacitating doubt that there is an audience for his/her memoir. (more…)
100 years: July 21, 1921 to July 21, 2021
Today is the centennial anniversary of my mother’s birth. Her life offers a typical Franco-American story. Lucille Verreault Ledoux was born on July 21, 1921. She lived until May 5, 2015—just shy of 94 years. I have written extensively about her life both here on the blog and in the memoir we wrote together, We […]
Dialog in a memoir: “So what did you say?”
Dialog is important in a memoir because it allows us to “hear” the subject, but using dialog is also fraught with problems. It can throw your memoir off. Pitfalls of using dialogue in a memoir Essentially, most writers use dialog that is too long. A memoir, of course, is a remembered story. When the writer […]