6 Easy Steps to Creating a Book of Memoirs
Celebrating and honoring your life by remembering and writing both big and small stories is very rewarding. It is a significant way to understand your life and to come to peace with it. Your memoirs are a legacy your family will treasure for generations–don’t you wish your grandparents had written their memoirs? Follow these simple […]
Get More Info From Your Photos–The small details for your memoir are in your photos
Look with new eyes to get more info from your photos “Where do I find more details for my memoir?” you ask. “I remember a lot and I’ve done my Memory List, but where are the small stuff I need to ground my memoir—and possibly provide new insights?” (more…)
Core Focus for Writing a 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? Here is a clear focus for writign a memoir Writing your lifestories—even just a few—is a great way to memorialize your family and to keep the experience of your life—and […]
Which to Write: Memoir or Autobiographical Fiction? There is a Difference!
Should I write memoir or autobiographical fiction? I sometimes get asked this and I have to confess that my reaction is firm. I don’t believe particularly in an either/or possibility. There is a clear difference—a chasm really—between the choice of memoir or autobiographical fiction. While one has a choice to write one or the other, […]
Writing Your First Draft: Every Memoir Starts That Way!
Writing Your First Draft Give yourself permission to write a rough first draft. Write pages and pages in which you describe the who, the what, the where and the when of the story. Later, as you rework the piece, the why will be written in. (more…)
Show and not Tell: Don’t Tell Us About Your Characters—Show Them Walking Across the Page!
How many times have you heard “Show your story rather than tell it!” And, how many times have you gone right on and did a lot of telling! I know I have. “Showing” is one technique that will always improve your writing. I admit that there is some great writing that makes a precedent for […]
How to Write a Significant Memoir
That our memoir is insignificant is about the last thing we memoir writers ever want to read about our magnum opus. How do we write a significant memoir? What separates a significant memoir from an insignificant one? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not fame it’s not the scope of the arena of the action. […]
How Memoir Coaching or Editing Works
There’s often only a permeable line between coaching and editing. In practice, as I work with a writer, I find myself slipping from coaching to editing and back. That’s how close coaching and editing really are. Depending on the state of your manuscript, coaching or editing or both are called for. (more…)
Do not waffle in telling the truth
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 […]