How to Organize Your Memoir: Four Ways
Eventually, after you have written awhile, you will likely have amassed a number of vignettes, story segments, and stories and wonder about how to best organize them into a coherent and interesting memoir. You will likely want to make a statement, o create a bigger picture of your story.
How will you do it? Well, one answer is that you will do it by how you organize your story. Below are four ideas to organize your memoir.
Remember: These suggestions do not refer to the sequence in which the stories are written but rather to how they can be ordered after they have been written.
Here are four ways you can organize your memoir.
1) Chronology
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3 Causes of “Writer’s Block”
Many writers suffer from writer’s block, yet few understand its possible causes. Memoir writing certainly has its difficulties which can create it, and not just writer’s block! There are a number of reasons that contribute to difficulty in writing. 1. In memoir writing, “writer’s block” can be the result of dealing with uncomfortable material. Perhaps you […]
Commitment to writing vs. Interest in writing
There’s a big difference between your commitment to writing your memoir and being interested. “But I do want to write my memoir,” I can hear some hypothetical person insisting. No, this is not about wanting to write a memoir, not about trying to write one, not about being interested in writing… What I am writing […]
Memoir Writing Needs Inner Work as well as Outer Work
Whether as a coach or as an editor, when I have engaged with writers, I have often found similar presenting problems— I don’t have time, I never had a good grammar education, I have so many stories to tell I don’t know which one to start with. Frequently, these “reasons” writers present for not writing […]
Cancer Diary: Family Celebrates Thanksgiving with Sadness
The following cancer diary entries are from Martha Blowen and me, while celebrating Thanksgiving with the family after her diagnosis.
Writing Your Memoir Regularly is Key to Success
Success is built on daily writing habits. As has been bandied about and attributed to many different speakers, it is said that “you go to the office every day for 20 years, and before you know it, you are an overnight success.” Well, we can apply that bit of humor as an insight on writing […]
A Key to Memoir Writing Success
Do you ever wish you had the key to memoir writing success? Let me offer you one key that, I believe, every writer needs to make use of. Memoir writing success is built on daily habits. As has been bandied about and attributed to many different speakers, it is said that “you go to the […]
Telling the Children About Cancer
In this post, Martha writes about telling the children about cancer and her thoughts on being a mother.
[This is an excerpt from My Eye Fell Into the Soup, an account about cancer. The book is written in journal form—alternating between my entries and Martha’s. For more in the My Eye Fell Into the Soup series, Click Here]
November 12, 2006, Sunday
Martha wrote:
My days since Thursday have been about sleeping and talking and crying. Just four days ago, everything I thought about my life was different. How life seems changed even though it is not actually different in its essence from what it was on Wednesday. I had cancer then, too, but I did not know it consciously. I have always prided myself on being intuitive and having my intuition inform me. But, that somehow did not work in this case. Now Denis and I are conscious. And that changes everything. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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A Memoir is a Marathon. Can you do it?
You can write a memoir! When you are facing a challenging undertaking, it is wise to seek help. If you were attempting to run a marathon, you would study up on the endeavor and be sure you are doing things right. Perhaps you would join a running club or a website that offers you a […]