Coaching for your memoir provides support as you explore, recall and write your memories. If you are considering turning your memories into memoir, then memoir coaching is an option not to be missed.
Your memoir coach can provide just-in-time learning as you tackle both the memories which flood in as a mix of undigested images, conversations, sensations needing to be sorted and prioritized and the compelling tensions between telling the truth and reliving painful times.
Denis coached me week after week and helped me turn my compulsive research into a well-written manuscript and then into a handsome book.
Jean Chrighton
Your coach can also assist you to implement writing techniques to better express the feelings and thoughts that your memoir is struggling to articulate. People accept easily that memoir writing, like any art form, is about self-expression but it is harder to understand that a work of art also addresses an audience. A memoir is not only about saying your something but it about communicating that something to a readership.
Your coach will help you to make the writing decisions that your manuscript needs for you to make—some of these you won’t even realize need work until your coach points them out to you. Common problems such as:
- Have you chosen the right point of view for your story?
- Are your characters unique, nuanced, and consistent—and how to make them so?
- How about the details? Do these and other elements support your story?
A memoir coach does this and so much more.
The best time to get coaching for your memoir?
The absolute best time is perhaps as you start to write; the second best time?
NOW!
Call 207-353-5454 today to set up a free session to explore coaching for your memoir.
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What would support for writing your memoir book look like for you?
While some people succeed at writing an interesting and meaningful memoir on their own, the fact is many people need both more technical expertise than they now have and more emotional support for the long effort they are undertaking. Many find the task of writing a memoir—however urgent and compelling—to be somewhat daunting and, if […]
Why Developmental Editing? Hint: Do You Want Your Best Memoir?
Does your memoir need developmental editing? In this video, I discuss what developmental editing is, what a developmental editor does and why you need it for your memoir.
How to Know if You Have the Right Memoir Coach
How do you know if you have the right memoir coach? The guidelines below will help you evaluate your writing coach prospect to ascertain if you are choosing the right memoir coach for you. This article contains evaluation guidelines centered on the availability of the right memoir coach.
1. Can your coach work with you so that you meet your deadline?
As you develop your memoir project, you may become aware of a natural deadline, such as a family reunion or a birthday. The right memoir coach for you will be able to meet your date. This deadline should be discussed before you and the coach commit to each other.
Your deadline may also simply focus on a time when you would like to be finished. This is a completely internal deadline.
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The Best Memoir Writing Coach: How to Choose the Right One
Choosing the Right Memoir Writing Coach
How do you choose the best memoir writing coach for you and your book? Your relationship with your memoir writing coach is likely to be a long one. There is no other way to make it effective. Coaching is like counseling in a way. Counseling requires an introductory, getting-to-know-you phase before both of you can move on to a productive phase. You can’t expect a counselor to help you with your core issues until the two of you have had some exploratory conversations and the counselor has gotten some bearing on your “stuff.” In a similar way, a writing coach has to get to know you before s/he can help you with your core writing issues.
A coach works with you in several areas including:
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A Memoir Coach or A Memoir Editor Gets You A Finished Memoir
We all wear many hats as we go through our days. In my case, I am a writer, a memoirist, a teacher, a memoir coach, a memoir editor, a co-author, a book publisher, and finally, a small business person. I wear those hats with pride and, I hope, some accomplishment.
Beyond these, I wear other hats as all of you do also. One is that of an athlete of sorts: there has been swimming, jogging, and weight lifting.
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How Memoir Editing Works
When I begin the memoir editing process with clients, I tell them that a proper editing requires three “read-throughs.” It is impossible to give a manuscript all the attention it deserves in one reading.
That’s simply how memoir editing works when done properly
Reading a manuscript without doing any specific editing and forming only a general impression has always seemed a good idea in theory, but I have not found a way to do so that is economical. I have therefore evolved this concept of read-throughs as a memoir editing technique. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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When Should You Start Working With a Writing Coach?
When is the best time to start working with a writing coach? The obvious answer is when you feel the need to, but “the need to” is not always obvious. Writers will put off the coaching process because they may conclude that it is polished material they need to submit to a coach. This is akin to putting off going to the doctor until when you are feeling well or putting off getting cleaning help until you have straightened out the house.
Writer’s also get confused and mix up working with a coach and working with an editor.
What’s the difference between working with an editor and working with a writing coach?
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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. ]
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3 Things Your Writing Coach Can’t Do For You
Coaching almost always proves a great pick-up experience for a person whose memoir is floundering. Your writing coach can help you access process and technique and point of view more rapidly than most people can on their own. But, a coach—even a great one—can only do so much for you. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Why You Should Work With a Coach or an Editor Early in the Process
Clients will often come to me after having done a considerable amount of writing. Sometimes I will receive 200- and 300-page manuscripts. Among them are manuscripts that are really at the editing stage, but… There are too many that are still—in spite of their polished look on the page—in an early stage of development.