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Archive | First Draft Writing: How to Do It Well

Being writers themselves, the editing and coaching team at The Memoir Network Team understands the process of first draft writing.

We understand the challenge of bringing the vision we hold in our minds onto the printed page.

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?

Robert Browning

For some, first draft writing occurs at that time when they are still striving to capture their vision. Often people will write in some heat. That is, they are excited about the possibilities of writing and find it intoxicating to speed along with composition.

Other writers are hesitant and wish they were further along in their writing. They feel impatient to get closer to the vision that held in mind when they began to write.

My advice, as well as the advice of the writers in the posts below, suggests that writers let a first draft be a first draft. This is a time to be patient, to recognize that you are exploring your story.

While you may believe you already know your story, the theme you are developing will determine many of the elements you choose to include. In that sense you do not yet know your story and the first draft is your time to learn what it is you most want to pass on.

In conclusion

The posts below will provide you with many ideas for making the most of your first-draft writing. But…

If you want to “cut your writing teeth” with a free program, try Start to Write Your Memoir.

If you would like to have even more in-depth help with your first draft, our The Memorable Story/Write Your First Draft Program has your name all over it.

Remember: whatever you do today, write a bit on your memoir.

write memoir

Learning to Write Memoir Is Like Learning to Swim!

When learning to write memoir, it can feel awkward and uncomfortable as you learn the process, just like learning to swim. We often see people who are not comfortable swimming flail about in the water, their heads reaching up high, desperately, to catch a breath of air. This awkward gesture soon tires them. Try as they might there is not enough air for them as they constrict their ribs, twist their heads, contort their jaws. Soon enough, considering that they had set out to enjoy the water, these people quit and return to the shore. Swimming is over for the day. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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write for a larger audience

Become a Better Writer: 4 Ways

You can become a better writer, but it will take some work.

How do you become a better writer? Well, how do you achieve mastery in any skill? The answer, however it is presented, comes down to both acquiring knowledge pertaining to the skill and to putting in the time to practice the skill with critiques available to correct your technique and approach.

This is what I look for in the membership sites I am a member of. I benefit from significant new material sent to me regularly, from the live interactions via conference calls, individual contact or webinar and I also appreciate returning to the membership pages to review material. In this way I have contact with a master and I am revising my skills in a community of practitioners.

At the Memoir Network, I have created a master writer group that meets many of the same needs I have had met in the membership groups I subscribe to. This master writer group is called Write Your First Memoir Draft Course. A membership in the Write Your First Memoir Draft Course can get you in the frame of mind to undertake and finish your memoir.

This course has all the components to guide you to become a better writer.

[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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memoir writing program

Six Reasons to Join a Long Distance Memoir Writing Program

Many of the biggest challenges facing memoir writers can be alleviated by joining a distance-learning writing program.

Your participation will convince you that you can succeed.

Memoir writers—as all writers—work in isolation. There are many times when a memoir writer would like to have a contact with a system that could help her/him to resolve a writing issue—whether it’s  a question of grammar, style, or structure.

If you were not a plumber, would you do the plumbing to your house without first learning as much as you could about plumbing?

Of course, you would want to inform yourself.

You might peruse YouTube, buy some how-to books on plumbing, give a call to a person who is a plumber to ask your questions.

Here’s how you as a new writer can follow the same process to write your first memoir draft. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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writing a first draft

Writing a First Draft: Why They’re Called “First”

When you are writing a first draft: nothing can rightly be called a first unless there is a second. First grade implies second grade; first class implies second class; first book implies (we hope) second book, a first draft implies a second draft.

That is why first drafts are called first drafts. A writer must expect to write a second draft, and a third even. No one can sit down and churn out countless pages of prose that don’t need rewriting. Jack Kerouac claimed he did it with On the Road, but we know now that he was stretching the truth. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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