As you prepare to write the memoir you have so long desired to have, you may be moved by memories or feelings that urge you to explore them and preserve them in writing. This is your impetus to launch your memoir project, but it is generally not enough to sustain your writing over the long haul without pre-writing.
As you put your memories down on paper, you find that your memory or feeling is vivid but it is not fleshed out with sufficient detail to sustain the reader’s interest nor to convey the essence of the memory or feeling.
Pre-writing to the rescue
The solution that will pull you out of this morass is likely to be pre-writing.
Pre-writing as the posts below explain is the process of gathering and ordering information before you begin to write.
No memoir should be written without some or even significant pre-writing. What you do before writing is important. Learn more about recalling information and organizing your writing in the posts below before you begin.
Think of writing a memoir as you would think of painting a room. A lot of the work when you paint is in the preparation: moving furniture out, washing the walls, taping the edges, stirring the paint (and buying the paint!). If you don’t do this preparation, painting will take hours longer in the end because you’re going to have to keep stopping to get stuff out of your way or to clean up mistakes.
Memoir pre-writing can play the same role of speeding up the process.
In conclusion
Remember: fail to plan; plan to fail. Do not omit to plan in the form of pre-writing.
Writing a memoir: how to
Writing a memoir is not easy. Writing a memoir requires a lot of time and energy—but you can do it. You can succeed. Many people just like you have done so already. I want to share a system with you for getting started on writing a memoir.
Four Tips for Writing a Better Memoir
To write a better memoir, make use of the core memory list. The extended memory list does not make value judgments about the quality of your memories. The core memory list, however, distinguishes between two sorts of memories— the important from the unimportant.