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“What gets dated gets done” is an maxim that has proven true again and again. It will also prove true of your memoir if you create a writing schedule with precise days and hours.

While “I write when I feel like it” has its adherents, I am left wondering how many memoirs written on a timetable characterized by impulse actually get completed.

Instead, I suspect this sort of scheduling leads to “I’m quite busy and I intend to write when my schedule opens up.” Or, “This writing thing is not as interesting as I had thought at first. I’ll write when I’m inspired again.”

Seriously, is this a plausible schedule?

A sensible writing schedule

Below, you will learn techniques to create an effective and sustainable writing schedule—both daily and long-term—that gets your memoir completed and in the hands of its readers.

As I’ve written in one of the posts below, “When you feel like writing, write. When you don’t feel like writing, write.”

If this doesn’t ring true with you, substitute the following: “When you feel like parenting, parent, but when you don’t feel like parenting, don’t do it. Be free spirit. You’ll get to parenting later.”

In conclusion

Don’t underestimate the value of  “inch by inch, it’s a cinch” over time. The way to assure that you write “inch by inch” is to schedule it on your calendar.

Next year at this time, your memoir could be written, edited, and published.

Of course, if having a memoir in hand is not that important, there is no need to read the following articles!

time for writing

Your writing is your work–Schedule first your time for writing

To make time for writing, you have to be serious about the principle that your writing is your work. You must act on it and take it as seriously as your paying job.

This is low-hanging fruit for time management: honor your writing schedule!

You do not show up at your work when you feel like it—nor do you write only when the feeling comes over you!

If you are working as a nurse or a therapist or a business office administrator or whatnot, you do not show up at your work when you feel like it or when you are inspired. You have certain hours whether you work full-time or part-time during which you are expected to show up at the job. The same is true of your writing. You show up for your writing schedule.

If you write when you “get to it,” when you “feel like it,” when inspiration moves you, you will likely do little writing and almost certainly not complete a book of memoirs. If you were being paid for this memoir “job,” your boss would fire you. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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setting writing goals

Setting Writing Goals That Work For You: Better Time Management

I have a goal for this post. I want to help you to develop and articulate your writing goals for the next three months—that is, 90 days. You can start your three months today, at the beginning of the next week or at the first day of the next month, but don’t put off setting writing goals. It is a prime tim management skill.

Three months is taken from the business model which uses quarters—three months—to implement plans. It is a useful way to set goals for three months. Three months both give you time to accomplish something and is not too long that you get distracted or discouraged.

What exactly is a goal?

A goal is a wish with a schedule and a deadline. If you don’t have a schedule and a deadline, what you have is a wish and not a goal. You are free to dawdle and pine away that your memoir is not getting written!

Let’s work at setting memoir-writing goals and planning to achieve one of these in the next three months.

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

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scheduling memoir writing

Schedule Your Writing: An Easy Time-Management Decision

Spontaneity can be exhilarating and bring zest to your writing, but if you are a new or an uncertain writer, you are well advised to schedule your writing.  Spontaneity is generally poor time management. Without a time set aside, it becomes too easy to “forget” or find an excuse—”I’m just too busy today.”

Discipline will produce results that spontaneity cannot keep up with.

Be ambitious. Set a challenging (but not discouraging) pace to work on your memoir. This can happen when you schedule your writing. 

Today is as good a time as any to begin the habit of writing every day whether you are seeking to do a rough draft or polish your text.

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

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write your story

Don’t Wait To Write Your Story!

It is later than you think. In the years I have been helping people write memoirs, I have seen people die and people grow too old. The energy not only to write deeply but to write a memoir at all has been lost to them; their stories have been lost. We go through our days […]

memoir writing schedule

Make a Memoir Writing Schedule That Works For You—It Will Free Your Imagination

When you follow a memoir writing schedule to write your lifestories at a certain time, then you will not feel anguished if you are not writing all the time. Because the unconscious seems to thrive on ritual—and memory depends heavily on the cooperation of the unconscious as well as the effort to remember you will inevitably find yourself remembering more when you write regularly.

Write at the same time—say every evening from 7 to 8:30 PM or every other morning from 6:30 to 7:30 AM. You will find your imagination automatically gearing up at those times when you yourself open up to writing at set times. It’s like your appetite being whetted by knowing a mealtime is approaching. One moment you’re not hungry and the next—after you’ve realize it’s quarter to twelve—you feel famished!

You must live like a bourgeois so that you can write like a bohemian. —Honoré Balzac

There are many options for creating a schedule.

1. You can assign your writing a number of hours per week.

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

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committed to writing

Be Committed to Writing and Spare Me of People Who Are “Interested” in Writing

“Interested” in writing is about self-image while “committed” to writing is about the writing itself.

“But I do want to write my book. I am very interested in writing my book,” I can hear too many writers insisting.

“Wanting to write” a book, “trying to write” one, “being interested in writing” doesn’t make it. It never does.

What I am exploring here with you is a commitment to writing your book and bringing it to successful completion.

In this post, I walk you through the significant distinction between “being interested in writing” and “being committed to writing” and how you can commit yourself to be “committed.”

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memoir writing deadline

Memoir Writing Deadline: How To Set Yours

As in most endeavors in life, when you write a memoir as an open-ended task without any end in sight, you are likely to procrastinate and extend the project. What happens when you do not set a memoir writing deadline is, next year or the year after that, you are still writing, revising, and polishing your lifestory. You know how it is: you want to get it right. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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How long should it take to write a memoir?

How Long Should It Take to Write a Memoir? Set a Deadline!

How Useful Is A Memoir Timeline?

Have you ever wondered, “How long should it take to write a memoir?”

One answer, of course, is that it takes as long as it takes. While so true, this answer is not useful to those writers who are trying to get their duckies in line—looking at where the time is in their schedules to write, knowing what support to ask from their life partners, etc.

I’ve come up with a calculation for those people who want some sense of how long writing a memoir might take. The following time frame is realistic for any writer who needs a timeline to complete a 200-page memoir. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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