We each need to be mindful of supporting our engagement in the writer’s life, of creating the atmosphere and the structure that will maximize our writing’s output and quality.
If you are writing—and I presume you would not be reading this if you were not, you must be mindful that, as a writer, you can make the process easier or more difficult.
I now that most people reading this do not aspire to become full-time writers—”Writers” with a capital “W”—but, even so, the same rules apply to you, if on a smaller scale.
What does “a writer’s life” mean?
By writer’s life I mean personal culture that supports your writing in the context of the goal you have for yourself.
If your goal is to write 10 five-page lifestories of childhood memories, that is a significantly different goal than writing a socio-economic history of your ethnic community roots in this country using your life as a focus.
Nonetheless, both writers can benefit from observing ways to live and enhance their different versions of the writer’s life.
It begins with habits.
There are many habits you can develop and maintain to enhance your writer’s life.
- your schedule of writing. In many case, the more you write the easier writing becomes—but, of course, not always. Writing more usually depends on—well, writing more! A regular schedule is very useful here!
- Your reading. Read memoirs, read how-to-write books, read writing blogs, subscribe to writing magazines to grow your writer’s life. Yes, it’s ok to actually spend money for your learning just as one day someone will pay for your memoir. One way to estimate how much you value your memoir, is to calculate your spend on developing your writing skills. You spend money on what you value.
- Your writing community. Writers spend time with other writers. This can be in a community-based writing group, in an online community, at workshops and academic programs.
A comparison in case you don’t “get it.”
Perhaps this will help you understand the writer’s life even more.
If you were an athlete, you would be mindful of nurturing the athlete’s life.
This might that consist of:
- a diet with requisite protein and calories,
- regular, sustained and coached training,
- rest in between training sessions and competitions,
- deepening knowledge of the sport, and
- frequenting other athletes for support and motivation.
Why is it that the need to support the athlete’s life is evident if one wants to be a successful athlete, but not so the writer’s life if one wants to be a successful writer?
In conclusion
We hear writers say they don’t read memoirs, they’ve never spent money on buying how-to material, and they can’t stand being around other writers.
It’s as if there have not been writers around who have created a writer’s culture that supports productivity and quality. It is in emulating their writer’s life that you can thrive as a memoir writer.
The following posts will be helpful to you in living the writer’s life.
Does calling yourself a writer make you a writer?
“How do you become a writer?” people ask me. While many of my memoir-writing clients are one-time authors, not everyone is in that category. There are a whole lot of people who join The Memoir Network who secretly want to become “a writer” and are hoping that memoir writing will be their ticket into the […]