Write your story now!

“What are you waiting for? Why are you avoiding the real work? What will it take for you to go deeper?”

—Phil Cousineau in Stoking the Creative Fires

The Phil Cousineau quote above ought to be for all of us a stirring call to continue—or to begin if that is where we are at—the work of writing a depth memoir we may have procrastinated about for so long.

It is later than you think. In the years I have been doing this work, I have seen writers die and writers grow too old. The energy not only to write deeply but also to write a memoir at all has been lost to them; their stories have been lost.

We go through our days as if there were an endless flow of tomorrows, but there simply aren’t. What if you ran out of tomorrows before you had written your memoir? Would your children and grandchildren know about you and the people who were important to you? How would your community know? Could the world benefit from your life’s experience?

Here are six choices you can decide on today to help you to write your story.

1. Set a writing schedule for yourself and mark it on a calendar or appointment book. Be sure you sit to write at least three times per week. Today, sit down and write at least three pages before you stop.
2. Write your Memory List. Be sure you have a minimum of 200 memories.
3. Start writing your memoir from anywhere in your story you feel like writing from. Where you start to write your story is not the same place as where your reader starts to read.
4. Read memoirs to learn how other writers have succeeded. Model yourself on their effort.
5. If you doubt our ability to write (and writing is certainly a skill that has to be developed!) and would like to improve your skills, read a book about writing, go on the internet to find a course, join a writing group. Alternately, sign up for coaching. By next year at this time, you may have the skills you need to succeed.
6. If you doubt that you will ever write or if you feel the learning curve is to steep but you still want to leave a memoir legacy, why not work with a co-author? A co-author organizes your memories into a well-written, interesting-to-read book. Call for a free consultation on co-authoring (ghostwriting). Working closely with you, your co-author will help you to create your written legacy faster than you may now think it possible.

Good luck writing your story and remember to write something today.