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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.

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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.

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How do you know if you have the right memoir coach? The guidelines below will help you evaluate your writing coach prospect to ascertain if you are choosing the right memoir coach for you. This article contains evaluation guidelines centered on the availability of the right memoir coach.

1. Can your coach work with you so that you meet your deadline?

As you develop your memoir project, you may become aware of a natural deadline, such as a family reunion or a birthday. The right memoir coach for you will be able to meet your date. This deadline should be discussed before you and the coach commit to each other.

Your deadline may also simply focus on a time when you would like to be finished. This is a completely internal deadline.

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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. (more…)

“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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Sara Etgen-Baker

Editor: In this memoir excerpt which uses fiction technique to emphasize feeling, Sara Etgen Baker writes about a defining moment of her childhood as the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded.

It was an autumn day, October 22, 1962—far enough from summer to have lost the heat and not close enough to winter to have that bite of cold. Above me, brilliant shafts of sunlight ignited the color in each falling leaf.  Below me, each leaf fell, not knowing that this was its last dance in the sunlight—its last chance to play in the crisp October air.  It tumbled with such elegance, but all too soon it was lost in the sea of autumn leaves swirling around my feet.  Part of me wanted to find it, pick it up again, and toss it high so that perhaps it would have a second time around.  But time was short; and whether I liked it or not, twilight stole away the opportunity and the vibrant colors of the day.  So I scurried home crunching the dried leaves under my feet.

         “Where have you been, young lady!” Mother peered around her newspaper.   

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Many memoir writers are under the impression that you need to have an extensive vocabulary to write. An extensive vocabulary can only help you–if by “extensive” you mean many precise words—not just “big” ones. More important is using precise language.

Precise words are specific

Precise words are specific and not vague and ineffective like nice, awful, big, OK. “She was nice” is vague. “She understands different points of view” is specific.

“He was awfully big” is vague. You might write instead: “My father measured six foot five and weighed 275 pounds.” Now that is using precise words! (more…)

Many memoir writers are under the impression that you need to have an extensive vocabulary to write. An extensive vocabulary can only help you–if by “extensive” you mean many precise words—not just “big” ones. More important is using precise language.

Precise words are specific

Precise words are specific and not vague and ineffective like nice, awful, big, OK. “She was nice” is vague. “She understands different points of view” is specific.

“He was awfully big” is vague. You might write instead: “My father measured six foot five and weighed 275 pounds.” Now that is using precise words! (more…)

If understanding the interplay between destiny and fate worked for the Greeks, why not for us memoir writers?

Over the years, I have found that the concepts of destiny and fate, which explained so many things for Greeks in the centuries before the Christian era, also explain so much about the characters of a memoir. Sometimes the concept has proven to be the key to unraveling the meaning of a life.

A refresher on Destiny and Fate

Let me take just a moment to refresh your understanding of destiny and fate.

Destiny can be described as “what you are meant to be.” It is what the Christians label as “What God wants me to be” or “What I was placed on earth to be and do.” It is often called your potential.

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Note: This is the 4th article in a series of 4 on the writing process of A Sugary Frosting published in 2016. It is full of book publishing tips. I hope you enjoy it.

Post 1: I Finish A Sugary Frosting: Notes on the Memoir Writing Process

Post 2: Mechanics of Writing a Memoir: It’s not all Inspiration

Post 3: Preparing for A Successful Book Launch

Post 4: Book Publishing Tips: Better Book Production is Possible

Here are a few book publishing tips to prepare for better book production that I learned from publishing A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage.

My book, A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage, made its way to publication. To launch it, as many readers know, I created an advanced reader community and was able to gather 90+ people who volunteered to write a review for Amazon in exchange for a heartfelt thank you from me, and upon sending me a copy of the published review, a link to the finished e-version, a hard copy and a $50 voucher in The Memoir Network’s e-bookstore.

The response from readers had been gratuitously generous. I had about 90 people who agreed to review the book. I was elated! Not only were these wonderful people provided me with a review but so many offered suggestions that made the book into a better one than it was initially. I don’t only mean by sending in corrections of typos but by suggesting tweaks for the story—adding and taking out text. This experience of working with advanced readers was a tremendously positive one for me.

I offer the following review of what I learned on my way to better book production. I hope it helps you in the process of preparing a book for publication.

What have I learned? Book publishing tips…

1. I created too tight a deadline.

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write for a larger audience

Become a Better Writer: 4 Ways

By

You can become a better memoir writer, but it will take some work. How do you achieve mastery in a 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 […]

right memoir coach

How to Know if You Have the Right Memoir Coach

By

Can your coach work with you so that you meet your deadline? As you develop your memoir project, you may become aware of a natural deadline, such as a family reunion or a birthday. The right memoir coach for you will be able meet your date. This deadline should be discussed before the coach and […]

memoir writing program

Six Reasons to Join a Long Distance Memoir Writing Program

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Memoir writers—as all writers—work in isolation. When you join a memoir writing program—a forum, you not only get answers to persistent questions or reassurance to debilitating doubts, but you form community as you persist in the long, lonely task of writing. (more…)

TO OZ? YES, TO OZ!

TO OZ? YES, TO OZ!

By

In this memoir excerpt which uses fiction technique to emphasize feeling, Sara Etgen Baker writes about a defining moment of her childhood as the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded. (more…)

Using Precise Language

More on Using Precise Language

By

Many memoir writers are under the impression that you need to have an extensive vocabulary to write. An extensive vocabulary can only help you–if by “extensive” you mean many precise words—not just “big” ones. More important is using precise language. (more…)

write your story

Book Publishing Tips: Better Book Production is Possible

By

My most recent book, A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage, made its way to publication. To launch it, as many readers know, I created an advanced reader community and was able to gather 90+ people who volunteered to write a review for Amazon. (more…)