You can benefit from easier and quicker writing by adapting appropriate habits of composition. Here are four habits for writing your first draft quickly. You would do well to put them into practice. They are easy to implement and the rewards are significant. (more…)
If you need help stimulating your small business, it may be worth writing an info book on the product(s) you provide. There are many reasons an independent professional ought to write a non-fiction book that purports to tell the client how to do the very service or product that your company provides. (more…)
When your writing is stalled and you find it difficult to finish your memoir, turn to your writing journal for help. The following are suggestions for what you might ask yourself in your writing journal. They are taken from the How to Write to the End—Eight Strategies to Deal With Writer’s Block, a book on successfully dealing with writer’s block. (more…)
When starting on a memoir, it can be difficult to remember all the stories and memories you would like to include. You naturally want to jog your memory.
When you are intent on writing “from the inside out” as we at The Memoir Network hope you will, there are some useful techniques you can use—to add to compiling your Memory List and perhaps even to stimulate it.
(more…)
How sharing your memoir will help
A critical step for a brand-new writer is sharing your memoir writing in progress with others. There is nothing like a reader to help you develop a healthy critical sense of your work. This article is especially for the writer who cringes at the thought of sharing his/her writing.
Memoir writers sometimes ask, “Is writing with good grammar important?”
Yes and no. To anyone beginning to write lifestories, I would caution, “Get your story down on paper and don’t worry about “good grammar”—at least, not at first.” (more…)
To your dismay, you have been writing your memoir in snippets. In the mornings, when you show up on your laptop, you face, as does every writer, a demanding master: a writing stint for the day.
Oh, how you wish it were the end of your scheduled writing period!
Like many memoir writers, your memoir writing time is perhaps not long. Then you need to move on to the numerous chores that are attendant on keeping a life and a home going. You feel some urgency to write deathless prose because of the short time allotted.
But some days, even your short writing period seems too long. (more…)
While some people decide to write a memoir according to structure—healing memoirs, investigative memoirs, etc—as I wrote in a previous post, others write with an audience in mind. (Writing with structure in mind often calls for writing with an audience in mind, also.) Sometimes the audience is of specific people but many other writers, while they do have a specific audience in mind, are really writing to a group according to their interest.
“I want to write for my kids and grandchildren. I want them to know who I was,” one sort of memoirist will realize. While another will think, “I want to my children and grandchildren to know me, too, and I want to place my life in a greater context. I’m hoping to have readers beyond my kin, readers who are interested in a larger picture of what life was.” (more…)
People who attend Turning Memories Into Memoirs workshops will sometimes say, “I want to write my stories but I have forgotten so many details. Is there any way I can get them back?”
There is one tool above all others that makes the experience of lifewriting successful. That tool is the Memory List. In this article, I will talk about the Core Memory List. (more…)
4 Tips For Easier, Quicker Writing
You can benefit from easier and quicker writing by adapting appropriate habits of composition. Here are four habits for quicker writing of your first draft that you would do well to learn. They are easy to implement and the rewards are significant. (more…)
Write an Info Book to Grow Your Solo-Preneur Or Memoir Business
If you need help stimulating your small business, it may be worth writing an info book on the product(s) you provide. There are many reasons an independent professional ought to write a non-fiction book that purports to tell the client how to do the very service or product that your company provides. (more…)
9 Ideas to Help You Finish Your Memoir
When your writing is stalled, turn to your writing journal for help. The following are suggestions for what you might ask yourself in your writing journal. They are taken from the Pick Up Your Memoir Again—And Finish It! a course on successfully dealing with writer’s block. (more…)
(More) Better than Prompts: Five Tips to Help You “Jog Your Memory”
When starting on a memoir, it can be difficult to remember all the stories and memories you would like to include. You naturally want to jog your memory. When you are intent on writing “from the inside out” as we at The Memoir Network hope you will, there are some useful techniques you can use—to […]
How to Get the Most Out of Sharing Your Memoir In-Progress
A critical step for a brand-new writer is sharing your memoir in progress with others. There is nothing like a reader to help you develop a healthy critical sense of your work. This article is especially for the writer who cringes at the thought of sharing his/her writing. Those others you will share with might […]
Five Takes for Writing with Good Grammar
Memoir writers sometimes ask, “Is writing with good grammar important?” Yes and no. To anyone beginning to write lifestories, I would caution, “Get your story down on paper and don’t worry about “good grammar”—at least, not at first.” (more…)
Show Up and Do the Writing!
Show Up and Do the Writing! That’s how you get your memoir finished. Inch by inch it’s a cinch: yard by yard, it’s hard. (more…)
Should You Write With An Audience in Mind?
While some people decide to write a memoir according to structure—healing memoirs, investigative memoirs, etc—as I wrote in a previous post, others write with an audience in mind. (Writing with structure in mind often calls for writing with audience in mind, also.) Sometimes the audience is of specific people but many other writers, while they […]
4 Tips For Making and Using a Core Memory List to Write More Efficiently
The Core Memory List is a list of the crucial relationships and events which have shaped your life. It contains just ten or fewer items. Use it to write more efficiently. This is because Core Memory Lists are about the relationships and events which, had they not occurred, your life (or your mother’s or father’s, […]