Eight Reasons to Share the Inner You
Our lives are composed not only of facts and dates but also of dreams, expectations–realized or denied–and hopes. You are not alone in having lived an inner life. Others too have experienced much of what you felt and dreamed for yourself and are likely to identify with some, or even much, of what you say. […]
Three Tips For Creating an Effective Writing Schedule
It’s time to commit to creating an effective writing schedule.
You’ve already taken several steps in lifewriting. You have begun to write your stories and memories. Perhaps the summer got in the way of your perseverance or perhaps it was something else—an illness, a temporary job, travel. Now you need to recommit to memoir writing by creating an effective writing schedule for yourself.
Rather than think in the general terms of “I’ll write as much as I can” (who are we kidding here!), base your writing schedule on a specific time or a page quota.
1) Decide how much time per week you want (or have) to devote to writing schedule.
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Writing Tips for Successful Writing
Recently, someone asked me what are the biggest barriers memoir writers face to being successful. Three came to mind right away…
Polish Your Autobiography Easily
Is Your Autobiography Compelling? Granted everyone has stories to tell, but can ordinary people learn the skills and techniques necessary to write meaningful and interesting autobiography? Yes! Anyone who wants to can learn the tasks necessary to write a memoir to bequeath with pride to their children and grandchildren. Every step in the writing process […]
Why You Should Work With a Coach or an Editor Early in the Process
Clients will often come to me after having done a considerable amount of writing. Sometimes I will receive 200- and 300-page manuscripts. Among them are manuscripts that are really at the editing stage, but… There are too many that are still—in spite of their polished look on the page—in an early stage of development.
More Editing You Can Execute For Yourself.
This post contains more useful information on how you can edit your own work before sending it to a professional editor. There is much you can do more effectively to save on fees.
Kate Christensen talks about writing Blue Plate Special / An Autobiography of My Appetites and about writing in general.
In her memoir, novelist Kate Christensen, author of The Great Man and the The Astral Hotel, has undertaken to organize her lifestory around food. It is an interesting concept, a theme, around which to make sense of a lifetime. If the memoir is, as Rainer Maria Rilke said of poetry, a momentary order, then Kate Christensen has done just that.
“Kate Christensen always remembers what she ate, what was served, what was cooked, what she cooked, what it tasted like,” reads the book jacket. “…much of her life, she describes herself as being ‘a hungry lonely wild animal looking for happiness and stability.’ Having found them at long last, she finally feels able to write about her search.”
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Emperor’s New Clothes: Memoir Network Coaching Client Gets Published
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Aunt Emilia
Ma Tante Emilia and Mon Oncle Louis both worked and, since they had no children to spend their earnings on, they had more disposable income than my parents. They would drive up from New Auburn in a little Ford…