“Making Nice” Will Trip You Up
We all have family stories that we have heard over and over again. When they are told in family gatherings, no one expects any contradiction. After all, the stories are the “truth” about someone in the family but “making nice”—not telling the truth in memoir—will trip you up.
How do you write truth in memoir?
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Don’t Let Writer’s Block Stop You
Don’t let writer’s block stop you from producing a great memoir!
“What can I do about writer’s block?” I am asked regularly by stumped writers.
“Pretty much the same as plumber does with a plumber’s block,” I’ll respond.
People twitter at this reply. Perhaps it’s because they take my response for a joke and they’re anticipating a good punch line.
Do what you have to do if you don’t let writer’s block stop you.
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Should You Create an Outline or a Memory List for your Memoir?
DL: An outline or a Memory List? This is a perennial favorite with the search engines. I consider it to be a foundational post whose info can guide you to success. I hope you enjoy it.
A Memory List is far superior to an outline!
For some writers, there comes a moment in writing a memoir when the audacity of the undertaking hits them. Perhaps they think doorslammers like: “This can take forever.” “Writing a memoir will never pay for itself.” “I can’t afford to do this!” They reach for certainty. And that certainly if often a reversion to essay and report writing. They want an outline to assure the task gets done right. So, an outline or a Memory List?
The following is a comment to someone who asked in the Memoir Forum if she should create an outline and how to know when the page and chapters were the right length.
1. Do not write a memoir from an outline.
I do not write from an outline. Instead, I create a Memory List as outlined in Chapter 2 of Turning Memories Into Memoirs. The Memory List helps you to follow the promptings of the unconscious rather than the dictates of the conscious mind as happens with an outline. (An outline is great for an essay—”The Three Causes of the American Civil War”— but it is the death of an exploratory memoir.) So…
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The Importance of Facts in Memoir Writing
The importance of facts in memoir writing The importance of facts in memoir writing such as dates, addresses, names, and relationships, are one of its special feature. Memoir writing cannot, without deleting from its value, omit dates and specific identification of locales, names of individuals and their relationships to one another. Memoir writing is factual writing: […]
Lightning Bug Words
Are You Using Lightning Bug Words? How do we write in lightning and not in lightning bugs? Using the right words when writing your memoir will illuminate and inform your readers.
Writing Time Wasters
I’m no more immune than anyone else to the plague of time wasters. Time wasters are habits we fall into that consume the time we have allotted (or could allot) to writing so that we end up not writing! Here are some of the most insidious that take up too much time and squander my […]
Don’t Wait To Write Your Story!
It is later than you think. In the years I have been helping people write memoirs, I have seen people die and people grow too old. The energy not only to write deeply but to write a memoir at all has been lost to them; their stories have been lost. We go through our days […]
Write a memoir: practical how-to information to ace it.
Over the years, I have both worked with people to help them write a memoir and have heard from people who have done the work of writing theirs.
Often these people had never written anything before—not memoir, not fiction, not creative non-fiction. They did not think of themselves as writers. One day these people—as you are now doing—decided it was time to write a memoir. They set about to compose a lasting record of their personal and family stories in writing. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Five Memoir Writing Tips Nancy Pelosi Ought to Know Before She Pens A Memoir
When Nancy Pelosi sits down to write her memoirs what ought she to do to make the writing interesting? Hint: fame and power in themselves are not enough to intrigue a reader. Here are five memoir writing tips to know.
Writing her memories of her years in Washington will be challenging to Nancy Pelosi but not as hard as some people think. If she is willing to follow the five simple steps I will outline below, she can succeed at writing an interesting and meaningful autobiography. (More and more people—in fact, many who at first think they couldn’t—are succeeding at exploring and honoring their pasts in this way.)
These five memoir writing tips to know are among the most powerful—and easiest—to implement in personal and family history writing.
Good luck—to Nancy Pelosi and to you!
1) Make a Memory List.
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3 Great Tips to Keep You Writing on Your Memoir—Day After Day!
Recently, someone asked me what are the biggest barriers memoir writers face to being successful. Three came to mind right away…