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…
Three Ways an Inauthentic Memoir Theme Will Trip You Up
As you articulate your memoir theme, ask yourself if this memoir theme is really yours—does it reflect your present understanding of your story and of life itself? Or is it a residue of the accepted “wisdom” of someone else: a parent, another adult figure, society at large?
1) A theme that is authentically yours makes for better writing.
It comes from your center of experience. Writers who recognize, acknowledge, and explore their authentic memoir themes in their writing are more apt to present us with clear, to-the-point stories than those who repeat inherited memoir themes or who think they can ignore the issue of theme.
Early in our lives, you and I were naturally and rightfully the recipients of someone else’s—a parent’s or grandparent’s—understanding and interpretation of life. As long as these interpretations correspond to our own adult views, we can write easily within their context. What often happens, however, is that we continue to espouse a point of view inherited from another without realizing that it has ceased to correspond to our own. When challenged, we will say “Well, I guess I really don’t believe that anymore. Isn’t it something how I wrote (or said) that!”
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Mechanics of Writing a Memoir: It’s not all Inspiration
Note: This is the 2nd article in a series of 4 on the writing process of A Sugary Frosting published in 2016.
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: Better Book Production is Possible
The mechanics of writing a memoir involve the work of writing a story and how life can insert delays & provide contemplative times, yet leave time left to write.
I started to write the memoir seriously in May of 2015. Since I continued to be active in the daily running of my business, The Memoir Network, I could commit myself only to writing 30 minutes a day—but, and this is important, to show up every day for the writing. 30 minutes a day may not seem like much, but it adds up to 3 1/2 hours a week.
It is not just 3 1/2 hours. It adds up to more than that because, as I went about my days—writing emails, taking notes for a coaching session, walking along the lovely river trail in our town—knowing that I would be writing the next day, my imagination would create text. When it came time to sit at my computer the subsequent day, I often had much of what I wanted to write already composed in my mind. In that way, I was able to create text more quickly in the allotted half hour then I might have otherwise had I sat down and written for 3 1/2 hours straight—not knowing what I would be composing that day.
Life happened even as I wrote
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I Finish A Sugary Frosting: Notes on the Memoir Writing Process
Note: This is the 1starticle in a series of 4 on the memoir writing process of A Sugary Frosting published in 2016.
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: Better Book Production is Possible
Memoir writing can be simple.
It was 2016, and I was in the very last days of the memoir process and polishing A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage, the early lifestory of my deceased spouse, Martha Blowen. It was a time to make sure I had written what I wanted to write and to check grammar and spelling before it went out to a copy editor.
I had promised Martha that I would write her stories so that our grandchildren would know something about her. In May 2015, I began gathering the stories she had written of her life. My intent was to create a booklet of these stories. But, to be honest, it has never appealed to me to write booklets. I like to write books. That’s what I do and that’s what I do well.
As I read through Martha’s stories, in a few instances, I understood that some were fragmentary and needed filling out. I knew the story she was trying to convey but then I had lived with her for 31 years. Would someone who did not know her—our grandchildren, for instance—appreciate the tale? So, I tweaked the stories to make them more complete, more meaningful. Good work, I thought. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Write A Better Memoir: 10 How-to Tips
Writers ask me what they can do the most easily to write a better memoir. While I can understand the wish to write more quickly and easily, I’m going to share with you that writing a better memoir needs to be done slowly and thoughtfully. A rushed job is probably going to be a botched job.
The following are my recommendations to boost the quality of your memoir writing. They are obvious tasks which form the substance of this post. Each tip below comes loaded with links. In some instances, the identical words are highlighted, but they lead to separate articles that develop a different angle of the topic. Do not omit to click a repeated word.
I know some impatient readers are going to see following links as a problem, but I hope that you will not and will understand that you are being offered an in-depth e-course on how to improve your memoir writing. This is university-level work I am making available to you.
Be patient and dig in. In fact, it may take you a few days to fully absorb this post—but it will be amply worth the effort in the improved quality of your memoir.
1. Make a Memory List.
If there is one thing I would qualify as a magic bullet in memoir writing it would be the Memory List. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Instead of A Writing Prompt – Five Tips for Creating a Memory List
As people are writing a memoir they 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? Should I use writing prompts or is there something instead of a writing prompt?”
There is one tool above all others that makes the experience of life writing successful. That tool is not a writing prompt: it is the Memory List. No other exercise opens up the process of life writing as quickly and as surely as the thoughtful and thorough compilation of such a list. It’s simple, and as a first step, it’s crucial.
Let me tell you about the Memory List (a general term for your list of memories).
Your Memory List is always a work in process because the more you remember and jot down, the more you’ll recall. You will return to and rework your list again and again as you write your life stories. In short, it will serve as an excellent writing prompt without being a writing prompt.
1. The Memory List consists of short memory notes (three to five words is sufficient) of people, events, relationships, thoughts, feelings, things—anything—from your past.
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