The use of a timeline for writing your memoir will both speed up the writing process and assure that you complete your book. It is possible, of course, to choose to write a memoir so that it takes you forever to complete it. You can write when you feel like it for as long as you feel like it and get it done whenever you get it done. Too often, that’s never. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
In this post, you’ll learn how to let go of deathless prose in your first draft. November is Memoir Writing Month is a good time to let go of the perfectionism that keeps you from writing. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
To make time for writing, you have to be serious about the principle that your writing is your work. You must act on it and take it as seriously as your paying job.
Memoir writers can achieve much alone. But, it is also true that working with a memoir professional can cut down the time it takes to produce a book of memoirs and can significantly jack up the quality.
—Phil Cousineau in Stoking the Creative Fires
The Phil Cousineau quote above ought to be for all of us a stirring call to continue—or to begin if that is where we are at—the writing we may have procrastinated about for so long. We fill our days with lesser tasks when we know that what we ought to be doing is writing a memoir.
It is later than you think. In the twenty-five plus years I have been doing this work, I have seen people die without writing their memoir and I have seen people grow old and lose the energy to write their memoir.
In both cases, a lifestory has been lost.
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If you have stopped writing because of a holiday, a vacation, an illness, or lassitude (read: “It’s too hard! I want it to be easy!”), make today—now—be the time you pick up your memoir writing again and write to the end.
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Writing a memoir is not easy. As I have written so many times—no one has ever promised it would be. Au contraire…
Memoir writing can be difficult. Among the biggest of the difficulties is discouragement. How easy is it to write when you don’t feel like it and are sure you are producing junk words? In case you haven’t guessed (but I’m sure you have been there done that)… [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
Have you struggled with picking up your memoir again and not quite knowing how to get back into it? Rather than castigate yourself, why not simply set some time aside to re-read your memoir?
The following suggestions are from the Write to the End–Eight Strategies to Deal With Writer’s Block! an ebook on successfully dealing with writer’s block. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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