Stop Trying to Write Your Memoir
Are you a person who is trying to write your memoir or are you a person who is writing it? Your family will likely be left without your memoir if what you do is “try to write a memoir.” This post is full of ideas for going from trying to write to writing.
What Kind of Stalled Writer Are You – And What to Do About It
An unfinished manuscript haunts a writer, sapping energy that ought to go into more writing. Over the years of editing and coaching, I’ve noticed that there seem to be two sorts of people who do not finish their manuscripts.
Is a Memoir Hard to Write—Yes, but You Can Do It!
A Memoir Can Be Hard to Write —But You Can Do It! Sometimes at the beginning of a workshop or of coaching relationship, people ask whether writing a memoir going to be hard. The short—but possibly intimidating—answer is: yes! The longer and more encouraging answer is: Yes, but you can do it!
Is Your Memoir Worth the Time to Write?
“Worth the time to write?” I repeated—raising my voice into a question—when a man said Denis Ledouxto me at a conference where I was speaking that most people didn’t have a memoir that was worth their time to write. “Not only is every life worth writing about,” I countered, “but the writing of a memoir […]
8 Lessons Learned on My Memoir Writer’s Journey
“Rather than simply telling a story, the memoirist both tells the story and muses upon it, trying to unravel what it means in the light of her (his) current knowledge.” — Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir
Writing a memoir is hard work.
I know because I have been writing mine for the past five years. Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse is now in its final editing stage. My goal is to publish it through a small publisher by December,2014.
I started writing vignettes about twelve years ago and have journaled since my teens. But I didn’t get serious about my memoir writer’s journey until 2009 when I started taking memoir writing workshops and attending writing conferences.
It’s very humbling to learn what you don’t know and when I started out, I didn’t know anything about writing a memoir. I only knew that I had a story inside me and that I wanted to write about it. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Writing the right memoir
not writing the right memoir can constrict your writing. The person who has put down one memoir a number of weeks, or months or even years ago, may not be able to pick it up again because the energy that had initially informed it is gone. The memoir has become the wrong memoir to be […]
Waxler’s Memoir Revolution Helps Writers Understand a Cultural and Literary Revolution
Jerry Waxler is clearly a man who knows his way around memoir writing. Those of us who have been following his blog, post after post, at Memory Writers Network and have immensely enjoyed his thoughtful commentary on memoir writing, his in-depth profiles of leading memoirist and memoir professionals, and his penetrating reviews of hot-off the […]
Franco-American History: Earthquake Hits New France- February 1663
On Monday, the 5th of February, 1663[1], at about five o’clock in the evening, an earthquake[2] that reportedly lasted for as long as a half hour shook New France. In Québec, Marie de l’Incarnation wrote about hearing a loud noise and a “terrible buzzing sound” coming from far away. She described it as the sound […]