Learn Better Writing: how not to wander aimlessly in your memoir
DL: This is part of a several posts of free products available to you to learn better writing.This is Part 1. — You know the scene. You’re in an unknown town—never been to before. You have some general directions: your location is in the north end of town: perhaps it’s on a side street; after […]
22 Memoir-Writing Goals for 2022
Did you find yourself wandering along with your memoir writing in 2021 and not achieving your memoir-writing goals? Do you have a sense that you might have accomplished a bit more writing than you have? At this time of year, it is traditional to review how the past year went for you and to create […]
Only Telling the Truth in Your Memoir Will Set You Free
I urge all readers to commit to telling the truth—100% of it—in their memoir. It’s the only way you will get to the truth—and as they say, the telling the truth will set you free.
“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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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: […]
Where Do You Begin Writing Your Memoir?
Is there a best place to start writing your memoir? It’s a quandary: where do you start writing your memoir? Many people may say: from the beginning. But, I don’t think that is the best place to start composing. The answer is actually quite simple.
Slow Writing is the Literary Relative of Slow Cooking
With all the blog posts I have read about learning to write faster—I have even heard of “how to write a book in a weekend, I want to take a moment to re-emphasize the value of writing slowly and carefully. Perhaps, what I would like to stop a moment to ponder is the literary relative […]
The Wrong Point of View in a Memoir Can Throw the Story
In 1996 and 1997, I composed about 200 pages of a memoir of my high school years and then it wasn’t going anywhere more than where it had been—mired in facts and details with no spirit. What I didn’t know was it had a wrong point of view problem
I merely stored it in various computers for years.
In the fall of 2013, I completed my mother’s memoir (We Were Not Spoiled). Because I was looking for a writing project I might devote myself to next, I picked up the high-school memoir again.
(Lest you think that I went to a high school like yours, let me assure you that I did not. I attended a Catholic high-school seminary. No, I’m not writing about sexual shenanigans—there was none of that whatsoever. I am writing about my life there between 1960 and 1964 and how it shaped me. This theme of identity is usual stuff for a memoir, but the setting is exotic in many ways and not at all usual. Almost none of you who are reading this have “been there”—trust me.)
Suddenly, after more than a decade and a half, the memoir spoke to me again!
“Write me! Write me!” it shouted. The text seemed “alive” again. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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How Long Does It Take to Write a Memoir?
Sometimes, years after I’ve heard from someone that he is writing a memoir, I will connect with the writer again. Perhaps it’s three or four or five years later, but the writer is working on the same memoir. I don’t get it. So I ask politely, “What has snagged the memoir?” In short…
I has taken that writer too long to write his memoir!
How long does it take to write a memoir?
Well, I don’t actually know the answer to “how long does it take to write a memoir?” What I know is a memoir needn’t take so long to compose. A memoir—and interesting and meaningful one—can be written in 12 to 24 months.
If that’s so, then why do some memoirs drag on?
Here are some reasons your memoir may be taking you too long.
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Too Much Backstory–Are you making memoir writing more difficult than necessary?
How much backstory is too much? Today we will discuss how to avoid too much backstory in your memoir.