3 Stages of Writing a Memoir
A guest post Three Stages of Writing a Memoir: Own Your Truth, Find Your Voice and Tell Your Story In December 2011, I decided to take a trip to my home country, Azerbaijan. I had a property to sell and family to visit there. More importantly, I was on a mission to find my father’s […]
Be a Better Memoir Writer with Deliberate Practice
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.
When Writers Lose Interest, It Might Actually Be Healthy
It’s common for a writer to find that she has written much about a period of her life that is now uninteresting to her. Though she wrote with enthusiasm, intending to include this material in her memoir, it doesn’t seem to merit inclusion now. She may be despondent. “I worked so hard! Now I want […]
10 Ways to Stop Writer’s Block
Why should writers have writer’s blocks? Do plumbers have plumber’s block? Do accountants have accountant’s block? Stop writer’s block now.
5 Better Ways to Describe The People in Your Memoir
Without other people, our lives and our memoirs risk becoming dull. Although ideas are pivotal for many individuals, relationships are even more commanding. We are intrigued with who other people are and how they function. “Who’s that? What are they doing? Where did they come from?” These are question we want answered. To write a […]
Listening to Grief: The Boys Laugh Again
Eyes squeezed tightly shut, I listen for the laughter of my two grandsons as I drift on my rubber raft. I’m certain if I’m silent and try hard enough I’ll hear the laughter of the boys again. Glimpses of summer days when we laughed together flash through my mind. One day, we linked our three […]
Mining Memoir Depths: Spelunking of the Mind
I enjoy many forms of physical exercise, from climbing mountains, to backpacking along trails, to bicycling, and even swimming. But mostly nowadays I just go hiking, sometimes with my grandchildren and partner, but often alone. Working the muscles of my body is good for me and helps keep my joints working. I feel better after […]
History And Memoir Writing
I live in the area (Lewiston, Maine) where my great-grandparents, my grandparents and parents–and now me–spent their lives, and I am also an amateur historian of this region. When I was asked to speak at a library lunchtime program several years ago, I chose a topic similar to Linda Myers’ topic: Lewiston’s Buildings Tell Our […]
The Theme-focused Memoir
While many of the people whom I have helped to write a memoir have come ostensibly to write about their lives – to celebrate some achievement, I would say that many of these people are also writing a mission-driven memoir, a theme-focused memoir. Behind the desire to tell about their lives, there is some intent […]