9 Tips for a Fast Start Writing Your Memoir
Ever wish you had the secret of generating a fast way to fast start writing your memoir—or most any other book?
A proven way to start writing is to follow a set of steps that will help you get into the writing habit. When I wrote and published A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir Of A Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage, I appreciated the efficiency and effectiveness of my writing process all the more. A Sugary Frosting is the story of the first 20 years of my deceased wife’s life. She had written a number of her stories but died before completing a memoir. When I took up the task, I followed what I consider to be “best practices” of memoir writing.
Below I offer them to you to help you get a fast start and to write more prolifically—and even bring it to a finish in the form of a published memoir.
Here are my nine “best practices” for memoir writing. They are tried and true and bear implementing today.
1. Set up a regular writing time. This will get you a fast start writing your memoir.
How long you write is perhaps not as important as how frequently you do so. Once you have set up a writing time, honor it as you would a medical appointment. Don’t allow others to usurp your time!
A schedule may be the tool you need to make a success of your writing. Don’t become another person who tried to write, who is thinking of writing.
What you need to write a memoir successfully is discipline not motivation. Motivation will likely get you only so far while discipline will see you to a completed memoir. A schedule flows naturally as a part of discipline.
2. Give yourself permission to write a rough first draft.
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22 Memoir-Writing Goals to Jumpstart your Memoir Writing
Do you find yourself wandering along with your memoir writing 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 regular intervals, it is traditional to review how the past went for you and to recommit to goals for yourself for the coming months. (A goal is a wish with action steps and a timeline.) These goals need to be written and reviewed periodically.
Studies have shown that people who set goals in writing have a better outcome vis-à-vis accomplishing what they set out to do. Here’s a report on one such study. (The famous Harvard goal-setting study so many of us have heard of apparently never happened, but the concept of goal setting is clearly important and is explored in the linked article.)
22 Memoir-Writing Goals especially for you!
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What would support for writing your memoir look like for you?
While some people succeed at writing an interesting and meaningful memoir on their own, the fact is many people need both more technical expertise than they now have and more emotional support for the long effort they are undertaking. Many find the task of writing a memoir—however urgent and compelling—to be somewhat daunting and, if […]
Surviving Childhood Abuse: A Writer’s Experience
Congratulations to Denise Brown on the publication of her book, Transcending Darkness: A Memoir of Abuse and Grace. I recently had the opportunity to interview Denise about her experience writing her book on surviving childhood abuse. I am pleased to share her experience. To read Part 2, click here. To read Part 3, click here.—DL
Denis Ledoux: Can you tell our readers what your book is about and why you were impelled to write it? What was driving you to spend the time, energy and money to get this book out into the world?
Denise Brown: Transcending Darkness is a memoir about the abuse that I experienced during my childhood. Abuse led me on a path of self-destruction. This path encountered God and his mercy in unexpected ways. It sounds like a crazy story, but I began writing my memoir when I was in college after having an incredible dream. An angel brought me to visit three teenage girls who were suffering emotionally. Each of them had been reading a book and were crying. I realized that the book was giving them a glimmer of hope for their futures. Then the angel revealed to me that it was my book that I had not yet written that they were reading, and that I was being given the choice of helping them or not. After that, I couldn’t get the dream out of my head! I began writing what would become Transcending Darkness a few days later.
DL: Can you tell us how long it took from the time you conceived the book to the time you had it published? How many years did you spend in active writing? Were there long breaks in between active writing periods? If so, what happened to get you writing again? Writing about surviving childhood abuse must have been difficult. emotionally
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Writing Memoir Is Not Easy
When you’re writing memoir, the project typically starts with a burst of energy. “This is going to be a good piece of writing! What am I saying, ‘good?’
“It’s going to be great!”
So we write for a month or two or even three and the energy remains strong but…
There comes a day when the demon that plagues all writers raises its ugly head and snaps at you.
“What in the world were you thinking of committing yourself to writing this horribly insignificant piece! And worse yet, what were you thinking of alerting other people that you were writing a memoir? Now, they’re going to expect something and you’re about to make a fool of yourself!”
Or, something equally terrible and intimidating goes through your mind. When that happens, what do you do?
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Successful Memoir Writing – Tips to Help You Write
Successful Memoir Writing – Recently, someone asked me what are the biggest barriers memoir writers face to being successful. Three came to mind right away.
Who Cares About My Memoir?
Have you ever asked, “Who cares about my memoir?” Certainly, a lot of people have!
A perennial, and perhaps inherent, challenge every memoir writer faces is that of audience. Specifically, every writer is saddled with the incapacitating doubt that there is an audience for his/her memoir.
“Who will want to read my memoir? Who cares about my memoir?” asked enough times can bring your writing to a halt.
Of course, it’s a good question. Who will want to read about someone else’s life or even—horrors!—MY life.
“But,” you gasp, “isn’t that what a memoir is—the story of my life? What’s the point of writing if no one is interested?”
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What Motivates You to Write a Memoir? Joe Skinkis shares his reason
D: What motivates you to write a memoir? I asked Joe Skinkis. Here he shares how his many life experiences have impelled him to write his life stories.
I am a 75-year-old man who lives in Thailand with my 30-year-old wife. One day, we may have a child. I would like to have my child learn from my mistakes and to glean the positive aspects of my experience. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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How to Finish Writing Your Memoir
I’ve noticed that many people who come to The Memoir Network have already been writing a while. They are not people who are just starting out on the memoir journey. Many have already written 5, 10, 15 or more stories or vignettes. They have been writing for a number of months—sometimes even years—and are concluding that they are spinning their wheels, that they are not producing a book as they so want to do. They realize they are not on the path to bringing their memoirs to a finish. What they are doing is writing stand-along piece after stand-alone piece. Well, a stand-alone piece is not a bad goal really—wouldn’t you love to have stand-alone stories from your grandparents? It’s just that stand-alones are really just not what they want to leave as a legacy. So, how do you finish writing your memoir?
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