Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Day: December 8, 2009

Memoirs Are Splashed Against History’s Canvas

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blog18By their very nature, your memoirs recount stories from an entire life span and, therefore, will contain a unique historical perspective that follows that time line. Perhaps you’ve lived through a dozen U.S. administrations, several wars and a host of natural catastrophes. You may remember owning an early model automobile, watching a man land on the moon and hearing “you’ve got mail??? for the first time over the Internet. The panoramic history of the times will always provide the tapestry that brings texture to your life stories.

Reading Judith Warner’s commentary in Sunday’s New York Times got me thinking about how my own autobiography would play out against the background of the women’s movement. In quoting the book Beauty Junkies—“Looks are the new feminism???—Warner expresses the opinion that the popularity of plastic surgery reflects middle aged women’s inability in the current economy to control anything other than their own appearance. “Women’s empowerment becomes a matter of a tight face and a flat belly,??? she says.

I remember when Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique topped the best-seller list. Various decisions I’ve made have reflected the many options and opportunities granted to my generation of women. My life story, particularly my career, would not have had the same developments in another era. For example, consider what you’re reading at this very moment: someday blogs will seem so 2009!

Photo: © Nic Neish

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Then just set up a chapter and start writing your memoir. Don’t worry about rules. There are no rules to writing your memoir; there are only trends. These trends are based on techniques and features identified in current top-selling memoirs. At best, they’re the flavor of the month. If you’re capturing your life in print for your family, for your own gratification or to inspire readers, rather than aiming to set off Hollywood screenplay bidding wars, these trends don’t even apply to you. You’ll write the memoir that suits you best, and it will be timeless, not trend-driven.There are no rules, but there are four steps:

1. Theme/framework
2. Writing
3. Editing/polishing
4. Self-publishing

You’ve researched this, too, and you’ve been shocked at the price for getting help with any one of those steps, much less all four. That’s because most memoir sites promise to commercialize your work. They’ll follow a formula based on current memoir trends, because they want to convince you that they can turn your memoir into a best-seller. These sites overwhelm you with unnecessary information not to help you, the memoir author, but to address Search Engine Optimization (SEO) algorithms so they can sell more.

That’s not what we do at Write My Memoirs. Our small community of coaches, writers and editors are every bit as skilled as any you’ll find, and we charge appropriately for their expertise and the time they’ll spend helping you craft a compelling, enjoyable read. But you won’t pay an upcharge for other websites’ commercialization, the marketing that follows, and the pages of intimidating “advice.” You can sell your book if you like—we have ISBNs available for you—but our organic process of capturing your story takes a noncommercial path.

If you want help with any or all of the four steps above, choose from our services or save money by selecting one of our packages. If you’d like to talk about what’s right for you, schedule a call. One year from now, you can be holding your published memoir in your hand. And at that point, it will be a big deal!

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