Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Add Yourself to the Bombeck/Ephron/Quindlen List of Women Essayists

Try writing your memoir as a collection of essays instead of a chronological narrative.
Memoir as a Collection of Essays
I was a big fan of Nora Ephron, who died last month after carving a niche for women writers who share witty observations of modern times. While the late Erma Bombeck did much the same but focused on homemaking, Ephron added the workplace. I first discovered Nora through her book of essays, Crazy Salad, and last year read her latest, I Remember Nothing, which was an actual book rather than a collection of essays. But the sum of her essays alone gave the reader a good picture of her life story.
The heir to the female essayist throne is Anna Quindlen who, like her predecessors, shares views about normal home and work life through the eyes of a woman. Quindlen’s latest entry, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, covers a pivotal moment in time of the author’s life as she leaves her 50s to enter her 60s. Her chapters cover the different categories of things that tend to evolve at that stage of life, like appearance, faith and confidence.
Many people who do not write professionally but would like to pen a memoir have a tough time organizing it and creating transitions between chapters. If that describes you, try structuring your autobiography as a collection of essays. Write just one essay about a time period, a person, a location or an idea that made an impact on your life. Then write another one. When you put these essays together, each can become a chapter of your book without the necessity of tying them together.
http://www.amazon.com/Lots-Candles-Plenty-Cake-Quindlen/dp/1400069343/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341935885&sr=1-1&keywords=quindlen+lots+of+candles

I was a big fan of Nora Ephron, who died last month after carving a niche for women writers who share witty observations of modern times. While the late Erma Bombeck did much the same but focused on homemaking, Ephron added the workplace. I first discovered Nora through her book of essays, Crazy Salad, and last year read her latest, I Remember Nothing, which was an actual book rather than a collection of essays. But the sum of her essays alone gave the reader a good picture of her life story.

The heir to the female essayist throne is Anna Quindlen who, like her predecessors, shares views about normal home and work life through the eyes of a woman. Quindlen’s latest entry, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, covers a pivotal moment in time of the author’s life as she leaves her 50s to enter her 60s. Her chapters cover the different categories of things that tend to evolve at that stage of life, like appearance, faith and confidence.

Many people who do not write professionally but would like to pen a memoir have a tough time organizing it and creating transitions between chapters. If that describes you, try structuring your autobiography as a collection of essays. Write just one essay about a time period, a person, a location or an idea that made an impact on your life. Then write another one. When you put these essays together, each can become a chapter of your book without the necessity of tying them together.

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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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