In the process of writing your memoir, you’re probably researching a bit of your background. You may be checking your parents’ or grandparents’ birthplaces. Maybe you’re asking relatives to fill in a family tree so that you know exactly how you’re related to your cousins. This is what memoir authors have always done. Today you
Michelle Obama gave her heralded memoir the unremarkable title of Becoming. Snarky comic George Carlin tried only semi-successfully working his famous “7 dirty words” stand-up routine into his autobiography by calling it the generic Last Words. Creative Desi Arnaz came up with the less-than-creative A Book, dramatically gifted Katharine Hepburn wrote the undramatically named memoir
You may be writing a memoir only to hand out to family and friends, but if you’re hoping to sell it you’ll benefit from earning some credibility ahead of time. You’re an author now, so start establishing yourself as a writer! Write up an op-ed, share a personal essay, post a fictional story, report on
We’re excited to announce our new Write My Memoirs Support Group! It’s a virtual audio/video meet-up that you can join from your computer or your phone. Let’s do some Q&A. When does this start? We’re aiming for the end of June 2019. How often will the group meet? We’ll hold two 1-hour meetings a week.
Here’s a riddle for you: How is Easter Day like a memoir? There’s an egg hunt for both. On Easter Sunday, children go, baskets in hand, into fields, backyards, playgrounds and urban settings to search for colorful eggs hidden by, they’re typically told, the Easter Bunny. When you write a memoir, your field is your
You’re the one who’s lived your life, so you know you have memories, but by the time you get around to writing them down you may find that those memories are not as sharp as you’d thought. What was that person’s name again? Where did we meet for coffee that day? Which car did I
We don’t hide our hope that you’ll come to Write My Memoirs if you want an editor to help you professionalize your writing. Of course we want to work with you! But we’re truthful about it—not everyone needs to hire an editor. We designed this “decision tree” to help you determine whether your memoir would
We hear a lot about how to make time for writing but not as much about how to take time from writing. Whether writing is your profession or your hobby, it’s not your whole life. Stick to a schedule that builds in time for various other activities. Among the good reasons to take a break:
Some people have diaries to source, but many memoir authors rely on their memories to tell the stories of their lives. You could be trying to remember details of events that took place decades ago. How much time and effort should you put into making sure you get your facts straight? There’s no perfect answer
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!