John Walker Pattison speaks with Write My Memoirs Always up for an interview with a memoir author, over Zoom recently I met with John Walker Pattison, author of Me and My Shadow: Memoirs of a Cancer Survivor. You can watch our exchange on my YouTube channel. John wrote about beating his own cancer when he
Family gatherings reveal a lot about a life through dialogue-rich stories. My mother died on November 25, 1991. It was the Monday before Thanksgiving, which was November 28 that year. This year repeats that exact pattern, bringing back thoughts of that unusual Thanksgiving, when one of the people in the small group of family who
Open is compelling, dramatic and raw I hate finishing a memoir—I always miss the author. I want to tell you about the one I just finished, Open, because Andre Agassi’s memoir teaches memoir authors a lot of lessons, and because I’m missing the tennis legend and writing this drags out the goodbye. Audiobook Issues Do
Use these cornerstones to shape a compelling narrative. As an author, you want to write well and craft your memoir in a fashion that keeps people reading. That requires attention to both picky rules and broad conventions. It takes talent and practice, and to some degree one can compensate for the other. But telling a
Trying to glean lessons from my own tale of Hurricane Milton. Here on Florida’s Gulf Coast we’ve had two weather crises back to back. I’m sure you’ve heard about our battles with Helene and Milton. During my evacuation two days before Hurricane Milton made landfall, I tried to distract myself by writing up my experiences
Your writing will become something you just do rather than strive to do. I didn’t start running until I was 40. I was working, raising kids and going to the gym but too busy to spend a lot of time there. I asked myself, “What is the biggest bang for the buck in exercise?” I
You can avoid these four common errors in pronoun use, so don’t give up! I’m not sure I can make a lesson in how to use pronouns correctly fun, but I hope I can make it comprehensible. Sit down. You’re going to be here a while. Error 1: Using the subject pronoun as the object
The toughest part of speech is trickier than ever. If you’re a writer, you may go through life cringing in public or constantly yelling at the TV, especially at unscripted reality shows and sometimes even the news. You’re correcting all of the “him and I” and “she and me” references. You’re rolling your eyes at
Aim to grab the reader from the very start, but don’t sweat this too much. In guiding you through writing your memoir’s first sentence, in the previous post I gave examples of openings from the celebrity memoirs I’ve read. That list contained memoirs of actors, and I left musicians and comedians for this post. So
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!