And why you don’t have to be a writer to write a great memoir When you’re a writer, you write. You can tell whether you’re a writer just by looking at the sheer volume of your work. Do you have notebooks full of essays, poems, stories or even just thoughts? Is your computer filled with
Fun with AI! We asked for some moderately bad prose so you can see what to avoid. You can write well while still knowing there’s room to professionalize your memoir writing. The amateur quality can be distracting for readers, who pick up on the feeling that it just doesn’t sound like a “real” book even
You are the best person to tackle this project before handing it over to a professional editor. If your memoir’s first draft is a mess, you’re doing something right. The “something” is that you’re getting it all down without worrying about the mechanics of good writing. You’re not thinking about punctuation and sentence structure and
Memoir continues to be a popular genre as 2024 moves along. Reading memoirs for 2024 can give you a lot of clues to help you write yours. It’s hard to find time to read books when you’re writing one of your own. But it’s both motivating and instructive to read well-crafted memoirs published about the
Sometimes the hardest part of writing a memoir is identifying what it’s really about. Most memoir authors fall into one of two groups. They either write their memoir to share a compelling episode in their life that comes with lessons for interested readers, or they want to chronicle their entire life for their children and
Sound like yourself but only like the writer inside you. “When did you start writing for that company?” The question caught me off-guard. Like my colleague who was asking it, I’ve focused much of my career writing in and about the professional beauty salon industry. She was referring to an article I’d written for a
Learn the rules once and use punctuation correctly forever. Experts will recommend that when you sit down to write, just keep going and don’t worry about grammar or getting punctuation correct in your memoir. That’s good advice. You want the ideas to flow out of you without roadblocks that interrupt you when you’re on a
Numerology Offers a Lot of Motivation to Say: New Year, New Book. Like a lot of people, memoir authors look for signs. Should I write my life story? I’ve started my memoir, but should I finish it? Will my memoir be any good if I write it? Give me a sign. Please! According to numerologists,
The questions start with why, how and who. When you get to the point of publishing your memoir in traditional book form, you’ll probably give some thought to also developing a memoir audiobook to let readers decide whether they want to read your book themselves or listen as it’s read to them. People like options,
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!