We are experiencing issues with our Contact form.
Please Email Us Directly at: Su*****@************rs.com.

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

PLEASE NOTE:

oUR CONTACT US Form HAD A MALFUNCTION.
IF YOU HAVEN’T RECEIVED A REPLY, PLEASE FILL IT OUT AGAIN OR WRITE US DIRECTLY.

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Memoir writing process

eHow Memoir Writing Tips, Part 3

by

We’re halfway through the eHow.com instructions for writing a memoir. They’ve brought up valuable points, so on to the next two:

5. Ask your children, friends and family members what they’ve always wanted to know about you and your life. Make a list of their questions and answer them in your mini autobiography.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: This can provide a guide in developing chapter topics and determining which parts of your life should get the most attention. This process also will give you ideas for including information you may otherwise overlook. Ultimately, you’re writing the story you want to write, but it can be helpful to take into consideration the gaps in knowledge people have about your life.

6. Interview people in your life. Doing so might help jog your memory about events or people in your life you’ve forgotten about. What friends and family members remember might be very different from what you remember, as well. Include quotes from individuals in your life to create a colorful autobiography.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: If you’ve ever exchanged memories with someone of an event you both attended, you know how different the accounts can be. We can’t trust our own recollections completely. Even if you end up trusting your memories over someone else’s, this exercise may bring up facts and dates you can check on the Internet. The second part of this tip—including quotes from others—is a suggestion that you may or may not want to follow. It can round out a memoir, but that’s up to the individual memoir writer to decide.

eHow Memoir Writing Tips, Part 2

by
eHow Memoir Writing Tips, Part 2
Some valuable tips to help you write your memoir appear on eHow.com, so to follow up from last week let’s look at the site’s next two points.
3. Tell the stories behind the important events in your life, such as high school or college graduation, marriage, the birth of a child and your first real job. Don’t just list these events—reveal the excitement or exasperation you felt when they occurred and what you learned from each event.
WriteMyMemoirs commentary: I really like this tip, because it reminds you that you’re not writing a school paper. Usually in school, you’re assigned to write either an expository essay, which provides facts in a dry way without any opinion, or a persuasive essay, which tries to convince the reader to side with your point of view. A memoir is a different animal altogether. You want to present information through the filter of your personal experiences and emotions. You’re not simply presenting facts, but you’re also not specifically arguing a point of view.
4. Discuss the influential people in your life. Perhaps you had a teacher who took you under her wing or a neighbor who taught you how to play baseball. Write down what they looked like, how they spoke and what you admired the most about these individuals.
WriteMyMemoirs commentary: Of course, your autobiography is not complete without including all the important people in your life. But you have to be careful. Once something is published, you can’t undo it, so make sure you’re comfortable including your impressions of people. Even if you present the person in a positive light, read it over a few times. And think very carefully about writing a negative account of someone. Is it worth it to put that out there? Are you seeking revenge? Be true to yourself, but you may regret using your memoir to be petty or settle a score.
More tips next time!

Some valuable tips to help you write your memoir appear on eHow.com, so to follow up from last week let’s look at the site’s next two points.

3. Tell the stories behind the important events in your life, such as high school or college graduation, marriage, the birth of a child and your first real job. Don’t just list these events—reveal the excitement or exasperation you felt when they occurred and what you learned from each event.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: I really like this tip, because it reminds you that you’re not writing a school paper. Usually in school, you’re assigned to write either an expository essay, which provides facts in a dry way without any opinion, or a persuasive essay, which tries to convince the reader to side with your point of view. A memoir is a different animal altogether. You want to present information through the filter of your personal experiences and emotions. You’re not simply presenting facts, but you’re also not specifically arguing a point of view.

4. Discuss the influential people in your life. Perhaps you had a teacher who took you under her wing or a neighbor who taught you how to play baseball. Write down what they looked like, how they spoke and what you admired the most about these individuals.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: Of course, your autobiography is not complete without including all the important people in your life. But you have to be careful. Once something is published, you can’t undo it, so make sure you’re comfortable including your impressions of people. Even if you present the person in a positive light, read it over a few times. And think very carefully about writing a negative account of someone. Is it worth it to put that out there? Are you seeking revenge? Be true to yourself, but you may regret using your memoir to be petty or settle a score.

More tips next time!

Speak Your Memoirs

by
Speak Your Memoirs
Sometimes you sit down to write and nothing much comes out. I advise people who want to author their own memoirs to take it one anecdote at a time and thread it together later. But writing can be intimidating, and you may have trouble putting together your thoughts when faced with a blank screen. Maybe you’re not good at computers or word processing software but also can’t imagine writing out a whole book longhand. Or perhaps, like many people, you just can talk a lot easier than you can write.
Talking is a great option. We have some members here on WriteMyMemoirs who are telling their stories into audio recorders. Consider that as a solution for you if you have trouble with the writing process.
When you’re finished talking, you will likely have hours of your voice on a series of little audio tapes. What then? At the very least, you’ll have your story on record for other people to hear. You might want to make some copies and leave it at that, but with help you can get your autobiography on paper or publish it into a book. Perhaps a friend or relative can transcribe, edit and organize the work. WriteMyMemoirs offers that service, too. Just send us your tapes, and we’ll create the magic. There’s not just one route to getting your story into print, so don’t get frustrated if the writing process is difficult for you.
Sometimes you sit down to write and nothing much comes out. I advise people who want to author their own memoirs to take it one anecdote at a time and thread it together later. But writing can be intimidating, and you may have trouble putting together your thoughts when faced with a blank screen. Maybe you’re not good at computers or word processing software but also can’t imagine writing out a whole book longhand. Or perhaps, like many people, you just can talk a lot easier than you can write.
Talking is a great option. We have some members here on WriteMyMemoirs who are telling their stories into audio recorders. Consider that as a solution for you if you have trouble with the writing process.
When you’re finished talking, you will likely have hours of your voice on a series of little audio tapes. What then? At the very least, you’ll have your story on record for other people to hear. You might want to make some copies and leave it at that, but with help you can get your autobiography on paper or publish it into a book. Perhaps a friend or relative can transcribe, edit and organize the work. WriteMyMemoirs offers that service, too. Just send us your tapes, and we’ll create the magic. There’s not just one route to getting your story into print, so don’t get frustrated if the writing process is difficult for you.

Composite Characters: A Memoir Controversy

by
Composite Characters: The Latest Memoir Controversy
A controversy about writing memoirs? Last week, just such an issue emerged when an upcoming book about President Barack Obama that was excerpted in Vanity Fair. Author David Maraniss reveals in the book that President Obama’s memoir, Dreams of My Father, presented a girlfriend who was really a composite of more than one woman. The memoir includes a disclaimer indicating that “compression” was used as a writing technique. In an interview years later, Mr. Obama explained his decision to use the technique by saying, “I was very sensitive in my book not to write about my girlfriends, partly out of respect for them.”
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Maraniss dismisses the need to be 100 percent factual in a memoir. He says, “The theme of [Obama’s] memoir is race, and so both the chronology and the characters in his writing were used to advance that theme.”
Is this valid? As you write your memoirs, you’re trying to create a narrative that is compelling and easy to read. So is it okay to describe an event in a dramatic way that makes your point better than any event that actually happened? I can’t quite accept that in a memoir, and a disclaimer isn’t enough, either. At the point of relating the anecdote, you owe it to the reader to explain that you’re talking about what might have happened, or you’re describing a situation that combined elements from various times in your life; you’re not faithfully sharing one true event. Our memories play tricks on us, but a memoir should relate the facts as we best remember them.

A controversy about writing memoirs? Last week, just such an issue emerged when an upcoming book about President Barack Obama was excerpted in Vanity Fair. Author David Maraniss reveals in the book that President Obama’s memoir, Dreams of My Father, presented a girlfriend who was really a composite of more than one woman. The memoir includes a disclaimer indicating that “compression” was used as a writing technique. In an interview years later, Mr. Obama explained his decision to use the technique: “I was very sensitive in my book not to write about my girlfriends, partly out of respect for them.”

In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Maraniss dismisses the need to be 100 percent factual in a memoir. He says, “The theme of [Obama’s] memoir is race, and so both the chronology and the characters in his writing were used to advance that theme.”

Is this valid? As you write your memoirs, you’re trying to create a narrative that is compelling and easy to read. So is it okay to describe an event in a dramatic way that makes your point better than any event that actually happened? I can’t quite accept that in a memoir, and a disclaimer isn’t enough, either. At the point of relating the anecdote, you owe it to the reader to explain that you’re talking about what might have happened, or you’re describing a situation that combines elements from various times in your life; you’re not faithfully sharing one true event. Our memories play tricks on us, but a memoir should relate the facts as we best remember them.

A Commonplace Book Can Help You Write Your Memoirs

by

Ever hear of a commonplace book? It’s been credited as an early seed for the modern blog. Instead of a journal or diary of your own thoughts, it’s a record of ideas—articles, artwork and anything, really—that strike you as interesting. You also can jot down your own thoughts, but a commonplace book is for common topics, or “commonplaces,” and not meant to chronicle your life’s experiences. Artistotle was the first known commonplace book keeper; Thomas Jefferson was another fan of the genre.

You can create a commonplace book just as they did, or you can put a modern twist on it by starting a commonplace book file on your computer. Instead of bookmarking an article or a website, do a copy-and-paste and throw the whole piece into the computer file. If you clip an article from a real newspaper, if your child presents you with a drawing or if you have movie, concert or sports event tickets you’d like to save, capture any of those by scanning and saving the image to your commonplace book file. You also can add photographs.

When you sit down with your memoir, these ideas and images will jog your memory and inspire your writing. You even can craft an entire memoir around the commonplace book—just add a thread of text to explain it all. If you’d like to write a memoir but want to take your time and don’t know where to start, try keeping a commonplace book first and let your memoir project grow from there.

Working With a Ghostwriter on Your Memoir? Don’t Lose Your Voice

by
Working With a Ghostwriter on Your Memoir? Don’t Lose Your Voice
I watched a battered Ryan O’Neal squirm through an uncomfortable interview on the Today Show this morning. I felt bad for the guy. He was promoting his new memoir, Both of Us: My Life With Farrah, which details his rocky relationship with the late Farrah Fawcett. Matt Lauer did what any interviewer would do: he asked the autobiographer about particularly disturbing or explosive passages in the memoir. O’Neal was exceedingly candid, at times he seemed almost unfamiliar with his own words from the book.
Lauer read one passage that ended, “…because our lives felt so pointless.” Ryan acted surprised. “Did I say ‘pointless’?” he asked Matt, who confirmed it, and then Ryan sidestepped that description and spoke about the rest of the passage. Quoting another passage, Matt asked Ryan about his account of Farrah spending long periods staring into the mirror, upset by the aging process. Again, Ryan cushioned the quote and addressed ancillary topics.
Ryan is listed as the first of three authors of the book. There’s no shame in having a ghostwriter or two; many celebrities and ordinary people may be great at what they do professionally but are simply not writers. When you hire a ghostwriter, you’re still the main author. Make sure you’re comfortable with your writing partner, you communicate freely with the writer and you approve of every word in the book. No matter who does the crafting, this is your story, your voice.

I watched a battered Ryan O’Neal squirm through an uncomfortable interview on the Today Show this morning. I felt bad for the guy. He was promoting his new memoir, Both of Us: My Life With Farrah, which details his rocky relationship with the late Farrah Fawcett. Matt Lauer did what any interviewer would do: he asked the autobiographer about particularly disturbing or explosive passages in the memoir. O’Neal was exceedingly candid but at times seemed almost unfamiliar with his own words from the book.

Lauer read one passage that ended, “…because our lives felt so pointless.” Ryan acted surprised. “Did I say ‘pointless’?” he asked Matt, who confirmed it, and then Ryan sidestepped that description and spoke about the rest of the passage. Quoting another passage, Matt asked Ryan about his account of Farrah spending long periods staring into the mirror, upset by the aging process. Again, Ryan cushioned the quote and addressed ancillary topics.

Ryan is listed as the first of three authors of the book. There’s no shame in having a ghostwriter or two; many celebrities and ordinary people may be great at what they do professionally but are simply not writers. When you hire a ghostwriter for your memoir, you’re still the main author. Make sure you’re comfortable with your writing partner, you communicate freely with the writer and you approve of every word in the book. No matter who does the crafting, this is your story, your voice.

Write Yourself Up Wiki-Style

by
Write Yourself Up Wiki-Style
We regularly receive email from people who want to write their memoirs but can’t get started. We suggest beginning with just one limited episode; once you’ve described that, you may be able to go on to the next. I think it’s easier than starting at the beginning of your life and going chronologically. But no matter what order you follow, you may find it helpful to have an outline. Breaking down your life into small segments will eventually shape your life’s larger themes. That’s where old, reliable Wikipedia comes in.
Look up your favorite celebrity or historical figure on wikipedia.com, and you’ll see that the biographical information follows an outline that appears along with the text. Read a few of them, and perhaps you’ll get into the swing of it enough to craft an outline for your own life.
For example, I looked up Benjamin Franklin, who lived a long and varied life. One category in his biography is Inventions and scientific inquiries. Another, Public Life, is broken down into: Europe years; Hutchinson letters; Coming of Revolution; Declaration of Independence; Postmaster; Ambassador to France: 1776–1785; Constitutional Convention; and President of Pennsylvania. As you can see, there’s no rule about how all of that is worded; it’s kind of a hodgepodge. If you can approach your own time line the same way—just write down a couple of words that trigger your memory about each major aspect, period or episode in your life, you’ll have made a great start to your autobiography.

We regularly receive email from people who want to write their memoirs but can’t get started. We suggest beginning with just one limited episode; once you’ve described that, you may be able to go on to the next. I think it’s easier than starting at the beginning of your life and going chronologically. But no matter what order you follow, you may find it helpful to have an outline. Breaking down your life into small segments will eventually shape your life’s larger themes. That’s where old, reliable Wikipedia comes in.

Look up your favorite celebrity or historical figure on Wikipedia.org, and you’ll see that the biographical information follows an outline that appears along with the text. Read a few of them, and perhaps you’ll get into the swing of it enough to craft an outline for your own life.

For example, I looked up Benjamin Franklin, who lived a long and varied life. One category in his biography is Inventions and scientific inquiries. Another, Public life, is broken down into: Europe years; Hutchinson letters; Coming of Revolution; Declaration of Independence; Postmaster; Ambassador to France: 1776–1785; Constitutional Convention; and President of Pennsylvania. As you can see, there’s no rule about how all of that is worded; it’s kind of a hodgepodge. If you can approach your own time line the same way—just write down a couple of words that trigger your memory about each major aspect, period or episode in your life, you’ll have made a great start to your autobiography.

Your Life as Improv Theater

by
Your Life as Improv Theater
As you’re writing your memoirs, I know many of you are picturing your stories coming to life as a script for the movies or theater. If you happen to be anywhere London, England, your vision could become reality sooner than you think.
Stillpoint, a British theatrical troupe, has established The Department of Unreliable Memoirs to conduct a “micro project” as part of the White Night presentations at one of its performance venues, the Nightingale Theater in Brighton. Billed as “an intimate encounter for one audience member,” the project requires the players to act out a scene from the life of an audience member who volunteers to describe the action. As the audience-member storyteller, you can play fast and loose with the facts: “Make an appointment with our helpful hostesses to retrieve a half forgotten moment, from a past you may well have had,” the promotion states.
It sounds as if it’s all in good fun, but maybe you could apply the concept as part of your memoirs writing process. Think about the various scenes from your life’s chapters. Which elements create drama? Can you incorporate humor in the story? Or does it amount to a tragedy? How can this narrative further the character development of the players in your life? And if you’d like to see actors play it out right in front of you, a trip the UK may be in store!

As you’re writing your memoirs, I know many of you are picturing your stories coming to life as a script for the movies or theater. If you happen to be anywhere London, England, your vision could become reality sooner than you think.

Stillpoint, a British theatrical troupe, has established The Department of Unreliable Memoirs to conduct a “micro project” as part of the White Night presentations at one of its performance venues, the Nightingale Theater in Brighton. Billed as “an intimate encounter for one audience member,” the project requires the players to act out a scene from the life of an audience member who volunteers to describe the action. As the audience-member storyteller, you can play fast and loose with the facts: “Make an appointment with our helpful hostesses to retrieve a half-forgotten moment, from a past you may well have had,” the promotion states.

It sounds as if it’s all in good fun, but maybe you could apply the concept as part of your memoirs writing process. Think about the various scenes from your life’s chapters. Which elements create drama? Can you incorporate humor in the story? Or does it amount to a tragedy? How can the narrative of this vignette further the character development of the players in your life? And if you’d like to see actors play it out right in front of you, a trip the UK may be in store!

What You and Carole King Have in Common

by
What You and Carole King Have in Common
On NBC’s Today Show this morning, Ann Curry interviewed iconic singer/songwriter Carole King, now 70, about her new memoir, A Natural Woman. As she spoke about her reasons for writing a memoir and the memoir writing process in general, she reminded me of you! Judging by the email we receive from WriteMyMemoirs members, a lot of what Carole expressed is universally felt among people who decide to put their life stories into words. See whether you relate:
Ann: “People say that writing a memoir is incredibly illuminating. What did you learn about yourself?”
Carole: “Oh my gosh, I learned so much….Why did I actually do the things I did, and why did I choose the men I chose?”
In the book, Carole describes some physical abuse at the hands of a lesser-known of her four husbands.
Carole: “The writing of this story—I wasn’t sure I was going to include it in the book—but I wanted people to understand, people who go through [domestic abuse]—mostly women but some men—that you’re not alone. This is a phenomenon that can even happen to somebody like me, who was successful, who had financial independence.” The book includes information about where to go for help.
Carole on why it took 12 years, until age 70, to finish the book: “I finally felt the calmness….People have said, ‘You should write about your life,’ for a lot of my life because I have such an interesting life. But it was only until just before I was 60 that I just said, ‘Okay, I’m ready to embrace this stage of my life.”
Ann, noting that Carole has more than 400 compositions recorded by 1000+ artists to her credit, plus five grandchildren: “How do you want to be remembered…now that you’ve looked back on [your life]?
Carole: “My goal every day is to try to be a good person, to try to do kind things, to try to make the world a better place in the ways that I can. And if I have influenced one person in a good way, that’s good enough.”
Click here to view video of the entire interview.

On NBC’s Today Show this morning, Ann Curry interviewed iconic singer/songwriter Carole King, now 70, about her new memoir, A Natural Woman. As she spoke about her reasons for writing a memoir and the memoir writing process in general, she reminded me of you! Judging by the email we receive from WriteMyMemoirs members, a lot of what Carole expressed is universally felt among people who decide to put their life stories into words. See whether you relate:

Ann: “People say that writing a memoir is incredibly illuminating. What did you learn about yourself?”
Carole: “Oh my gosh, I learned so much….Why did I actually do the things I did, and why did I choose the men I chose?”

In the book, Carole describes some physical abuse at the hands of a lesser-known of her four husbands.
Carole: “The writing of this story—I wasn’t sure I was going to include it in the book—but I wanted people to understand, people who go through [domestic abuse]—mostly women but some men—that you’re not alone. This is a phenomenon that can even happen to somebody like me, who was successful, who had financial independence.” The book includes information about where to go for help.

Carole on why it took 12 years, until age 70, to finish the book: “I finally felt the calmness….People have said, ‘You should write about your life,’ for a lot of my life because I have such an interesting life. But it was only until just before I was 60 that I just said, ‘Okay, I’m ready to embrace this stage of my life.”

Ann, noting that Carole has more than 400 compositions recorded by 1000+ artists to her credit, plus five grandchildren: “How do you want to be remembered…now that you’ve looked back on [your life]?”
Carole: “My goal every day is to try to be a good person, to try to do kind things, to try to make the world a better place in the ways that I can. And if I have influenced one person in a good way, that’s good enough.”

Click here to view video of the entire interview.

Writing as Therapy

by
Writing as Therapy
Product or process—which is your main reason for writing your memoir? Do you dearly want to produce a book that traces your life story for others to read or, rather, are you primarily using your memoir writing project as a therapeutic means of working through problems?
Writing in a recent New York Times Sunday Magazine, Steve Almond argues that the number of writing workshops, writing conferences and university-level creative writing programs has exploded to fill the void previously occupied by traditional “talk therapy” sessions with a counselor. The iconic image of the patient on the couch confiding in a therapist is a picture from the past, Almond maintains. Today, he says, troubled people take prescribed medication to sort of fix their brain chemistry and, while that may make them feel better, it’s not fulfilling.
Therefore what creative writers want, says Almond, who currently leads a writer’s workshop for people in their 50s and 60s, is “permission to articulate feelings that were somehow off limits within the fragile habitat of their families….[Creative writing] almost always involves a direct engagement with [the] inner life, as well as a demand for greater empathy and disclosure. These goals are fundamentally therapeutic.” To any of you who have landed at WriteMyMemoirs in an effort to claim your right to express yourself, sort through the difficult aspects of your life or quiet “the human heart in conflict with itself,” as Almond quotes William Faulkner, please feel very welcome here.

Product or process—which is your main reason for writing your memoir? Do you dearly want to produce a book that traces your life story for others to read or, rather, are you primarily using your memoir writing project as a therapeutic means of working through problems?

Writing in a recent New York Times Sunday Magazine, Steve Almond argues that the number of writing workshops, writing conferences and university-level creative writing programs has exploded to fill the void previously occupied by traditional “talk therapy” sessions with a counselor. The iconic image of the patient on the couch confiding in a therapist is a picture from the past, Almond maintains. Today, he says, troubled people take prescribed medication to sort of fix their brain chemistry and, while that may make them feel better, it’s not fulfilling.

Therefore what creative writers want, says Almond, who currently leads a writer’s workshop for people in their 50s and 60s, is “permission to articulate feelings that were somehow off limits within the fragile habitat of their families….[Creative writing] almost always involves a direct engagement with [the] inner life, as well as a demand for greater empathy and disclosure. These goals are fundamentally therapeutic.” To any of you who have landed at WriteMyMemoirs in an effort to claim your right to express yourself, sort through the difficult aspects of your life or quiet “the human heart in conflict with itself,” as Almond quotes William Faulkner, please feel very welcome here.

Login

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!

Schedule A Call