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!

Pertinent internet site

Children’s Wellbeing Linked to Your Memoir!

by

I’m not embarrassed that I read Parade weekly. That skinny little magazine comes with my Sunday newspaper and is hard to ignore, plus it always has some interesting factoids. A few weeks ago, Parade ran a quiz to let readers measure the happiness of their family life. Devised by author Bruce Feiler, the quiz was based on his own research that identified “the ingredients that make families effective, resilient and happy.” The very first question read:

When a team of psychologists measured children’s resilience, they found that the kids who ___ were best able to handle stress.
(a) Ate the same breakfast every day
(b) Knew the most about their family’s history
(c) Played team sports
(d) Attended regular religious services
The answer was (b)! The explanation: “The more children know about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives and the higher their self-esteem. The reason: These children have a strong sense of ‘intergenerational self’—they understand that they belong to something bigger than themselves, and that families naturally experience both highs and lows.”

Intuitively, I really relate to that explanation. Don’t you? Doesn’t that knowledge of what came before you provide a necessary identification of who you are? So if you’re not writing a memoir for your own amusement, write one for your children and grandchildren!

More on Memoirs of War Vets

by
Last week, we told you about the Veterans Writing Project, which offers free workshops and seminars to help veterans and their families write about their military-related experience. But this nationwide program is not the only game in town. Other groups, too, encourage veterans to write out their war experiences. Listed in a recent New York Times article were also Warrior Writers and a local one, the Syracuse Veterans’ Writing Group. If you know of others, leave us a comment below and we’ll post them.
For the article, the reporter asked one of the veterans who had written a memoir why this type of autobiography is so important. He told the reporter, “We write to bear witness.” This seems especially true for vets of recent wars—Iraq and Afghanistan—who experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). “The traditional therapies and approaches to PTSD are not getting the job done,” Travis L. Martin, editor of The Journal of Military Experience, told the reporter. “Vets are looking for alternative ways to heal, and they are latching onto writing as a way to do it.”
The article makes the point that writing is therapeutic no matter what type of trauma the writer has experienced. “Expressive writing is used in clinical settings to help patients examine anxieties and abuse that are otherwise unspeakable,” the article goes on to say. “Exposure therapy— retelling a traumatic event over and over until it loses its hold over a patient—often uses writing to extinguish the emotional and physical reaction to trauma.”
If you’re a veteran, we at Write My Memoirs hope you find our site to be a helpful tool that enables you to work through your memories.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/education/edlife/veterans-learn-to-write-and-heal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.warriorwriters.org/home.html
http://wrt.syr.edu/syrvetwriters/

Last week, we told you about the Veterans Writing Project, which offers free workshops and seminars to help veterans and their families write about their military-related experiences. But that nationwide program is not the only game in town. Other groups, too, encourage veterans to write out their war experiences. Listed in a recent New York Times article were also Warrior Writers and a local one, the Syracuse Veterans’ Writing Group. If you know of others, leave us a comment below and we’ll post them.

For the article, the reporter asked one of the veterans who had written a memoir why this type of autobiography is so important. He told the reporter, “We write to bear witness.” This seems especially true for vets of recent wars—Iraq and Afghanistan—who experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). “The traditional therapies and approaches to PTSD are not getting the job done,” Travis L. Martin, editor of The Journal of Military Experience, told the reporter. “Vets are looking for alternative ways to heal, and they are latching onto writing as a way to do it.”

The article makes the point that writing is therapeutic no matter what type of trauma the writer has experienced. “Expressive writing is used in clinical settings to help patients examine anxieties and abuse that are otherwise unspeakable,” the article goes on to say. “Exposure therapy— retelling a traumatic event over and over until it loses its hold over a patient—often uses writing to extinguish the emotional and physical reaction to trauma.”

If you’re a veteran, we at Write My Memoirs hope you find our site to be a helpful tool that enables you to work through your memories.

Veterans Find Comfort in Writing War Memoirs

by
Veterans Find Comfort in Writing War Memoirs
If you’re a veteran struggling with your memories of war atrocities, there’s substantial evidence that it benefits you to write about your recollections. Even if you served but were not at war, perhaps you witnessed some disturbing events. The Veterans Writing Project wants you to write your story and will help you do that with free workshops and seminars. There’s no charge to you, because the organization is a non-profit and receives funding. Are you a family member of someone who has served? Then you, too, qualify to take the free writing training. The website says:
“We approach our work with three goals in mind. The first is literary. We believe there is a new wave of great literature coming and that much of that will be written by veterans and their families. The next is social. We have in the United States right now the smallest ever proportion of our population in service during a time of war. Less than 1% of Americans have taken part in these most recent wars. Our WWII veterans are dying off at a rate of nearly 1000 per day. We want to put as many of these stories in front of as many readers as we can. Finally, writing is therapeutic. Returning warriors have known for centuries the healing power of narrative. We give veterans the skills they need to capture their stories and do so in an environment of mutual trust and respect.”
The New York Times recently did a story about the growing popularity among veterans to write their memoirs and the increasing number of organizations available to help them. More on that next time.
http://veteranswriting.org/

If you’re a veteran struggling with your memories of war atrocities, there’s substantial evidence that it benefits you to write about your recollections. Even if you served but were not at war, perhaps you witnessed some disturbing events. The Veterans Writing Project wants you to write your story and will help you do that with free workshops and seminars. There’s no charge to you, because the organization is a non-profit and receives funding. Are you a family member of someone who has served? Then you, too, qualify to take the free writing training. The website says:

“We approach our work with three goals in mind. The first is literary. We believe there is a new wave of great literature coming and that much of that will be written by veterans and their families. The next is social. We have in the United States right now the smallest ever proportion of our population in service during a time of war. Less than 1% of Americans have taken part in these most recent wars. Our WWII veterans are dying off at a rate of nearly 1000 per day. We want to put as many of these stories in front of as many readers as we can. Finally, writing is therapeutic. Returning warriors have known for centuries the healing power of narrative. We give veterans the skills they need to capture their stories and do so in an environment of mutual trust and respect.”

The New York Times recently did a story about the growing popularity among veterans to write their memoirs and the increasing number of organizations available to help them. More on that next time.

Why We’re Drawn To Biography, Part IV

by
Why We’re Drawn To Biography, Part IV
So far in this blog series we’ve been focusing on famous authors. But they’re not the only ones who write popular memoirs. Just this past Sunday, the New York Times Book Review section featured an essay on the “self-help” memoir. Because there are now so many of these books, they have formed a “new subgenre,” maintains the essay’s author, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, who says that the modern self-help memoir is a “a kind of long-form personal narrative fused with life coaching.” The author of such a memoir, typically not a famous person, has achieved a positive change and writes a book coaching readers in how to do the same. “The selling point is not that their challenges are exceptional, but that they are common,” Tuhus-Dubrow writes. “Like us, the authors are just trying to find true love or raise good kids or enjoy life more.”
Some of you who are crafting your stories on WriteMyMemoirs fall into this group. You write your memoir not only to document the facts of your life, but also to share with friends, and perhaps the world, how you managed to achieve a level of happiness or peace of mind.
“The journey from wretchedness to redemption is one of the most common narrative arcs in memoir,” write Tuhus-Dubrow. “But rather than redemption, the self-help memoir culminates in improvement….The self-help memoirist goes from suboptimal to systematically upgraded.” By writing out the steps of progress, the autobiographer gives readers a method to duplicate the achievement.

So far in this blog series we’ve been focusing on famous authors. But they’re not the only ones who write popular memoirs. Just this past Sunday, the New York Times Book Review section featured an essay, “I Change, You Change,” on the “self-help” memoir. Because there are now so many of these books, they have formed a “new subgenre,” maintains the essay’s author, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, who says that the modern self-help memoir is a “a kind of long-form personal narrative fused with life coaching.” The author of such a memoir, typically not a famous person, has achieved a positive change and writes a book coaching readers in how to do the same. “The selling point is not that their challenges are exceptional, but that they are common,” Tuhus-Dubrow writes. “Like us, the authors are just trying to find true love or raise good kids or enjoy life more.”

Some of you who are crafting your stories on WriteMyMemoirs fall into this group. You write your memoir not only to document the facts of your life, but also to share with friends, and perhaps the world, how you managed to achieve a level of happiness or peace of mind.

“The journey from wretchedness to redemption is one of the most common narrative arcs in memoir,” write Tuhus-Dubrow. “But rather than redemption, the self-help memoir culminates in improvement….The self-help memoirist goes from suboptimal to systematically upgraded.” By writing out the steps of progress, the autobiographer gives readers a method to duplicate the achievement.

Why People Are Drawn To Biography, Part I

by
Why We’re Drawn To Biography, Part I
It’s not difficult to figure out why someone would write a memoir. People have all sorts of reasons for wanting to examine their lives, record the facts and share their memories and point of view. But what compels people to read about others’ lives? Check the New York Times best-seller list of nonfiction any week of the year. You’ll typically find that biographies and autobiographies dominate the list. People are undisputedly interested in reading real-life accounts of real lives.
Look at this week’s NYTimes list, for example, and you’ll find this list of nonfiction with the highest sales:
Killing Kennedy, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, recounting the events surrounding the 1963 Kennedy assassination.
Thomas Jefferson, by Jon Meacham, celebrating Jefferson’s skills as a practical politician.
Killing Lincoln, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, on the events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
No Easy Day, by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer, an account by a former member of the Navy SEALs of the mission that killed bin Laden.
America Again, by Stephen Colbert, Richard Dahm, Paul Dinello, Barry Julien, Tom Purcell et al., satirical advice on how to bring America back from the brink.
Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, an Olympic runner’s story of survival as a WWII prisoner.
The Signal and the Noise, by Nate Silver, an analysis of predictions.
Bruce, by Peter A. Carlin, a biography of Bruce Springsteen.
Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die, an autobiography by country icon Willie Nelson.
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo, a report on families living in a Mumbai slum.
Wild, by Cheryl Strayed, a memoir about the author’s 1,100-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail.
A Higher Call, by Adam Makos with Larry Alexander, about an encounter between an American pilot and a German pilot in the skies over 1943 Germany.
Waging Heavy Peace, a memoir by rocker Neil Young.
The Last Lion, by William Manchester and Paul Reid, a partial biography of Winston Churchill.
The Patriarch, by David Nasaw, a biography of Joseph P. Kennedy.
Quiet, by Susan Cain, a close look at the introverted personality.
Total it up, and you’ll see that 10 of the top 16 sellers are biographies or autobiographies. Check back here next week and we’ll talk about why this literary genre is so popular.

It’s not difficult to figure out why someone would write a memoir. People have all sorts of reasons for wanting to examine their lives, record the facts and share their memories and point of view. But what compels people to read about others’ lives? Check the New York Times best-seller list of nonfiction any week of the year. You’ll typically find that biographies and autobiographies dominate the list. People are undisputedly interested in reading real-life accounts of real lives.

Look at this week’s NYTimes list, for example, and you’ll find this list of nonfiction with the highest sales:

  1. Killing Kennedy, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, recounting the events surrounding the 1963 Kennedy assassination.
  2. Thomas Jefferson, by Jon Meacham, celebrating Jefferson’s skills as a practical politician.
  3. Killing Lincoln, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, on the events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
  4. No Easy Day, by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer, an account by a former member of the Navy SEALs of the mission that killed bin Laden.
  5. America Again, by Stephen Colbert, Richard Dahm, Paul Dinello, Barry Julien, Tom Purcell et al., satirical advice on how to bring America back from the brink.
  6. Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, an Olympic runner’s story of survival as a WWII prisoner.
  7. The Signal and the Noise, by Nate Silver, an analysis of predictions.
  8. Bruce, by Peter A. Carlin, a biography of Bruce Springsteen.
  9. Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die, an autobiography by country music icon Willie Nelson.
  10. Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo, a report on families living in a Mumbai slum.
  11. Wild, by Cheryl Strayed, a memoir about the author’s 1,100-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail.
  12. A Higher Call, by Adam Makos with Larry Alexander, about an encounter between an American pilot and a German pilot in the skies over 1943 Germany.
  13. Waging Heavy Peace, a memoir by rocker Neil Young.
  14. The Last Lion, by William Manchester and Paul Reid, a partial biography of Winston Churchill.
  15. The Patriarch, by David Nasaw, a biography of Joseph P. Kennedy.
  16. Quiet, by Susan Cain, a close look at the introverted personality.

Total it up, and you’ll see that 10 of the top 16 sellers are biographies or autobiographies. Check back here next week and we’ll talk about why this literary genre is so popular.

Boxing Day? How about “Memoirs Day”?

by
Boxing Day? How about “Memoirs Day”?
If you ask us here at WriteMyMemoirs, we’d say that the day after Christmas is a perfect laid-back day to work on your memoir—or to start one if you haven’t yet. But for many of you in the English-speaking world, December 26 is always Boxing Day, so we thought we’d explain what that is for anyone who may not know.
The origin of Boxing Day is debatable. Some sources claim that food was boxed up to give to the poor, others have it as a day to box up bonuses for the working staff and still others trace it to the retail industry as the day inventory was taken and older items boxed away.
According to eHow.com, today the most common Boxing Day traditions are:
Attend a sporting event. In England, many pro sports matches take place today, and this is probably the most popular choice for a Boxing Day activity.
Tip your service people—the postman, newspaper delivery person, etc.—or bring a gift basket to a clerk in a store you frequent.
Be compassionate: donate canned goods, clothing or your time to organizations that help the needy.
Shop! Take advantage of the after-Christmas sales.
Get together with friends. You all must have leftover food you’d like to get rid of anyway, so share it!
It might not be included on any list of Boxing Day traditions, but writing your memoir is a great way to spend the day, too! Write a chapter on the holidays while they’re fresh in your mind.
http://www.ehow.com/how_11775_celebrate-boxing-day.html

If you ask us here at WriteMyMemoirs, we’d say that the day after Christmas is a perfect laid-back day to work on your memoir—or to start one if you haven’t yet. But for many of you in the English-speaking world, December 26 is always Boxing Day, so we thought we’d explain what that is for anyone who may not know.

The origin of Boxing Day is debatable. Some sources claim that food was boxed up to give to the poor, others have it as a day to box up bonuses for the working staff and still others trace it to the retail industry as the day inventory was taken and older items boxed away.

According to eHow.com, the most common modern Boxing Day traditions are:

  1. Attend a sporting event. In England, many pro sports matches take place today, and this is probably the most popular choice for a Boxing Day activity.
  2. Tip your service people—the postman, newspaper delivery person, etc.—or bring a gift basket to a clerk in a store you frequent.
  3. Be compassionate: donate canned goods, clothing or your time to organizations that help the needy.
  4. Shop! Take advantage of the after-Christmas sales.
  5. Get together with friends. You all must have leftover food you’d like to get rid of anyway, so share it!

It may not be included on any list of Boxing Day traditions, but writing your memoir is a great way to spend the day, too! Write a chapter on the holidays while they’re fresh in your mind.

Best Memoirs of 2012

by
The votes are in! GoodReads.com asks people to vote for the books they’ve enjoyed most during the current year. In the memoirs/autobiography category, the memoir that landed on top—Wild by Cheryl Strayed—received 8,200+ votes, nearly double the number of votes as the runner-up. The memoir is summarized by GoodReads as “powerful, blazingly honest and inspiring…a 1,100 mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.”
Also receiving roughly 3,000 votes or more were:
Paris In Love, which author and professor Eloise James wrote to chronicle her relocation to, and subsequent love affair with, the City of Lights.
The End of Your Life Book Club, a recollection of the books and conversations author Will Schwalbe and his dying mother shared in the last two years of his mother’s life.
No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden, probably the most well-known memoir on the list. Written by Mark Owen and Kevin Maurer, it gives readers a view of Bin Laden’s demise through the eyes of a Navy Seal who was there.
Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir, written with Lisa McCubbin by Clint Hill, a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Jackie Kennedy throughout the JFK presidency.
Mortality, the memoir bestselling author Christopher Hitchens tackled upon learning that he would have limited time due to esophageal cancer.
Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son, a sort of sequel to author Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions, about how Lamott handled becoming a grandmother unexpectedly when her son was 19.

The votes are in! GoodReads.com asks people to vote for the books they’ve enjoyed most during the current year. In the memoirs/autobiography category, the memoir that landed on top—Wild by Cheryl Strayed—received 8,200+ votes, nearly double the number of votes as the runner-up. Wild is summarized by GoodReads as “powerful, blazingly honest and inspiring…a 1,100 mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.”

Also receiving roughly 3,000 votes or more were:

  • Paris In Love, which author and professor Eloise James wrote to chronicle her relocation to, and subsequent love affair with, the City of Lights.
  • The End of Your Life Book Club, a recollection of the books and conversations author Will Schwalbe and his dying mother shared in the last two years of his mother’s life.
  • No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden, probably the most well-known memoir on the list. Written by Mark Owen and Kevin Maurer, it gives readers a view of Bin Laden’s demise through the eyes of a Navy Seal who was there.
  • Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir, written with Lisa McCubbin by Clint Hill, a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Jackie Kennedy throughout the JFK presidency.
  • Mortality, the memoir bestselling author Christopher Hitchens tackled upon learning that he would have limited time due to esophageal cancer.
  • Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son, a sort of sequel to author Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions, about how Lamott handled becoming a grandmother unexpectedly when her son was 19.

12/12/12: Mystical Day to Start a Memoir

by
While some believe that today’s date signifies the end of the world, many view a repetitive date like December 12, 2012—12/12/12—as good luck. Wednesday is not normally a popular day for weddings, but today you’ll be hearing wedding bells everywhere. As one bride explained, “I figured my husband would never forget our anniversary.”
I’m shamelessly jumping on the bandwagon to propose that 12/12/12 is the perfect day to begin writing a memoir. You’ll easily track how long it’s taking you, and you’ll begin a new year with a long-desired project already underway so there will be no need to put it on your resolutions list for a change. It’s so close to the holidays that—let’s be honest—you’re not getting much work done anyway. You might as well turn your energies toward outlining your memoir chapters or writing up your first anecdote.
One website that addresses this mystical date challenges us to begin something big on this day: “What new seed you plant, and in what soil, is now up to you. What seeds will you plant at the gateway to flourish on your new fertile soil as you walk into the threshold of your new world? Be in a place that you feel is, or will be, a gateway place for you on December 12. The gateway for you may be to face a fear, or it may be a place that encourages you to come into a new power. It may be a place that you feel you can reconcile and bring new truth to the past. Perhaps it is a place that needs transformation and you will go to aid in that for the location, and for your soul.” Sounds like the perfect day to sit down and start your memoir, doesn’t it?

While some believe that today’s date signifies the end of the world, many view a repetitive date like December 12, 2012—12/12/12—as good luck. Wednesday is not normally a popular day for weddings, but today you’ll be hearing wedding bells everywhere. As one bride explained, “I figured my husband would never forget our anniversary.”

I’m shamelessly jumping on the bandwagon to propose that 12/12/12 is the perfect day to begin writing a memoir. You’ll easily track how long it’s taking you, and you’ll begin a new year with a long-desired project already underway so there will be no need to put it on your resolutions list for a change. It’s so close to the holidays that—let’s be honest—you’re not getting much work done anyway. You might as well turn your energies toward outlining your memoir chapters or writing up your first anecdote.

One website that addresses this mystical date challenges us to begin something big on this day: “What new seed you plant, and in what soil, is now up to you. What seeds will you plant at the gateway to flourish on your new fertile soil as you walk into the threshold of your new world? Be in a place that you feel is, or will be, a gateway place for you on December 12. The gateway for you may be to face a fear, or it may be a place that encourages you to come into a new power. It may be a place that you feel you can reconcile and bring new truth to the past. Perhaps it is a place that needs transformation and you will go to aid in that for the location, and for your soul.” Sounds like the perfect day to sit down and start your memoir, doesn’t it?

Some Final Tasks Before You Write Your Memoir

by
Some Final Tasks Before You Write Your Memoir
In this last of a series of blog posts suggesting you try some assignments detailed in a syllabus for a university-level memoir writing course, I recommend you follow the syllabus’s direction to read other people’s memoirs along with at least one biography. By reading about people’s lives—accounts both by the people themselves and by their biographers—you can learn a lot about structuring a life story, observe effective ways to write description and dialogue, identify interesting topics to pursue and determine how much detail to include in your own memoir.
After you’ve read other memoirs and you’ve completed the writing assignments outlined here in earlier blog posts, try writing what the syllabus calls “reflection papers.” The idea is to reflect upon one of the memoirs you’ve read or upon your own writing so far in the “class.”
The course’s final assignment is to put together a portfolio of your best writing for the class. This is not necessary, since you’re not actually taking the course. However, the portfolio is to be accompanied by a two- or three-page introduction addressing themes that surfaced in your writing, insights you’ve picked up about yourself, specific ways your writing improved and what you now “believe about a writer’s ability to truthfully convey his or her experiences through words.” I hope you’ve enjoyed taking this virtual college memoir writing course!

In this last of a series of blog posts suggesting you try some assignments detailed in a syllabus for a university-level memoir writing course, I recommend you follow the syllabus’s direction to read other people’s memoirs along with at least one biography. By reading about people’s lives—accounts both by the people themselves and by their biographers—you can learn a lot about structuring a life story, observe effective ways to write description and dialogue, identify interesting topics to pursue and determine how much detail to include in your own memoir.

After you’ve read other memoirs and you’ve completed the writing assignments outlined here in earlier blog posts, try writing what the syllabus calls “reflection papers.” The idea is to reflect upon one of the memoirs you’ve read or upon your own writing so far in the “class.”

The course’s final assignment is to put together a portfolio of your best writing for the class. This is not necessary, since you’re not actually taking the course. However, the portfolio is to be accompanied by a two- or three-page introduction addressing themes that surfaced in your writing, insights you’ve picked up about yourself, specific ways your writing improved and what you now “believe about a writer’s ability to truthfully convey his or her experiences through words.” I hope you’ve enjoyed taking this virtual college memoir writing course!

More Assignments to Prep for Writing Your Memoir

by
More Assignments to Prep for Writing Your Memoir
Continuing with the syllabus we introduced in an earlier blog post for a college course in writing memoirs, we come to the next assignment—actually the next two assignments, since they both involve writing a biographical essay. These assignments will accomplish dual goals. First, they will give you practice in writing about someone else’s life before you attempt to write about your own. Second, you could very well end up including parts or all of these essays in your own memoir.
In both essays, you should choose someone you have known personally for a long time. The first essay will zoom in on the relationship you have with that person, who is likely to be a close relative or friend. Explain how your relationship has changed over time. You may find that you’re writing as much about yourself as about the subject of the essay, and that’s okay.
Select a different person for the second essay, which should more directly focus on the subject’s life. A grandparent is a great choice for this essay. Write 5-7 pages about the person as if you’re writing a classic biography. If the person is alive and accessible, you can interview him or her; you also can interview other people who have known the person. Through this exercise, you’ll discover that even a quiet life can make for interesting reading. It will help you to figure out what to write about yourself when you tackle your memoir.

Continuing with the syllabus we introduced in an earlier blog post for a college course in writing memoirs, we come to the next assignment—actually the next two assignments, since they both involve writing a biographical essay. These assignments will accomplish dual goals. First, they will give you practice in writing about someone else’s life before you attempt to write about your own. Second, you could very well end up including parts or all of these essays in your own memoir.

In both essays, you should choose someone you have known personally for a long time. The first essay will zoom in on the relationship you have with that person, who is likely to be a close relative or friend. Explain how your relationship has changed over time. You may find that you’re writing as much about yourself as about the subject of the essay, and that’s okay.

Select a different person for the second essay, which should more directly focus on the subject’s life. A grandparent is a great choice for this essay. Write 5-7 pages about the person as if you’re writing a classic biography. If the person is alive and accessible, you can interview him or her; you also can interview other people who have known the person. Through this exercise, you’ll discover that even a quiet life can make for interesting reading. It will help you to figure out what to write about yourself when you tackle your memoir.

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