Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

For Memoir Research, You CAN Go Home Again

Take a “genealogy vacation” by visiting your ancestral hometown – or your own birthplace.
For Memoir Research, You Can Go Home Again
We’re all so mobile these days! Many of us have moved several times since birth and today live nowhere near what we’d identify as our hometown. As seniors, we often relocate to wherever our children’s whims have taken them! Maybe as you write your memoirs, it’s time to go home again.
“If you are tracing your family’s history, few activities are more thrilling than traveling to your ancestor’s village or gravesite,” claims the “senior travel” section of about.com. “Standing where your forebears walked long ago is an amazing experience.” Calling this research a “genealogy vacation,” the piece has a few suggestions:
Schedule enough time to just wander.
Spend enough time there to soak up the culture by doing things like eating in a family-owned restaurant, attending a worship service, visiting the area’s historical museum and chatting up the locals.
Talk to everyone about your memoir. You may find someone who knew your family or who has a colorful anecdote to share about the town.
Take a GPS or map so you don’t get lost! If the townspeople do not speak in your native tongue, also bring a good dictionary for their language.
The obvious: take tons of photographs.
The not-so-obvious: keep a journal of your experiences and a written log of the photos, in order.
Next week, between Christmas and New Year’s, is a great time to schedule this type of visit. You probably have some time off work, and the town will be decorated and cheery.

We’re all so mobile these days! Many of us have moved several times since birth and today live nowhere near what we’d identify as our hometown. As seniors, we often relocate to wherever our children’s whims have taken them! Maybe as you write your memoirs, it’s time to go home again.

“If you are tracing your family’s history, few activities are more thrilling than traveling to your ancestor’s village or gravesite,” claims the “senior travel” section of about.com. “Standing where your forebears walked long ago is an amazing experience.” Calling this research a “genealogy vacation,” the piece has a few suggestions:

  • Schedule enough time to just wander.
  • Make sure to soak up the culture by doing things like eating in a family-owned restaurant, attending a worship service, visiting the area’s historical museum and chatting up the locals.
  • Talk to everyone about your memoir. You may find someone who knew your family or who has a colorful anecdote to share about the town.
  • Take a GPS or map so you don’t get lost! If the townspeople do not speak in your native tongue, also bring a good dictionary for their language.
  • The obvious: take tons of photographs.
  • The not-so-obvious: keep a journal of your experiences and a written log of the photos, in order.

Next week, between Christmas and New Year’s, is a great time to schedule this genealogy visit. You probably have some time off work, and the town will be decorated and cheery.

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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!

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