Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

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Busting Writers Block

What Makes a Memory?
CApturing Memories

 

Helpful Tips

You probably didn’t click on the “Reset Password” button before returning to the login page. When your email message supplies a link taking you to a separate page with the automatically generated password, you can accept the automatically generated password or change it to your own choice right there. In either case, then click on a blue button that says “Reset Password” to get the link that takes you back to a login page.

Although Write My Memoirs offers tools that help you craft your memoir, despite our name we are happy to have you use our site to write any book of your choice. Write a biography of someone else’s life, a history, a travelogue, a novel, a children’s book—all writers are welcome here.

No catch! We believe that every person has a compelling story to tell, and that documenting a life is a priceless gift to the person’s family. Write My Memoirs was created to support ordinary people who want to write an autobiography or a biography. You can write as much as you want on Write My Memoirs. We charge a fee only if you request writing help or ask us to publish your book.

You really don’t have to! But when you insert the dates and milestones of your life, our technology takes the information you provide and develops your Personal Timeline, which will appear as an actual time line as you write.

If you opt into our emails, we’ll send you periodic reminders that you haven’t logged in lately. Other than that, your commitment and schedule are fully up to you. Your work will be waiting for you.

We get asked this a lot! We set high ethical standards and would never share your work with anyone. More than taking our word for that, what might convince you is knowing that we would not want liability for what you write. Let’s say in the book you call your cousin “the town drunk,” and your cousin doesn’t take kindly to that and decides to sue you. We want you holding the copyright, all of the publishing rights, everything. Leave us out of it! Typically, we do not even read your work unless you’ve hired us to edit it. If we publish your book, your name is the only name listed as the copyright holder.

No, not at all! You can purchase the services a chapter at a time or even send us just one or two pages to try out the power of professional polishing before you commit your whole book to the process.

Just contact us! Your book is YOUR vision, not ours. We can publish your book in any size or format, soft cover or hard cover. We will price it out and email back a bid. We also hope to soon standardize an offering of audio book and digital book options.

Extremely easy! Our standard initial run is 20 copies, but we’ll publish as many copies as you like and customize the price for you. Then in six months, a year, 5 years or whenever, just use our “Reprint” button to let us know you’d like more copies. The per-book price is cheaper than the first run, and typically you’ll receive the books within less time as well.

We do not offer book marketing services at this time, since most of our authors intend to distribute their books free of charge to friends and family. However, in our Publish My Book section, you can purchase an ISBN number for $125, which qualifies your book to be listed with Amazon and other vendors.

Memoir writing?
“It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
—E.L. Doctorow.

 

An ordinary life becomes extraordinary when it jumps off the page!

Many people who decide to write an autobiography haven’t done much writing before, apart from papers in school or the occasional business correspondence. Don’t let the fear of “not being good enough” get in your way. You may want to craft your life story just for close friends and family to read. There’s no need to worry about perfection. The key is to capture your stories in your own voice for this special audience—and perhaps future generations—to appreciate. Of course, you also can aim your story for a broader audience. We have writers on staff to help you professionalize your work. Just ask!

In order to help you on this journey, Write My Memoirs has assembled some time-tested writing hints. These are techniques employed by amateurs and professional writers alike. We’ve included ideas for how to get started, break through writer’s block and make writing come to you more naturally.

 

Getting Started

Look at your memoir as a project that may take you several weeks, months or even years. Different people respond to different types of motivation. Although we believe it’s not a good idea to pressure yourself to write a certain amount each day, it is important that you write something—whether it’s an anecdote, a short memory or a full chapter—on a regular basis. Start with a simple topic that you know very well, such as one incident, person or period of time, and that should limit your anxiety.

Make sure your desk, chair and lighting provide a comfortable writing experience. You need to be comfortable for the memories to flow. Congratulations – you’re committed! You’re on your way!

 

Suggested Memory Triggers

If you’re targeting your memoir for commercial sales, typically you’ll start Chapter 1 at some pivotal point and then continue forward or go back into the past, before that event occurred. At Write My Memoirs, our publishing clients tend to want to document their lives not to sell a book but just to hand out to family and friends. These authors are more likely to write in a chronological format. If that’s your idea, here are some suggestions to assist you in thinking about your life and the facts that you may want to include in your memoir.

I was born on (insert date), the (1st, 2nd, 3rd) child of (# of siblings).
The world at that time was (at war, at peace; times were booming, in recession).
Our family lived in____________, which was a (poor, middle class, affluent) neighborhood.
My earliest memories are of______________________.
I attended _____________ elementary school and remember_________.
My days at school were (happy, sad, tumultuous, difficult). I was a (good, average, poor, excellent) student, active in__________. I had (many, few) friends.
My family moved to this country in _____________.
My mother was a (adjective) woman, my father was a (adjective) man. They spent (a lot of time, no time) with us growing up. We were a (close, distant) family.

 

Early Years
Many people have trouble recalling their early youth. What might be useful is describing your parents. How would you describe your mother and father? You may remember the birth of a younger sibling, an illness in the family or the move to a new home. Keep in mind that you don’t have to write your story chronologically. You may find it easier to come back to this section after you’ve written about more recent events.

 

Elementary School
Remember that friendships were formed at this time, learning skills were developed and for many it was a fun time. Certain teachers may have influenced you positively, and some may have been tyrants. How did it feel that first day?

 

High School
High school, for many, opened new doors. Learning was raised to a new level with greater demands. There were academic clubs to be part of, social clubs and athletic teams. You may have started dating. Is this when you first fell in love? Friendships were formed that may have lasted to the present. You could write a whole story about your favorite music of the time.

 

College/University/Trade School
Did you continue your education after high school? This period in most lives was very critical. Horizons were opened. For many it was a time to meet students with different backgrounds and from other parts of the country or the world. There may have been fraternities, sororities or social clubs. Did you meet your spouse at this time?

 

Military Service
Our experience has been that veterans’ military service is a critical piece of their autobiography. Our writers who have served tend to remember a lot of detail about this time in their lives. You are not alone if you spend several chapters on your war or peacetime experiences serving away from home.

 

Work Experience
Do you remember your first job interview? What was your first job? Were there any friendships made through work that have continued? Why did you leave the job?

 

Important People
Throughout your memoir you’ll be thinking about people who have impacted your life. Family members, of course, will be key figures. An interview can be helpful! If the person you’d like to write about no longer is alive, it may be worth your time to interview one of the person’s surviving relatives. Then picture where you were when you were in the person’s presence, what you talked about and the various experiences you shared. This can form the core of each chapter in your memoir.

 

Chapters
A chapter can cover anything from one specific story or person to an entire era of your life. You can describe all of your military experience, for example, in just one chapter or divide it into significant events and devote a chapter to each of those.

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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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