Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Memoirs From Prison, Part II: Why?

Prisoners write memoirs for some of the same reasons the rest of us do. They just have more time to do it.
Memoirs From Prison, Part II: Why?
Hope all of our Americans had a great Fourth of July! Patriotism plays a role in so many memoirs. But today I want to follow up on last week’s blog about the abundance of prison memoirs. What makes people so reflective once they get behind bars?
There’s the obvious—they have more time on their hands than the rest of us do. Also, writing keeps the mind occupied. A blogger, Caleb Smith, posts this explanation from an essay written by Jay Parini: “These books are about self-realization as well as self-justification. They describe a similar pattern: getting into trouble, confronting the claustrophobic and unforgiving world of prison, dealing with growing despair until something or somebody offers a crack in the wall, a little bit of daylight shining through. After a great deal of soul-searching, the writer/prisoner reaches a fresh sense of selfhood, coming to terms with the original sin, forgiving himself or herself. In the very best of these memoirs—especially with a prisoner of conscience or one unjustly jailed—there is often a redeeming social vision at work. The genre bleeds into that of spiritual autobiography.???
I see that same soul-searching as part of lots of memoirs, not just those coming out of Sing Sing. Parini’s insight about people’s need to forgive themselves applies to the broader population as well. Writing our memoirs helps us along that path of self-awareness, forgiveness and, ultimately, redemption.

Hope all of our Americans had a great Fourth of July! Patriotism plays a role in so many memoirs. But today I want to follow up on last week’s blog about the abundance of prison memoirs. What makes people so reflective once they get behind bars?

There’s the obvious—they have more time on their hands than the rest of us do. Also, writing keeps the mind occupied. A blogger, Caleb Smith, posts this explanation from an essay written by Jay Parini: “These books are about self-realization as well as self-justification. They describe a similar pattern: getting into trouble, confronting the claustrophobic and unforgiving world of prison, dealing with growing despair until something or somebody offers a crack in the wall, a little bit of daylight shining through. After a great deal of soul-searching, the writer/prisoner reaches a fresh sense of selfhood, coming to terms with the original sin, forgiving himself or herself. In the very best of these memoirs—especially with a prisoner of conscience or one unjustly jailed—there is often a redeeming social vision at work. The genre bleeds into that of spiritual autobiography.???

I see that same soul-searching as part of lots of memoirs, not just those coming out of Sing Sing. Parini’s insight about people’s need to forgive themselves applies to the broader population as well. Writing our memoirs helps us along that path of self-awareness, forgiveness and, ultimately, redemption.

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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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