Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Seize the Memoir-Writing Day!

I noticed an ad in the obituary section of my local Chicago Tribune that said something along the lines of: “Every life story deserves to be told. Send in yours about your loved one.” This notice made me sad. While it might make you smile to think of your spouse, child or grandchild honoring you after your death by taking out an ad in a newspaper to publish a few paragraphs about your life, it’s nothing compared to a whole book that you write about your life in your own voice! In your autobiography, written well before your death, you take control of how your life is remembered.

It’s not unusual for a book we publish at Write My Memoirs to contain observations that come as a complete surprise to the author’s friends and family. Often, people don’t talk much about their childhood, wartime military service, traumatic events or some other aspect of their lives. The process of writing a memoir brings out those buried memories and the feelings the person experienced at the time. Also, details regarding names, dates and places are known only to the author. If that information isn’t written down, it often is lost once the person is no longer alive to report it.

Writing a biography of someone else is a rewarding task, too, but even that is much easier while the person is still alive to answer questions. If you’re thinking of writing about your own life or someone else’s, there’s no time like the present!

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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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