Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Staying Healthy While Writing a Memoir

You know that roll around your middle that won’t go away? It’s from sitting. You say you get out of breath if you try to bound up the stairs? It’s from sitting. The back pain? That’s from sitting, too, but probably in a bad chair or with poor posture. We all sit too much. That little instrument you use for writing is called a “laptop” for a reason: we seem to always have a lap to put it in. As we’re hearing lately, “sitting is the new smoking.”

Now that you’ve committed to writing your memoir, you have many long hours of sitting ahead of you. You can invest in a standing or walking desk, but you’re probably not going to do that. Or you can just stand all day at your kitchen counter and type away, but even standing doesn’t solve the problem. In addition to taking mental breaks from the task of writing, you should take regular physical breaks.

Four goals as verbs: move, lift, stretch, repeat.
Four corresponding goals as nouns: speed, strength, flexibility, stamina.
These are the keys to staying fit; the challenge is to find a method that you can sustain. A lot of people love yoga, which covers three of the four—strength, flexibility and, somewhat, stamina. Some yoga programs also raise your heart rate, so a cardio component is possible. I still think you need to add a walk or run. If, on the other hand, cardio is the part you like best and you also stretch before and after you jog, then don’t forget to lift. It’s great to be lean and flexible, but especially as you get older you need to maintain muscle mass as well. And then there are you dedicated lifters who can bench your body weight but can’t come close to touching your toes without bending your knees. Don’t neglect the stretch, or you’ll tighten up.

If you’re disciplined enough to be making progress on your memoir, you should be able to talk yourself into a modest fitness routine. You can join a gym or prance around your house. Climb stairs every chance you get! Buy a couple of inexpensive free weights. When you’ve finished writing for the day, take a full-body stretch lying on your back, sitting in a straddle and standing up. And that tummy roll you have? If sitting is the new smoking, then planking is the new sit-up. Keep writing, but stay fit!

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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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