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memoir writing

Your Life as Improv Theater

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Your Life as Improv Theater
As you’re writing your memoirs, I know many of you are picturing your stories coming to life as a script for the movies or theater. If you happen to be anywhere London, England, your vision could become reality sooner than you think.
Stillpoint, a British theatrical troupe, has established The Department of Unreliable Memoirs to conduct a “micro project” as part of the White Night presentations at one of its performance venues, the Nightingale Theater in Brighton. Billed as “an intimate encounter for one audience member,” the project requires the players to act out a scene from the life of an audience member who volunteers to describe the action. As the audience-member storyteller, you can play fast and loose with the facts: “Make an appointment with our helpful hostesses to retrieve a half forgotten moment, from a past you may well have had,” the promotion states.
It sounds as if it’s all in good fun, but maybe you could apply the concept as part of your memoirs writing process. Think about the various scenes from your life’s chapters. Which elements create drama? Can you incorporate humor in the story? Or does it amount to a tragedy? How can this narrative further the character development of the players in your life? And if you’d like to see actors play it out right in front of you, a trip the UK may be in store!

As you’re writing your memoirs, I know many of you are picturing your stories coming to life as a script for the movies or theater. If you happen to be anywhere London, England, your vision could become reality sooner than you think.

Stillpoint, a British theatrical troupe, has established The Department of Unreliable Memoirs to conduct a “micro project” as part of the White Night presentations at one of its performance venues, the Nightingale Theater in Brighton. Billed as “an intimate encounter for one audience member,” the project requires the players to act out a scene from the life of an audience member who volunteers to describe the action. As the audience-member storyteller, you can play fast and loose with the facts: “Make an appointment with our helpful hostesses to retrieve a half-forgotten moment, from a past you may well have had,” the promotion states.

It sounds as if it’s all in good fun, but maybe you could apply the concept as part of your memoirs writing process. Think about the various scenes from your life’s chapters. Which elements create drama? Can you incorporate humor in the story? Or does it amount to a tragedy? How can the narrative of this vignette further the character development of the players in your life? And if you’d like to see actors play it out right in front of you, a trip the UK may be in store!

Writing as Therapy

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Writing as Therapy
Product or process—which is your main reason for writing your memoir? Do you dearly want to produce a book that traces your life story for others to read or, rather, are you primarily using your memoir writing project as a therapeutic means of working through problems?
Writing in a recent New York Times Sunday Magazine, Steve Almond argues that the number of writing workshops, writing conferences and university-level creative writing programs has exploded to fill the void previously occupied by traditional “talk therapy” sessions with a counselor. The iconic image of the patient on the couch confiding in a therapist is a picture from the past, Almond maintains. Today, he says, troubled people take prescribed medication to sort of fix their brain chemistry and, while that may make them feel better, it’s not fulfilling.
Therefore what creative writers want, says Almond, who currently leads a writer’s workshop for people in their 50s and 60s, is “permission to articulate feelings that were somehow off limits within the fragile habitat of their families….[Creative writing] almost always involves a direct engagement with [the] inner life, as well as a demand for greater empathy and disclosure. These goals are fundamentally therapeutic.” To any of you who have landed at WriteMyMemoirs in an effort to claim your right to express yourself, sort through the difficult aspects of your life or quiet “the human heart in conflict with itself,” as Almond quotes William Faulkner, please feel very welcome here.

Product or process—which is your main reason for writing your memoir? Do you dearly want to produce a book that traces your life story for others to read or, rather, are you primarily using your memoir writing project as a therapeutic means of working through problems?

Writing in a recent New York Times Sunday Magazine, Steve Almond argues that the number of writing workshops, writing conferences and university-level creative writing programs has exploded to fill the void previously occupied by traditional “talk therapy” sessions with a counselor. The iconic image of the patient on the couch confiding in a therapist is a picture from the past, Almond maintains. Today, he says, troubled people take prescribed medication to sort of fix their brain chemistry and, while that may make them feel better, it’s not fulfilling.

Therefore what creative writers want, says Almond, who currently leads a writer’s workshop for people in their 50s and 60s, is “permission to articulate feelings that were somehow off limits within the fragile habitat of their families….[Creative writing] almost always involves a direct engagement with [the] inner life, as well as a demand for greater empathy and disclosure. These goals are fundamentally therapeutic.” To any of you who have landed at WriteMyMemoirs in an effort to claim your right to express yourself, sort through the difficult aspects of your life or quiet “the human heart in conflict with itself,” as Almond quotes William Faulkner, please feel very welcome here.

Write Memoirs for “Post-Traumatic Growth”

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Write Memoirs for “Post-Traumatic Growth”
We hear a lot about post-traumatic stress. Soldiers in war, victims of crime and survivors of accidents and illnesses all face a heightened risk of dysfunction due to stress simply because of their difficult experiences. But have you ever heard about “post-traumatic growth”? This refers to the positive effects that a traumatic experience can have on us. We can actually learn from our trauma.
Many of the people who write to us here at WriteMyMemoirs share with us their personal tragedies, losses and challenges in putting the past behind them. We always encourage them to write a memoir as a way to work through those life-changing times. Writing it out helps to put things in perspective. It may provide an epiphany “a-ha!” awareness, or it can simply feel satisfying to get the facts in order and explore all the feelings involved.
Whether you have had a fully traumatic life or you’ve experienced just one traumatic event, please don’t let the post-traumatic stress define you. By writing your memoir, perhaps you will be able to turn it around and experience post-traumatic growth that allows you to move on. Instead of trying futilely to forget what happened to you, you’ll be confronting it. You’ll take the power back and, while you can’t reverse what happened, you can find a way to grow from it. Moreover, you may be helping others who read your memoir.

We hear a lot about post-traumatic stress. Soldiers in war, victims of crime and survivors of accidents and illnesses all face a heightened risk of dysfunction due to stress simply because of their difficult experiences. But have you ever heard about “post-traumatic growth”? This refers to the positive effects that a traumatic experience can have on us. We can actually learn from our trauma.

Many of the people who write to us here at WriteMyMemoirs share with us their personal tragedies, losses and challenges in putting the past behind them. We always encourage them to write a memoir as a way to work through those life-changing times. Writing it out helps to put things in perspective. It may provide an epiphany “a-ha!” awareness, or it can simply feel satisfying to get the facts in order and explore all the feelings involved.

Whether you have had a fully traumatic life or you’ve experienced just one traumatic event, please don’t let the post-traumatic stress define you. By writing your memoir, perhaps you will be able to turn it around and experience post-traumatic growth that allows you to move on. Instead of trying futilely to forget what happened to you, you’ll be confronting it. You’ll take the power back and, while you can’t reverse what happened, you can find a way to grow from it. Moreover, you may be helping others who read your memoir.

The Power of Photos in Your Memoirs

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The Power of Photos in Your Memoirs
We were asked recently how to add a photograph to a WriteMyMemoirs writing page. Great question! Visuals aid the reader’s mental picture of the events that took place and the people who played a role, but they also help you, the author.
As you review the many photos you have around the house, you’ll be reminded of off-your-radar episodes and people you may want to consider for topics in your memoir. Also, the combination of visual elements and text will provide you with the most valuable record of your memories. Even when photographs do not make your “final cut” for inclusion, they can jog your memory. Looking at a picture of your childhood home, for example, will enable you to describe the structure with accuracy and enriching detail.
So how do you add a photo to a WriteMyMemoirs page? On the page in your account, just click on the icon at the far right. That will bring up a selection of stock photos, but it also will provide a button marked “upload” that you can click on to take you into your own computer files. Then you need to find the file in which it’s stored, and you should be able to follow directions from there. If your photo is not in digital form, you will have to scan it first in order to store the digital form on your computer.

We were asked recently how to add a photograph to a WriteMyMemoirs writing page. Great question! Visuals aid the reader’s mental picture of the events that took place and the people who played a role, but they also help you, the author.

As you review the many photos you have around the house, you’ll be reminded of off-your-radar episodes and people you may want to consider for topics in your memoir. Also, the combination of visual elements and text will provide you with the most valuable record of your memories. Even when photographs do not make your “final cut” for inclusion, they can jog your memory. Looking at a picture of your childhood home, for example, will enable you to describe the structure with accuracy and enriching detail.

So how do you add a photo to a WriteMyMemoirs page? On the page in your account, just click on the icon at the far right. That will bring up a selection of stock photos, but it also will provide a button marked “upload” that you can click on to take you into your own computer files. Then you need to find the file in which it’s stored, and you should be able to follow directions from there. If your photo is not in digital form, you will have to scan it first in order to store the digital form on your computer.

Avoid Redundancy in Your Memoir

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Every so often I like to use the blog for a mini grammar lesson. With references to “PIN numbers” and “ATM machines” tossed around all the time, let’s discuss redundancy. You want every page of your memoir to be compelling, and filling space with excess words does not meet that goal. Here are some common redundant phrases you should avoid:

Autobiography of my life. If it’s anyone else’s life, the term is “biography.”
Basic fundamentals. If they’re not basic, they’re not fundamentals.
Completely eliminated. Yes, that’s the meaning of “eliminated.”
Estimated to be about. “Estimated” or “about”—you don’t need both.
Fellow classmates/colleagues. There’s no need for “fellow.”
Free gift. It wasn’t a gift if you had to pay for it.
Future plans. We rarely make plans for the past.
Kneel down. It goes without saying that you’re not kneeling up or laterally.
May/might possibly. The uncertainty is built into the word “may” or “might,” so you can drop “possibly.”
New innovation. An innovation is, by definition, always new.
Pre-planning. How did this ever come into use?
Unintentional mistake. They’re called “mistakes” because they’re unintentional!
Very unique. If you’re correctly using “unique” to indicate something that’s truly one-of-a-kind, you won’t need to qualify it.

And what about your PIN number and the ATM machine? Spell out the acronym, and you’ll see the redundancy: Personal Identification Number number and Automatic Teller Machine machine. Similarly, refer to your GPS system as just a GPS.

Memoir Writers: Go Through Your Stuff!

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Memoir Writers: Go Through Your Stuff!
A recent newspaper story about former Chicago Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lois Weisberg ends with the information that the octegenarian is working on her memoirs. She was quoted in the Chicago Tribune article as saying that to “aspire to write a book at my age is really kind of insane.”
Here at WriteMyMemoirs we certainly would not consider the endeavor “insane.” At 85, Weisberg is still active and able. Until last year she was working full-time, and now she finally can reflect upon her long career and her family life with four children. As part of former Mayor Daley’s inner circle, she very likely has a lot of juicy tidbits to share. But, just like your memoir, Weisberg’s story won’t write itself. She told the reporter that she attacks it every morning for a few hours, writing in longhand on a legal pad.
“Go through your old boxes,” Weisberg advises people in the process of writing a memoir but having trouble coming up with chapters and topics. “You might find something interesting.” I would add this: go through your email. Even if you didn’t keep old letters, the electronic version of mail may provide more of a record than you think—at least for the past five or ten years. Don’t forget to ask friends and family members whether they’ve saved letters and emails, too. You may not have correspondence from the Daleys, but surely you exchanged notes with people who’ve made an impact on your life.

A recent newspaper story about former Chicago Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lois Weisberg ends with the information that the octegenarian is working on her memoirs. She was quoted in the Chicago Tribune article as saying that to “aspire to write a book at my age is really kind of insane.”

Here at WriteMyMemoirs we certainly would not consider the endeavor “insane.” At 85, Weisberg is still active and able. Until last year she was working full-time, and now she finally can reflect upon her long career and her family life with four children. As part of former Mayor Daley’s inner circle, she very likely has a lot of juicy tidbits to share. But, just like your memoir, Weisberg’s story won’t write itself. She told the reporter that she attacks it every morning for a few hours, writing in longhand on a legal pad.

“Go through your old boxes,” Weisberg advises people in the process of writing a memoir but having trouble coming up with chapters and topics. “You might find something interesting.” You may have saved ticket stubs, cheap souvenirs from trips and, of course, letters. Also, go through your email. It may provide more of a record than you think—at least for the past five or ten years. Don’t forget to ask friends and family members whether they’ve saved letters and emails, too. You may not have correspondence from the Daleys, but surely you exchanged notes with people who’ve made an impact on your life.

Valentine’s Day and Love in Memoirs

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Valentine’s Day and Love in Memoirs
Since today is Valentine’s Day, let’s talk about love and romance! This can be a sticky topic in a memoir. How much information is too much?
Consider your audience and your goal. If you’re writing your memoirs primarily for your children, grandchildren and friends, you may want to limit your courtship stories to the person or people who have been important to your family. If you have been married to one person for decades, that person is probably the only one you’ll want to talk about. A couple of charming anecdotes about your courtship and what dating was like during the era you met can form a wonderful chapter in a memoir. Readers will be interested in learning why you were attracted to each other, how you overcame obstacles to being together and a description of your engagement and wedding. Valentine’s Day itself may come up as you reminisce about your years together.
If you have had more than one spouse or important significant other, carefully determine how much you want to share about past relationships. This decision is likely to be shaped by whether you were widowed or divorced. If you express any bitter feelings, read that section over a few times or ask someone you trust how it comes across. Again, your goal becomes important. If you want your memoirs to be a statement of your perspective on everything that has happened to you, all of your major relationships may be pertinent. People’s feelings get easily hurt, so just be careful. And Happy Valentine’s Day!

Since today is Valentine’s Day, let’s talk about love and romance! This can be a sticky topic in a memoir. How much information is too much?

Consider your audience and your goal. If you’re writing your memoirs primarily for your children, grandchildren and friends, you may want to limit your courtship stories to the person or people who have been important to your family. If you have been married to one person for decades, that person is probably the only one you’ll want to talk about. A couple of charming anecdotes about your courtship and what dating was like during the era you met can form a wonderful chapter in a memoir. Readers will be interested in learning why you were attracted to each other, how you overcame obstacles to being together and a description of your engagement and wedding. Valentine’s Day itself may come up as you reminisce about your years together.

If you have had more than one spouse or important significant other, carefully determine how much you want to share about past relationships. This decision is likely to be shaped by whether you were widowed or divorced. If you express any bitter feelings, read that section over a few times or ask someone you trust how it comes across. Again, your goal becomes important. If you want your memoirs to be a statement of your perspective on everything that has happened to you, all of your major relationships may be pertinent. People’s feelings get easily hurt, so just be careful. And Happy Valentine’s Day!

Checking In: Still Motivated to Write Your Memoir?

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Checking In: Still Motivated to Write Your Memoir?
It’s late January, and your New Year’s Resolution to write that memoir may be melting faster than snow in sunshine. A blogger at zenhabits.net zeroes in on two secrets to staying motivated with any goal: 1) enjoying the task, and 2) answering to outside pressure. Let’s take them one at a time.
To enjoy writing your memoir, first make sure you’re in a comfortable setting. You should be pleased with every aspect—your computer, chair and desk; the temperature in the room; perhaps a view; the level of noise/quiet. Identify the time of day and day(s) of the week you feel creative and you don’t feel guilty for taking time away from other responsibilities. For content, choose the parts of your life you like to remember. If there are painful segments, leave those for later, after you’ve grown accustomed to your writing routine. Bite off little bits so that the project doesn’t overwhelm you. Review your life one anecdote at a time.
The second motivating tool—developing outside pressure—should be easy. Just tell your family and friends that you’re writing a memoir! Give them weekly updates, and have them commit to ask you about it if you forget. As our own memoir writing community, we can be accountable to each other. Leave a comment here about how far you’ve progressed toward your goal, or friend us on Facebook. We’ll start a thread on the Write My Memoirs page for you to leave a comment to motivate yourself as well as everyone!
http://zenhabits.net/the-only-two-secrets-to-motivating-yourself-youll-ever-need/
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It’s late January, and your New Year’s Resolution to write that memoir may be melting faster than snow in sunshine. A blogger at zenhabits.net zeroes in on two secrets to staying motivated with any goal: 1) enjoying the task, and 2) answering to outside pressure. Let’s take them one at a time.

To enjoy writing your memoir, first make sure you’re in a comfortable setting. You should be pleased with every aspect—your computer, chair and desk; the temperature in the room; perhaps a view; the level of noise/quiet. Identify the time of day and day(s) of the week you feel creative and you don’t feel guilty for taking time away from other responsibilities. For content, choose the parts of your life you like to remember. If there are painful segments, leave those for later, after you’ve grown accustomed to your writing routine. Bite off little bits so that the project doesn’t overwhelm you. Review your life one anecdote at a time.

The second motivating tool—developing outside pressure—should be easy. Just tell your family and friends that you’re writing a memoir! Give them weekly updates, and have them commit to asking you about it if you forget. As our own memoir writing community, we can be accountable to each other. Leave a comment here about how far you’ve progressed toward your goal, or friend us on Facebook. We’ll start a thread on the Write My Memoirs page for you to leave a comment to motivate yourself as well as everyone!

Attend a Memoir-Writing Retreat

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Attend a Memoir-Writing Retreat
You might want to consider attending an upcoming Memoir Writing Conference 2012, where you can join people like you who are looking for information and motivation to help them write their life stories. This event takes place Saturday, April 28, in Bethlehem, PA, and costs $225 plus $100 if you choose to attend a Friday night dinner. WriteMyMemoirs has no association with this conference and does not receive anything for publicizing this event, but we like to alert you to any tool or experience that might help you write your memoir.
The full day of inspiration features an impressive roster of presenters, all authors themselves who, as a group, represent a diverse range of expertise that reflects the theme for this year’s conference: getting in touch with your five senses to help you recall and describe events in your life.
The keynote speaker is newspaper columnist, blogger and journalism professor Bill White. I love the reason he was asked to speak, as stated on the website: “Bill became interested in memoirs a few years ago when he wrote a piece about a Ukrainian woman who used her dying days to write about her life growing up in the old country, her hardships during World War II, her emigration to the United States and her life here with her husband and children. Bill was struck by how beautifully she told her story, but even more by how much other families, including his own, would appreciate that kind of memoir from our parents and grandparents to share with future generations.” Click here for details about the conference.
https://memoir2012.com/Presenters.php

You might want to consider attending the upcoming Memoir Writing Conference 2012, where you can join people like you who are looking for information and motivation to help them write their life stories. This event takes place Saturday, April 28, in Bethlehem, PA, and costs $225 plus $100 if you choose to attend a Friday night dinner. WriteMyMemoirs has no association with this conference and does not receive anything for publicizing this event, but we like to alert you to any tool or experience that might help you write your memoir.

The full day of inspiration features an impressive roster of presenters, all authors themselves who, as a group, represent a diverse range of expertise that reflects the theme for this year’s conference: getting in touch with your five senses to help you recall and describe events in your life.

The keynote speaker is newspaper columnist, blogger and journalism professor Bill White. I love the reason he was asked to speak, as stated on the website: “Bill became interested in memoirs a few years ago when he wrote a piece about a Ukrainian woman who used her dying days to write about her life growing up in the old country, her hardships during World War II, her emigration to the United States and her life here with her husband and children. Bill was struck by how beautifully she told her story, but even more by how much other families, including his own, would appreciate that kind of memoir from our parents and grandparents to share with future generations.” Click here for details about the conference.

How to Keep Your Memoir-Writing Resolution

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How to Keep Your Memoir-Writing Resolution
If you’re here at WriteMyMemoirs because you made a New Year’s Resolution to either start or work harder on your memoir, listen up! Statistics show that 4 out of 5 of us will probably abandon our New Year’s Resolutions within just a couple of weeks. Some suggestions to put yourself in the 20 percent who stick to it:
1. Be specific about your goal. Set up a regular schedule of when you will write.
2. Don’t over-promise, even to yourself. We all burn out easily. Make a realistic schedule that does not let this project monopolize your time. Maybe you’ll get up one hour early three times a week, you’ll write the first hour after dinner on a couple of evenings or you’ll write from 9am-1pm every Sunday.
3. Develop a full plan. Maybe you’ll decide to have a book with six chapters and complete one chapter per month so that your book will be finished by July 1. Then write out the title of each chapter.
4. Start easy. If there’s one chapter, or even just one anecdote, that you can write out effortlessly, get that on “paper” so you’ll have something solid. Then you can tackle the more challenging sections that require research or take an emotional toll on you.
5. Tell people. No matter what the goal, you tend to stay more accountable when you know that friends and family members will be asking about your progress. Maybe you can find a “memoir buddy” who also wants to write a memoir; then you can motivate each other to stay on task.
Much of the technology we’ve developed for WriteMyMemoirs should help you. You can create name all of your chapters, which creates a type of outline. Some of the details will pop up in the time lines that result from our Interview questions, so make sure you fill out your Interview. We may even be able to help you find a memoir buddy. Leave a comment here that you’d be interested in that, and we’ll put you memoir writers in touch with each other.

If you’re here at WriteMyMemoirs because you made a New Year’s Resolution to either start or work harder on your memoir, listen up! Statistics show that 4 out of 5 of us will probably abandon our New Year’s Resolutions within just a couple of weeks. Some suggestions to put yourself in the 20 percent who stick with this one:

  1. Be specific about your goal. Set up a regular schedule of when you will write.
  2. Don’t over-promise, even to yourself. We all burn out easily. Make a realistic schedule that does not let this project monopolize your time. Maybe you’ll get up one hour early three times a week, you’ll write the first hour after dinner on a couple of evenings or you’ll write from 9am-1pm every Sunday.
  3. Develop a full plan. Maybe you’ll decide to have a book with six chapters and complete one chapter per month so that your book will be finished by July 1. Then write out the title of each chapter.
  4. Start easy. If there’s one chapter, or even just one anecdote, that you can write out effortlessly, get that on “paper” so you’ll have something solid. Then you can tackle the more challenging sections that require research or take an emotional toll on you.
  5. Tell people. No matter what the goal, you tend to stay more accountable when you know that friends and family members will be asking about your progress. Maybe you can find a “memoir buddy” who also wants to write a memoir; then you can motivate each other to stay on task.

Much of the technology we’ve developed for WriteMyMemoirs should help you. You can name all of your chapters, which creates a type of outline. Some of the details will pop up in the time lines that result from our Interview questions, so make sure you fill out your Interview. We may even be able to help you find a memoir buddy. Leave a comment here that you’d be interested in that, and we’ll put you memoir writers in touch with each other.

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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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