memoir writing Archives - Page 8 of 18

Be Glad You’re Not Famous

June 24, 2018October 9, 2012 by Rosanne Ullman

Be Glad You’re Not Famous

Now that the Arnold Schwarzegger memoir, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story, has hit bookshelves, I’ve been watching A. Schwarz on various talk shows as what the New York Times calls his “apology tour” continues. Sooner or later the interviewer asks Arnold a question that he doesn’t address in his memoir, and the “tell-all” is exposed as a “tell what you feel like telling.”

The book covers the love child who surfaced, which is the major reason Maria Shriver left their marriage. But interviewers demand more. They want him to discuss his current relationship with the son who was born from it. They ask him to expound upon rumors of other cheating instances. Citing consideration for his family’s feelings, he declines to provide those juicy bits. I don’t really have a problem with that. The success of any movie or political career—and Arnold has had both—rests upon the person’s appeal to the public. If his fan base weakens, he’ll know that people didn’t care for his approach to sharing only what suited him.

This all made me think about you, our members at Write My Memoirs. In all likelihood, your memoir is intended only for family friends. You will not be asked to go on Jay Leno’s show, and bloggers won’t berate you for omitting details or bending facts to suit yourself. With your memoir, you have free rein to fashion it however you please, and it will be received warmly. Aren’t you glad you’re not a celebrity?

Now that the Arnold Schwarzegger memoir, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story, has hit bookshelves, I’ve been watching A. Schwarz on various talk shows as what the New York Times calls his “apology tour” continues. Sooner or later the interviewer asks Arnold a question that he doesn’t address in his memoir, and the “tell-all” is exposed as a “tell what you feel like telling.”

This all made me think about you, our members at Write My Memoirs. In all likelihood, your memoir is intended only for family and friends. You will not be asked to go on Jay Leno’s show, and bloggers won’t berate you for omitting details or bending facts to suit yourself. With your memoir, you have free rein to fashion it however you please, and it will be received warmly. Aren’t you glad you’re not a celebrity?

Memoir Teacher for Hire

June 24, 2018September 25, 2012 by Rosanne Ullman

Memoir Teacher for Hire

If you can get a group together and want to hold a memoir workshop, there’s a teacher who will come to you. His name is Thomas Larson; go to thomaslarson.com for details about him. Write My Memoirs has nothing to do with Thomas or his workshops. We neither vouch for him nor receive any type of commission from him. However, he’s a member of the faculty at Ashland University in Ohio and the author of The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative; he seems like the real deal to me. Perhaps you can ask your local library or high school to contact him at to********@*******al.net for pricing information.

He begins his workshop by exploring the differences between traditional autobiography and contemporary memoir. Then he gets to the nitty-gritty of helping participants figure out how to begin, where to focus, which episodes of your life will make interesting topics, how to “discover the emotional truth” of your story and the various literary elements that come into play. By the end of the workshop, you should have a draft of a chapter or section of your story.

“Many of us have lived fascinating lives whether inwardly or outwardly, during childhood long ago or as adults in the last decade,” Thomas writes on his website. He sums up the definition of a modern memoir as “a story that focuses on the meaning and intensity of a singular relationship in the author’s life—unresolved feelings for a parent, a child, a sibling, a friend; coming to terms with a loss, an illness, a death; remembering a significant phase like childhood or adolescence or a period like college in which the writer was challenged or changed.”

If you can get a group together and want to hold a memoir workshop, there’s a teacher who will come to you. His name is Thomas Larson; go to thomaslarson.com for details about him. Write My Memoirs has nothing to do with Thomas or his workshops. We neither vouch for him nor receive any type of commission from him. However, he’s a member of the faculty at Ashland University in Ohio and the author of The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative; he seems like the real deal to me. Perhaps you can ask your local library or high school to contact him at to********@*******al.net for pricing information.

Are You Writing a Memoir or a Self-Help?

June 24, 2018September 18, 2012 by Rosanne Ullman

Are You Writing a Memoir or a Self-Help?

Last week’s post about the relationship between a memoir and a self-help guide inspired me to look further into the differences between the two. I found a listing of “do’s and don’ts” for each genre at nonfictionbookeditor.com, although keep in mind that the advice addresses authors who would like to publish their work for mass distribution, whereas here at Write My Memoirs you may want to publish just a few copies for friends and relatives.

The author of that blog contends that readers are looking for either a targeted self-help with instructions and a call to action on how to overcome one of life’s hurdles or reach the next rung of some ladder, or they want to read an entertaining and perhaps uplifting account of someone’s life that may have lessons regarding a common personal struggle but will be too personal to apply broadly.

Confusion between the two genres occurs when the book focuses mainly on how a single problem has been overcome by the author. That is effective as neither a memoir nor a self-help, according to the NonfictionBookEditor blog. If you’re writing a self-help, you should research it beyond what you’ve learned from your own experience, because everyone’s situation will be a little different from yours. If you’re writing a memoir, you should not narrow your focus so much that it’s an account only of your single personal struggle without the greater context of other aspects of your life. I think that’s good advice.

Last week’s post about the relationship between a memoir and a self-help guide inspired me to look further into the differences between the two. I found a listing of “do’s and don’ts” for each genre at nonfictionbookeditor.com, although keep in mind that the advice addresses authors who would like to publish their work for mass distribution, whereas here at Write My Memoirs you may want to publish just a few copies for friends and relatives.

Take a Scholarly Approach to Memoir Writing

June 24, 2018September 10, 2012 by Rosanne Ullman

Take a Scholarly Approach to Memoir Writing

Most of our members here on WriteMyMemoirs are not professional writers and would not consider themselves serious students of writing or autobiography. But perhaps some of you do fall into the category of “writing scholar.” If you’d love learning more about biography and autobiography, I recommend looking into the International Auto/Biography Association (IABA), which meets annually for a scholarly convention that each year explores a different aspect of crafting a life story and is held in a selected fabulous global city.

On that website, you may notice an invitation to submit an abstract if you’re interested in serving on a panel at the annual convention of a different group, the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA). According to NeMLA, this panel “will address the narrative and socio-political relationships between contemporary memoir and self-help. Topics may include, but are not limited to: narrative analyses of popular self-help texts; the co-evolution of memoir and self-help; how the narrative of self-help embeds itself in memoir; revisiting trauma in a public forum.”

The NeMLA convention takes place March 21-24, 2013, but the deadline to submit an abstract is coming up on September 30. It would be great to have a WriteMyMemoirs member serve on the panel or just attend this event and report back to us. In any case, on the next blog let’s discuss the memoir/self-help connection. If NeMLA is creating an entire panel presentation on the topic, there must be a lot to talk about!

Most of our members here on WriteMyMemoirs are neither professional writers nor would consider themselves serious students of writing or autobiography. But perhaps some of you do fall into the category of “writing scholar.” If you’d love to learn more about biography and autobiography, I recommend looking into the International Auto/Biography Association (IABA), which meets annually for a scholarly convention that each year explores a different aspect of crafting a life story and is held in a selected fabulous global city.

On that website, you may notice an invitation to submit an abstract if you’re interested in serving on a panel at the annual convention of a different group, the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA). The topic is: Together after Oprah: Theorizing Contemporary Memoir via Self-Help Discourse. According to NeMLA, this panel “will address the narrative and socio-political relationships between contemporary memoir and self-help. Topics may include, but are not limited to: narrative analyses of popular self-help texts; the co-evolution of memoir and self-help; how the narrative of self-help embeds itself in memoir; revisiting trauma in a public forum.”

How Important Are Grammar Rules?

June 24, 2018September 3, 2012 by Rosanne Ullman

How Important Are Grammar Rules?

If you’re writing a memoir, by definition you’re now a writer. For the first time since high school, you may be thinking about grammar. But is that really necessary?

My quick answer is that, yes, most of us could use a grammar refresher course. I found an audio course for $179 that you can take right from your computer on September 20. Click here to learn more. (We do not have any connection to that company; we neither receive a share of the profits nor have taken any courses there ourselves to recommend.)

This particular course aims to help you get rid of some bad writing habits like splitting infinitives, ending sentences with prepositions and using passive voice. Are those habits so evil? Not really. If anything, these rules are losing favor and become antiquated. But as a writer, you should be aware of them. You should recognize these “flaws” when you see them and limit them in your own writing. But I would not say you must eliminate them altogether. Take this sentence: “I want to always know where you’ll be.” While that demonstrates a split infinitive—always splits the infinitive to know—it’s probably the clearest and most efficient way of expressing that thought. However, it’s not the only way; there are lots of ways to say the same thing. Learning these rules will open your eyes to all of the options, and you can improve the impact of your writing if you avoid “breaking” these rules as much as possible.

If you’re writing a memoir, by definition you’re now a writer. For the first time since high school, you may be thinking about grammar. But is that really necessary?

This particular course aims to help you get rid of some bad writing habits like splitting infinitives, ending sentences with prepositions and using passive voice. Are those habits so evil? Not really. If anything, these rules are losing favor and become antiquated. But as a writer, you should be aware of them. You should recognize these “flaws” when you see them and limit them in your own writing. But I would not say you must eliminate them altogether. Take this sentence: “I want to always know where you’ll be.” While that demonstrates a split infinitive—always splits the infinitive to know—it’s probably the clearest and most efficient way of expressing that thought. However, it’s not the only way; there are lots of ways to say the same thing. Learning these rules will open your eyes to all of the options, and you can improve the impact of your writing if you avoid “breaking” these rules as much as possible.

Writing Your Memoir Dedication

June 24, 2018August 21, 2012 by Rosanne Ullman

When you signed up for Write My Memoirs and began filling out your “interview” questionnaire to create a time line to guide your writing, you probably noticed an optional space to insert your Dedication. If you publish your memoir—and we hope you do!—as with any other book, you may want to include a dedication.

Typically, the dedication expresses gratitude to one or more loved ones for helping with the book or just for being in your life. But don’t feel that you must be typical. You can dedicate your book to your cat, your computer or yourself if you like. I’ve gathered up a few links to websites that may give you some ideas:

A dedication trivia quiz. See how much you know about authors and their book dedications! And don’t feel bad if you don’t do well. Most of the questions are difficult.

Celebrity dedications. Deeming that the dedication “is arguably the most personal part of a story,” the Daily Beast’s Kara Cutruzzula offers some of the odder dedications in celebrity memoirs. Read how celebs ranging from Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Stewart to Anne Heche and both Mr. and Mrs. Ozzy Osbourne dedicate their autobiographies.

Blogger favorites. The author of a blog called “Wanton Creations” shares some favorite book dedications.

Choose your dedication type. A blogger at WordServeWaterCooler and lists seven categories of book dedication, with examples of each: loving; curious; striving; funny; touching; sentimental; and predictable.

Enjoy, and let us know how you’re deciding what to write in your memoir dedication!

When you signed up for Write My Memoirs and began filling out your “interview” questionnaire to create a time line to guide your writing, you probably noticed an optional space to insert your Dedication. If you publish your memoir—and we hope you do!—as with any other book, you may want to include a dedication.

A dedication trivia quiz. Take this quiz to see how much you know about authors and their book dedications! And don’t feel bad if you don’t do well. Most of the questions are difficult.
Celebrity dedications. Deeming that the dedication “is arguably the most personal part of a story,” the Daily Beast’s Kara Cutruzzula offers some of the odder dedications in celebrity memoirs. Read how celebs ranging from Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Stewart to Anne Heche and both Mr. and Mrs. Ozzy Osbourne dedicate their autobiographies.
Blogger favorites. The author of a blog called “Wanton Creations” shares some favorite book dedications.
Choose your dedication type. A blogger at WordServeWaterCooler lists seven categories of book dedication, with examples of each: loving; curious; striving; funny; touching; sentimental; and predictable.

Enjoy, and let us know how you’re deciding what to write in your memoir dedication!

Helen Gurly Brown’s Legacy: “Writer’s Rules”

June 24, 2018August 15, 2012 by Rosanne Ullman

Helen Gurly Brown’s Legacy: “Writer’s Rules”

Helen Gurly Brown’s recent death brought back memories of how Sex and the Single Girl, the book that made her famous, resonated with single women and inspired Brown to start Cosmopolitan magazine. But it’s a lesser known work that Brown authored—The Writer’s Rules: The Power Of Positive Prose: How To Create It And Get It Published—that has a few lessons for our members here at Write My Memoirs.

If you would like to spend an interesting half hour, check out the video interview of Helen Gurly Brown on the PBS program, The Open Mind, in which she discusses her “writer’s rules.” Although the book has many more, in the interview Helen shares five rules:

1. Don’t use the same word more than once in a sentence or even in a paragraph.

2. Use “it” and “that” sparingly and never to start a sentence.

3. Vary your sentence structure. Don’t become monotonous with, “I worked in a factory. I assembled parts. I enjoyed my work. I had hobbies, too.”

4. Stick to the subject. Don’t force the reader to go back and figure out what you’re talking about.

5. Avoid cliches. It’s lazy to rely on old sayings instead of creatively coming up with your own ways of expressing thoughts.

During the interview, Helen encouraged everyone who wanted to write to just get started! Keep a journal, she advised. Write love letters. Email your friends to tell them what you’ve been doing. She reminds viewers that she was 40 when her first book was published.

“Writing is not a chore,” she says in the interview. “It doesn’t take self-discipline. It’s really kind of an indulgence to write about yourself, to write your thoughts, to write your dreams.” That’s exactly what we think here at Write My Memoirs!

Helen Gurly Brown’s recent death brought back memories of how Sex and the Single Girl, the book that made her famous, resonated with single women and inspired Brown to start Cosmopolitan magazine. But it’s a lesser known work that Brown authored—The Writer’s Rules: The Power Of Positive Prose: How To Create It And Get It Published—that has a few lessons for our members here at Write My Memoirs.

If you would like to spend an interesting half hour, check out the video interview of Helen Gurly Brown on the PBS program, The Open Mind, in which she discusses her “writer’s rules.” Although the book has many more, in the interview Helen shares five rules:

Don’t use the same word more than once in a sentence or even in a paragraph.
Use “it” and “that” sparingly and never to start a sentence.
Vary your sentence structure. Don’t become monotonous with, “I worked in a factory. I assembled parts. I enjoyed my work. I had hobbies, too.”
Stick to the subject. Don’t force the reader to go back and figure out what you’re talking about.
Avoid cliches. It’s lazy to rely on old sayings instead of creatively coming up with your own ways of expressing thoughts.

During the interview, Helen encourages everyone who wants to write to just get started! Keep a journal, she advises. Write love letters. Email your friends to tell them what you’ve been doing. She reminds viewers that she was 40 when her first book was published.

Join—or Start!—a Memoirs Writing Group

June 24, 2018August 7, 2012 by Rosanne Ullman

Join—or Start!—a Memoirs Writing Group

Many goals are easier to achieve in a group setting, where support and encouragement are built in. People join Weight Watchers, take exercise classes and go to AA meetings in order to pursue a goal—and the same strategy can apply to memoir writing. Hook up with other memoir writers, and you’ll find the inspiration and motivation you may be having trouble developing on your own.

First, check your local senior center, the most likely organization to hold a formal memoirs writing class or informal group meeting. Even if your age doesn’t qualify you as a senior, they’re unlikely to turn you away—and this tends to be either free or very affordable. Libraries are another good bet; click here for an account of a longstanding memoirs class held at the public library in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

If you can’t find a memoirs group in your area, how hard would it be to start one? According to Cathy Fulton, it’s not difficult at all. She did it and then wrote a book about it: Facilitating a Lifewriting Group is Easy. Fulton found that weekly, two-hour meetings work best, with most of the time devoted to having the members read their stories and the rest asking questions or providing positive feedback. A discussion about a topic of choice and a 10-minute break fill up the remainder of the time.

If you join or form a memoir writing group, please email us to let us know! If you would ever want one of us to speak at your meeting, we would be happy to do that for nothing more than the reimbursement of travel costs from our Chicago location.

http://olos.ala.org/columns/?p=31

http://www.capturingmemories.com/starting.html

http://www.capturingmemories.com/resources_capmem.html

Many goals are easier to achieve in a group setting, where support and encouragement are built in. People join Weight Watchers, take exercise classes and go to AA meetings in order to pursue a goal—and the same strategy can apply to memoir writing. Hook up with other memoir writers, and you’ll find the inspiration and motivation you may be having trouble developing on your own.

If you can’t find a memoirs group in your area, how hard would it be to start one? According to Cathy Fulton, it’s not difficult at all. She did it and then wrote a book about it: Facilitating a Lifewriting Group is Easy. Fulton found that weekly, two-hour meetings work best, with most of the time devoted to having the members read their stories and the rest asking questions or providing positive feedback. A discussion about a topic of choice and a 10-minute break fill up the remainder of the time.

Yet More Tips on Getting Started on Your Writing

June 24, 2018July 17, 2012 by Rosanne Ullman

Yet More Tips on Getting Started on Your Writing

When you sit down to start writing your memoir, that blank page sure does stare back harshly. Getting out that first paragraph—even that first sentence—trips up people to the point that some never return to the task. Don’t let that happen to you!

As a guest blogger on The Creative Penn, Eric Olsen, co-author of We Wanted To Be Writers, contributed his thoughts on how to get started writing a novel. He tells writers not to worry about writing your book from Page 1 right through to the end. You can start anywhere. In a way, your memoir is a type of nonfiction novel, and here at WriteMyMemoirs we frequently mention the same thing—just write something, even one anecdote, and then at least you’ve gotten started.

Olsen lists three ways of organizing your thoughts, and we’ll tweak them here to apply to a memoir:

1. Write scenes. Think of your life as a series of scenes, and start with the most important or, perhaps, the most vivid scenes from your life.

2. Write characters. Devote a chapter to your parents, siblings, spouse(s) and special friends. Explore what makes the person tick and how each one impacted your life.

3. Write dialogue. Like a novel, a memoir could be more interesting with some dialogue rather than all straight description. Instead of describing what happened in an interpersonal situation, let your “characters” speak for themselves. Try it!

You can always go back and piece together your work in whatever order you want—chronological or otherwise. Start writing!

When you sit down to start writing your memoir, that blank page sure does stare back harshly. Getting out that first paragraph—even that first sentence—trips up people to the point that some never return to the task. Don’t let that happen to you!

As a guest blogger on The Creative Penn, Eric Olsen, co-author of We Wanted To Be Writers, contributed his thoughts on how to get started writing a novel. He tells writers not to worry about writing your book from Page 1 right through to the end. You can start anywhere. In a way, your memoir is a type of nonfiction novel, and here at WriteMyMemoirs we frequently mention the same thing—just write something, even one anecdote, and then at least you’ve gotten started.

Olsen lists three ways of organizing your thoughts, and we’ll tweak them here to apply to a memoir:

Write scenes. Think of your life as a series of scenes, and start with the most important or, perhaps, the most vivid scenes from your life.
Write characters. Devote a chapter to your parents, siblings, spouse(s) and special friends. Explore what makes the person tick and how each one impacted your life.
Write dialogue. Like a novel, a memoir could be more interesting with some dialogue rather than all straight description. Instead of describing what happened in an interpersonal situation, let your “characters” speak for themselves. Try it!

You can always go back and piece together your work in whatever order you want—chronological or otherwise. Start writing!

Add Yourself to the Bombeck/Ephron/Quindlen List of Women Essayists

June 24, 2018July 10, 2012 by Rosanne Ullman

Memoir as a Collection of Essays

I was a big fan of Nora Ephron, who died last month after carving a niche for women writers who share witty observations of modern times. While the late Erma Bombeck did much the same but focused on homemaking, Ephron added the workplace. I first discovered Nora through her book of essays, Crazy Salad, and last year read her latest, I Remember Nothing, which was an actual book rather than a collection of essays. But the sum of her essays alone gave the reader a good picture of her life story.

The heir to the female essayist throne is Anna Quindlen who, like her predecessors, shares views about normal home and work life through the eyes of a woman. Quindlen’s latest entry, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, covers a pivotal moment in time of the author’s life as she leaves her 50s to enter her 60s. Her chapters cover the different categories of things that tend to evolve at that stage of life, like appearance, faith and confidence.

Many people who do not write professionally but would like to pen a memoir have a tough time organizing it and creating transitions between chapters. If that describes you, try structuring your autobiography as a collection of essays. Write just one essay about a time period, a person, a location or an idea that made an impact on your life. Then write another one. When you put these essays together, each can become a chapter of your book without the necessity of tying them together.

http://www.amazon.com/Lots-Candles-Plenty-Cake-Quindlen/dp/1400069343/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341935885&sr=1-1&keywords=quindlen+lots+of+candles

I was a big fan of Nora Ephron, who died last month after carving a niche for women writers who share witty observations of modern times. While the late Erma Bombeck did much the same but focused on homemaking, Ephron added the workplace. I first discovered Nora through her book of essays, Crazy Salad, and last year read her latest, I Remember Nothing, which was an actual book rather than a collection of essays. But the sum of her essays alone gave the reader a good picture of her life story.

The heir to the female essayist throne is Anna Quindlen who, like her predecessors, shares views about normal home and work life through the eyes of a woman. Quindlen’s latest entry, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, covers a pivotal moment in time of the author’s life as she leaves her 50s to enter her 60s. Her chapters cover the different categories of things that tend to evolve at that stage of life, like appearance, faith and confidence.

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Be Glad You’re Not Famous

Memoir Teacher for Hire

Are You Writing a Memoir or a Self-Help?

Take a Scholarly Approach to Memoir Writing

How Important Are Grammar Rules?

Writing Your Memoir Dedication

Helen Gurly Brown’s Legacy: “Writer’s Rules”

Join—or Start!—a Memoirs Writing Group

Yet More Tips on Getting Started on Your Writing

Add Yourself to the Bombeck/Ephron/Quindlen List of Women Essayists

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