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memoir writing

Get Your Customized Memoir Publishing Here!

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Get Your Customized Memoir Publishing Here!
Memoirs are like snowflakes! The longer we’re in the memoirs business, the more we see that no two memoirs are exactly alike. Every author approaches an autobiography a little differently. Variations include the organization, number of photographs and length of chapters. Still, when we publish memoirs, we see many similarities as well, such as:
1. The writing is generally very good. People who want to see their work in an actual book tend to have someone who’s skilled at language read it over first for grammatical errors. This is a great idea!
2. Early life, marriage/family, work, military service and retirement tend to be typical chapters, which is why we suggest those categories in our online structure.
3. Most people include at least a few photographs. Visuals help the author to remember details, and they help the reader to picture the people and action described.
4. The memoirs convey a sense of satisfaction. Our memoir writers tend to be pleased with their lives. In many ways their lives are ordinary, but the authors feel happy to have lived them.
Then there’s the more detailed work involved in publishing, such as the font, the placement of photographs and the cover layout. Sometimes the author has a clear vision, while other times we help our authors with those types of decisions. At WriteMyMemoirs, we enjoy working with authors to get their life stories into print. Although our standard soft-cover book suits most tastes, we can create any book you want.

Memoirs are like snowflakes! The longer we’re in the memoirs business, the more we see that no two memoirs are exactly alike. Every author approaches an autobiography a little differently. Variations include the organization, number of photographs and length of chapters. Still, when we publish memoirs, we see many similarities as well, such as:

  1. The writing is generally very good. People who want to see their work in an actual book tend to have someone who’s skilled at language read it over first for grammatical errors. This is a great idea!
  2. Early life, marriage/family, work, military service and retirement tend to be typical chapters, which is why we suggest those categories in our online structure.
  3. Most people include at least a few photographs. Visuals help the author to remember details, and they help the reader to picture the people and action described.
  4. The memoirs convey a sense of satisfaction. Our memoir writers tend to be pleased with their lives. In many ways their lives are ordinary, but the authors feel happy to have lived them.

Then there’s the more detailed work involved in publishing, such as the font, the placement of photographs and the cover layout. Sometimes the author has a clear vision, while other times we help our authors with those types of decisions. At WriteMyMemoirs, we enjoy working with authors to get their life stories into print. Although our standard soft-cover book suits most tastes, we can create any book you want.

eHow Memoir Writing Tips, Part 4

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eHow Memoir Writing Tips, Part 4
This is the last post in our series on eHow.com’s “mini autobiography” suggestions.
7. Conclude by writing about how you see the world and what you have learned from life and those in your world so far. Discuss your goals, dreams and hopes for yourself and your family.
WriteMyMemoirs commentary: While this is a valuable suggestion, I wouldn’t call it a “must do.” Not everyone wants to use a memoir to philosophize. If you’ve fully told your story as you went along, including your feelings and point of view, you may not feel it’s necessary to cull your impressions into a chapter on “what you have learned from life.” As to this tip’s second suggestion, I think it can be risky. For example, if you put into writing your hopes and dreams for your grandchildren, you could regret it later if your goals for them turn out to be out of touch with their goals for themselves. It’s not that I believe that tip #7 is inappropriate—not at all. It could make an interesting concluding chapter. I just don’t think you should feel that your work is not complete work if you choose to forego this idea.
8. Include photos and captions in your mini autobiography. Start with your childhood and include photos of your friends and family members as well.
WriteMyMemoirs commentary: This is good advice. Visuals always serve a purpose in a memoir. Anyone reading your life story will be interested to see what you and the people in your life looked like when all of you were younger. I would just caution you that, if you publish your work, even online, make sure to get permission of living people to show their image.
And that ends our look at these 8 tips. It’s been fun!

This is the last post in our series on eHow.com’s “mini autobiography” suggestions.

7. Conclude by writing about how you see the world and what you have learned from life and those in your world so far. Discuss your goals, dreams and hopes for yourself and your family.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: While this is a valuable suggestion, I wouldn’t call it a “must do.” Not everyone wants to use a memoir to philosophize. If you’ve fully told your story as you went along, including your feelings and point of view, you may not feel it’s necessary to cull your impressions into a chapter on “what I have learned from life.” As to this tip’s second suggestion, I think it can be risky. For example, if you put into writing your hopes and dreams for your grandchildren, you could regret it later if your goals for them turn out to be out of touch with their goals for themselves. It’s not that I believe that tip #7 is inappropriate—not at all. It could make an interesting concluding chapter. I just don’t think you should feel that your work is not complete work if you choose to forego this idea.

8. Include photos and captions in your mini autobiography. Start with your childhood and include photos of your friends and family members as well.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: This is good advice. Visuals always serve a purpose in a memoir. Anyone reading your life story will be interested to see what you and the people in your life looked like when all of you were younger. I would just caution you that, if you publish your work, even online, make sure to get permission of living people to show their image.

And that ends our look at these 8 tips. Now go back to writing your memoir!

eHow Memoir Writing Tips, Part 3

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We’re halfway through the eHow.com instructions for writing a memoir. They’ve brought up valuable points, so on to the next two:

5. Ask your children, friends and family members what they’ve always wanted to know about you and your life. Make a list of their questions and answer them in your mini autobiography.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: This can provide a guide in developing chapter topics and determining which parts of your life should get the most attention. This process also will give you ideas for including information you may otherwise overlook. Ultimately, you’re writing the story you want to write, but it can be helpful to take into consideration the gaps in knowledge people have about your life.

6. Interview people in your life. Doing so might help jog your memory about events or people in your life you’ve forgotten about. What friends and family members remember might be very different from what you remember, as well. Include quotes from individuals in your life to create a colorful autobiography.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: If you’ve ever exchanged memories with someone of an event you both attended, you know how different the accounts can be. We can’t trust our own recollections completely. Even if you end up trusting your memories over someone else’s, this exercise may bring up facts and dates you can check on the Internet. The second part of this tip—including quotes from others—is a suggestion that you may or may not want to follow. It can round out a memoir, but that’s up to the individual memoir writer to decide.

eHow Memoir Writing Tips, Part 2

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eHow Memoir Writing Tips, Part 2
Some valuable tips to help you write your memoir appear on eHow.com, so to follow up from last week let’s look at the site’s next two points.
3. Tell the stories behind the important events in your life, such as high school or college graduation, marriage, the birth of a child and your first real job. Don’t just list these events—reveal the excitement or exasperation you felt when they occurred and what you learned from each event.
WriteMyMemoirs commentary: I really like this tip, because it reminds you that you’re not writing a school paper. Usually in school, you’re assigned to write either an expository essay, which provides facts in a dry way without any opinion, or a persuasive essay, which tries to convince the reader to side with your point of view. A memoir is a different animal altogether. You want to present information through the filter of your personal experiences and emotions. You’re not simply presenting facts, but you’re also not specifically arguing a point of view.
4. Discuss the influential people in your life. Perhaps you had a teacher who took you under her wing or a neighbor who taught you how to play baseball. Write down what they looked like, how they spoke and what you admired the most about these individuals.
WriteMyMemoirs commentary: Of course, your autobiography is not complete without including all the important people in your life. But you have to be careful. Once something is published, you can’t undo it, so make sure you’re comfortable including your impressions of people. Even if you present the person in a positive light, read it over a few times. And think very carefully about writing a negative account of someone. Is it worth it to put that out there? Are you seeking revenge? Be true to yourself, but you may regret using your memoir to be petty or settle a score.
More tips next time!

Some valuable tips to help you write your memoir appear on eHow.com, so to follow up from last week let’s look at the site’s next two points.

3. Tell the stories behind the important events in your life, such as high school or college graduation, marriage, the birth of a child and your first real job. Don’t just list these events—reveal the excitement or exasperation you felt when they occurred and what you learned from each event.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: I really like this tip, because it reminds you that you’re not writing a school paper. Usually in school, you’re assigned to write either an expository essay, which provides facts in a dry way without any opinion, or a persuasive essay, which tries to convince the reader to side with your point of view. A memoir is a different animal altogether. You want to present information through the filter of your personal experiences and emotions. You’re not simply presenting facts, but you’re also not specifically arguing a point of view.

4. Discuss the influential people in your life. Perhaps you had a teacher who took you under her wing or a neighbor who taught you how to play baseball. Write down what they looked like, how they spoke and what you admired the most about these individuals.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: Of course, your autobiography is not complete without including all the important people in your life. But you have to be careful. Once something is published, you can’t undo it, so make sure you’re comfortable including your impressions of people. Even if you present the person in a positive light, read it over a few times. And think very carefully about writing a negative account of someone. Is it worth it to put that out there? Are you seeking revenge? Be true to yourself, but you may regret using your memoir to be petty or settle a score.

More tips next time!

Check eHow.com for Memoir Writing Tips

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Check eHow.com for Memoir Writing Tips
You can find out how to do pretty much anything on eHow.com, and if you click here you’ll see that the site has good advice for writing your memoir. In this and the next three blog posts, let’s look more closely at each of eHow’s eight tips. Each eHow point appears verbatim in italics
1. Start with a description of your parents. Write about how they met, where and how they bought their first home, their careers and their hopes and dreams. Make a list of their best characteristics—such as generous, kind, funny or loving—and write about the things they did to express these characteristics. Perhaps your mother lavished you with gifts or your father was the funniest person in the room. Tell stories you remember about them, the ones that have stayed with you over the years.
WriteMyMemoirs commentary: This is great guidance, because its two-pronged, objective/subjective approach will result in a full picture of your background. First, you’ll get down all of the objective facts about your parents and their relationship. Second, by listing their qualities, both good and bad, and writing anecdotes about each character trait, you’ll express your subjective impressions of your parents and your interactions with them.
2. Write about your childhood and formative years. Discuss where you went to school, your friends and schoolmates. If you were the class clown, write about that. If you were a lonely child, write about that too. Describe how others saw you when you were young and whether that meshed with your true self.
WriteMyMemoirs commentary: Similarly, this suggestion brings out both the facts of your early life and your memories of how you felt when you were young. And instead of relying on your memories, if you’re still in touch with people you knew when you were child, ask them what they thought about you at that time! You can use their comments as background—or with their permission you can quote their statements directly to make your memoir a little different and really interesting.
Check back here for more next week.
http://www.ehow.com/how_6633284_write-mini-autobiography.html
You can find out how to do pretty much anything on eHow.com, and if you click here you’ll see that the site has good advice for writing your memoir. In this and the next three blog posts, let’s look more closely at each of eHow’s eight tips. Each eHow point appears verbatim in italics.
1. Start with a description of your parents. Write about how they met, where and how they bought their first home, their careers and their hopes and dreams. Make a list of their best characteristics—such as generous, kind, funny or loving—and write about the things they did to express these characteristics. Perhaps your mother lavished you with gifts or your father was the funniest person in the room. Tell stories you remember about them, the ones that have stayed with you over the years.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: This is great guidance, because its two-pronged, objective/subjective approach will result in a full picture of your background. First, you’ll get down all of the objective facts about your parents and their relationship. Second, by listing their qualities, both good and bad, and writing anecdotes about each character trait, you’ll express your subjective impressions of your parents and your interactions with them.
2. Write about your childhood and formative years. Discuss where you went to school, your friends and schoolmates. If you were the class clown, write about that. If you were a lonely child, write about that too. Describe how others saw you when you were young and whether that meshed with your true self.

WriteMyMemoirs commentary: Similarly, this suggestion brings out both the facts of your early life and your memories of how you felt when you were young. And instead of relying on your memories, if you’re still in touch with people you knew when you were child, ask them what they thought about you at that time! You can use their comments as background—or with their permission you can quote their statements directly to make your memoir a little different and really interesting.
Check back here next week for tips #3 and #4.

Speak Your Memoirs

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Speak Your Memoirs
Sometimes you sit down to write and nothing much comes out. I advise people who want to author their own memoirs to take it one anecdote at a time and thread it together later. But writing can be intimidating, and you may have trouble putting together your thoughts when faced with a blank screen. Maybe you’re not good at computers or word processing software but also can’t imagine writing out a whole book longhand. Or perhaps, like many people, you just can talk a lot easier than you can write.
Talking is a great option. We have some members here on WriteMyMemoirs who are telling their stories into audio recorders. Consider that as a solution for you if you have trouble with the writing process.
When you’re finished talking, you will likely have hours of your voice on a series of little audio tapes. What then? At the very least, you’ll have your story on record for other people to hear. You might want to make some copies and leave it at that, but with help you can get your autobiography on paper or publish it into a book. Perhaps a friend or relative can transcribe, edit and organize the work. WriteMyMemoirs offers that service, too. Just send us your tapes, and we’ll create the magic. There’s not just one route to getting your story into print, so don’t get frustrated if the writing process is difficult for you.
Sometimes you sit down to write and nothing much comes out. I advise people who want to author their own memoirs to take it one anecdote at a time and thread it together later. But writing can be intimidating, and you may have trouble putting together your thoughts when faced with a blank screen. Maybe you’re not good at computers or word processing software but also can’t imagine writing out a whole book longhand. Or perhaps, like many people, you just can talk a lot easier than you can write.
Talking is a great option. We have some members here on WriteMyMemoirs who are telling their stories into audio recorders. Consider that as a solution for you if you have trouble with the writing process.
When you’re finished talking, you will likely have hours of your voice on a series of little audio tapes. What then? At the very least, you’ll have your story on record for other people to hear. You might want to make some copies and leave it at that, but with help you can get your autobiography on paper or publish it into a book. Perhaps a friend or relative can transcribe, edit and organize the work. WriteMyMemoirs offers that service, too. Just send us your tapes, and we’ll create the magic. There’s not just one route to getting your story into print, so don’t get frustrated if the writing process is difficult for you.

Composite Characters: A Memoir Controversy

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Composite Characters: The Latest Memoir Controversy
A controversy about writing memoirs? Last week, just such an issue emerged when an upcoming book about President Barack Obama that was excerpted in Vanity Fair. Author David Maraniss reveals in the book that President Obama’s memoir, Dreams of My Father, presented a girlfriend who was really a composite of more than one woman. The memoir includes a disclaimer indicating that “compression” was used as a writing technique. In an interview years later, Mr. Obama explained his decision to use the technique by saying, “I was very sensitive in my book not to write about my girlfriends, partly out of respect for them.”
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Maraniss dismisses the need to be 100 percent factual in a memoir. He says, “The theme of [Obama’s] memoir is race, and so both the chronology and the characters in his writing were used to advance that theme.”
Is this valid? As you write your memoirs, you’re trying to create a narrative that is compelling and easy to read. So is it okay to describe an event in a dramatic way that makes your point better than any event that actually happened? I can’t quite accept that in a memoir, and a disclaimer isn’t enough, either. At the point of relating the anecdote, you owe it to the reader to explain that you’re talking about what might have happened, or you’re describing a situation that combined elements from various times in your life; you’re not faithfully sharing one true event. Our memories play tricks on us, but a memoir should relate the facts as we best remember them.

A controversy about writing memoirs? Last week, just such an issue emerged when an upcoming book about President Barack Obama was excerpted in Vanity Fair. Author David Maraniss reveals in the book that President Obama’s memoir, Dreams of My Father, presented a girlfriend who was really a composite of more than one woman. The memoir includes a disclaimer indicating that “compression” was used as a writing technique. In an interview years later, Mr. Obama explained his decision to use the technique: “I was very sensitive in my book not to write about my girlfriends, partly out of respect for them.”

In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Maraniss dismisses the need to be 100 percent factual in a memoir. He says, “The theme of [Obama’s] memoir is race, and so both the chronology and the characters in his writing were used to advance that theme.”

Is this valid? As you write your memoirs, you’re trying to create a narrative that is compelling and easy to read. So is it okay to describe an event in a dramatic way that makes your point better than any event that actually happened? I can’t quite accept that in a memoir, and a disclaimer isn’t enough, either. At the point of relating the anecdote, you owe it to the reader to explain that you’re talking about what might have happened, or you’re describing a situation that combines elements from various times in your life; you’re not faithfully sharing one true event. Our memories play tricks on us, but a memoir should relate the facts as we best remember them.

A Commonplace Book Can Help You Write Your Memoirs

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Ever hear of a commonplace book? It’s been credited as an early seed for the modern blog. Instead of a journal or diary of your own thoughts, it’s a record of ideas—articles, artwork and anything, really—that strike you as interesting. You also can jot down your own thoughts, but a commonplace book is for common topics, or “commonplaces,” and not meant to chronicle your life’s experiences. Artistotle was the first known commonplace book keeper; Thomas Jefferson was another fan of the genre.

You can create a commonplace book just as they did, or you can put a modern twist on it by starting a commonplace book file on your computer. Instead of bookmarking an article or a website, do a copy-and-paste and throw the whole piece into the computer file. If you clip an article from a real newspaper, if your child presents you with a drawing or if you have movie, concert or sports event tickets you’d like to save, capture any of those by scanning and saving the image to your commonplace book file. You also can add photographs.

When you sit down with your memoir, these ideas and images will jog your memory and inspire your writing. You even can craft an entire memoir around the commonplace book—just add a thread of text to explain it all. If you’d like to write a memoir but want to take your time and don’t know where to start, try keeping a commonplace book first and let your memoir project grow from there.

Working With a Ghostwriter on Your Memoir? Don’t Lose Your Voice

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Working With a Ghostwriter on Your Memoir? Don’t Lose Your Voice
I watched a battered Ryan O’Neal squirm through an uncomfortable interview on the Today Show this morning. I felt bad for the guy. He was promoting his new memoir, Both of Us: My Life With Farrah, which details his rocky relationship with the late Farrah Fawcett. Matt Lauer did what any interviewer would do: he asked the autobiographer about particularly disturbing or explosive passages in the memoir. O’Neal was exceedingly candid, at times he seemed almost unfamiliar with his own words from the book.
Lauer read one passage that ended, “…because our lives felt so pointless.” Ryan acted surprised. “Did I say ‘pointless’?” he asked Matt, who confirmed it, and then Ryan sidestepped that description and spoke about the rest of the passage. Quoting another passage, Matt asked Ryan about his account of Farrah spending long periods staring into the mirror, upset by the aging process. Again, Ryan cushioned the quote and addressed ancillary topics.
Ryan is listed as the first of three authors of the book. There’s no shame in having a ghostwriter or two; many celebrities and ordinary people may be great at what they do professionally but are simply not writers. When you hire a ghostwriter, you’re still the main author. Make sure you’re comfortable with your writing partner, you communicate freely with the writer and you approve of every word in the book. No matter who does the crafting, this is your story, your voice.

I watched a battered Ryan O’Neal squirm through an uncomfortable interview on the Today Show this morning. I felt bad for the guy. He was promoting his new memoir, Both of Us: My Life With Farrah, which details his rocky relationship with the late Farrah Fawcett. Matt Lauer did what any interviewer would do: he asked the autobiographer about particularly disturbing or explosive passages in the memoir. O’Neal was exceedingly candid but at times seemed almost unfamiliar with his own words from the book.

Lauer read one passage that ended, “…because our lives felt so pointless.” Ryan acted surprised. “Did I say ‘pointless’?” he asked Matt, who confirmed it, and then Ryan sidestepped that description and spoke about the rest of the passage. Quoting another passage, Matt asked Ryan about his account of Farrah spending long periods staring into the mirror, upset by the aging process. Again, Ryan cushioned the quote and addressed ancillary topics.

Ryan is listed as the first of three authors of the book. There’s no shame in having a ghostwriter or two; many celebrities and ordinary people may be great at what they do professionally but are simply not writers. When you hire a ghostwriter for your memoir, you’re still the main author. Make sure you’re comfortable with your writing partner, you communicate freely with the writer and you approve of every word in the book. No matter who does the crafting, this is your story, your voice.

Write Yourself Up Wiki-Style

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Write Yourself Up Wiki-Style
We regularly receive email from people who want to write their memoirs but can’t get started. We suggest beginning with just one limited episode; once you’ve described that, you may be able to go on to the next. I think it’s easier than starting at the beginning of your life and going chronologically. But no matter what order you follow, you may find it helpful to have an outline. Breaking down your life into small segments will eventually shape your life’s larger themes. That’s where old, reliable Wikipedia comes in.
Look up your favorite celebrity or historical figure on wikipedia.com, and you’ll see that the biographical information follows an outline that appears along with the text. Read a few of them, and perhaps you’ll get into the swing of it enough to craft an outline for your own life.
For example, I looked up Benjamin Franklin, who lived a long and varied life. One category in his biography is Inventions and scientific inquiries. Another, Public Life, is broken down into: Europe years; Hutchinson letters; Coming of Revolution; Declaration of Independence; Postmaster; Ambassador to France: 1776–1785; Constitutional Convention; and President of Pennsylvania. As you can see, there’s no rule about how all of that is worded; it’s kind of a hodgepodge. If you can approach your own time line the same way—just write down a couple of words that trigger your memory about each major aspect, period or episode in your life, you’ll have made a great start to your autobiography.

We regularly receive email from people who want to write their memoirs but can’t get started. We suggest beginning with just one limited episode; once you’ve described that, you may be able to go on to the next. I think it’s easier than starting at the beginning of your life and going chronologically. But no matter what order you follow, you may find it helpful to have an outline. Breaking down your life into small segments will eventually shape your life’s larger themes. That’s where old, reliable Wikipedia comes in.

Look up your favorite celebrity or historical figure on Wikipedia.org, and you’ll see that the biographical information follows an outline that appears along with the text. Read a few of them, and perhaps you’ll get into the swing of it enough to craft an outline for your own life.

For example, I looked up Benjamin Franklin, who lived a long and varied life. One category in his biography is Inventions and scientific inquiries. Another, Public life, is broken down into: Europe years; Hutchinson letters; Coming of Revolution; Declaration of Independence; Postmaster; Ambassador to France: 1776–1785; Constitutional Convention; and President of Pennsylvania. As you can see, there’s no rule about how all of that is worded; it’s kind of a hodgepodge. If you can approach your own time line the same way—just write down a couple of words that trigger your memory about each major aspect, period or episode in your life, you’ll have made a great start to your autobiography.

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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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