Memoirists have plenty of opportunities to step outside their specific story and comment on the larger situation they are describing–and these are the kinds of insights agents and publishers are looking for. Whether you’re writing about losing a loved one, being Black in America, surviving a climate-change disaster, or being […]
There are endless questions when it comes to writing a memoir. How do I get started and keep going? How do I deal with family members? What if I can’t remember details or dialogue? What if I don’t know the real story, the best structure, or the overall theme? If you’ve got questions like these, you’re not alone...
Soon, we'll arrive at the ending to 2021. In honor of this, we'll spend this meeting of The Memoir Collective talking about endings, in particular, how to write successful sentence, paragraph, chapter and story endings. We'll also talk about that ever-vexing problem: how to identify the ending of your memoir.
There was a time in my early forties when I once spent the better part of a day shopping for a soap dish and toothbrush holder that would perfectly match the brushed nickel faucets in my newly remodeled spa bathroom. Back then, I was extremely proud of my just-spicy-enough jambalaya […]
I have no scientific data to back this up, but I would say—based on experience and observation—that it takes an average of four years to write a memoir, and by that I mean the kind of well-crafted story others would want to read.
In the process, memoirists not only […]
Let’s say it’s Thursday morning and you have some type of creative project due Monday. You’ve postponed the project for weeks because the right ideas weren’t forthcoming. But now, the deadline is looming, you feel as if you’ve been living on diet pills and black coffee, and you’re trying to […]
I recently started a new writing project and for the last few days have been engaged in a full-on dogfight with fear and doubt. The project didn’t start with fear. Instead, it began—and progressed—like all my writing projects:
A vague idea that had been with me for several months started to […]
Not long ago, I read Ann Patchett’s extraordinary collection of essays, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. The book blew me away because Patchett’s stories seemed so, well, unassuming. How is she doing this? I wondered. How is she able to keep my attention […]
For nearly 20 years, Dr. James W. Pennebaker has been giving people an assignment: write down your deepest feelings about an emotional upheaval in your life for 15 or 20 minutes a day for four consecutive days. Many of those who followed his simple instructions have found their immune systems […]
