Have you ever wanted to write an important part of your life story and share it with the world? If writing your memoir has been one of your dreams, then this blogpost should help you get started.
There are five simple steps that I share in this blogpost that I hope will help you write your Memoir. Read more below, to learn how to start writing your story…
5 Simple Steps to Get Started and Write Your Memoir
To get started to write about real-life events like in your memoir, it’s much like writing any other sort of book. It involves creating a step-by-step plan to inspire and motivate you to achieve your goal.
Even though many times I’ve heard writers tell me that writing a story is a somewhat confusing and perhaps overwhelming process – and some parts of can be – I really believe that writing a book is made simpler when we sit down and create a simple strategy to make it happen.
Below, is a simple 5 step process to help you get started and write your memoir.
1. Schedule Time to Write.
Much like anything else that’s important in your life, you need to make the time in your calendar to write. I’ve learned that what gets scheduled, gets done.
As I’ve had the privilege of coaching a couple of people on how to write their real-life story, I’ve learned that most people have incredibly busy lives. There are spouses, kids, jobs, homes, friends dogs, cats, horses and much more that we have everyday commitments to.
Yet, we must make the time for our own dreams too. So how do we do that?
We plan it just like we would any other appointment. If you’re going to the Doctor, or going to the theater it gets scheduled on your calendar. Writing should get a spot on your calendar too.
Writing your memoir should also get it’s own time slot on your calendar. Even if all you have is 30 minutes a day to write, then that’s what you should schedule on your calendar. Plan a 30 minute time-slot for writing and schedule that time for at least 5 days a week, or 6 days a week if you’re feeling brave. I use Printable Calendars online, that I print off and put on the wall near my desk. I print off three months in advance, so I can write down my to-do list far in advance so I don’t miss anything.
2. Collect All Your Notes Together in One Place.
I have to admit I write little notes all over the place. I have sticky notes and a yellow legal pad that I keep by my desk and on my night table where I jot down a variety of ideas that come to me throughout the day. Then I also use my iPhone to type random notes onto when I’m standing in line at the grocery store. I also keep a small coil notebook(inside my purse) to write down ideas when I’m watching an outdoor game or waiting for someone in the car.
So if you’re anything like me, all your ideas and thoughts might be scattered in many places into what seems a little like a jumbled mess. But not to worry, this is figure-out-able.
What do you do with all those randomly scattered notes? There’s a couple of options. You can sort the papers and put them into a legal-sized brown envelope. Just rip off all those notes from your yellow note-pad you keep on your desk and by your night stand and rip out the pages from the notebook you keep in your purse. Stick all those random papers into that brown envelope and label it: My Memoir book notes. Then for the ideas you jotted on your Smartphone you could just write them in your Evernote app on your phone and it automatically syncs with Evernote on your desktop computer.
The other option, is to take the time to open a new document in pages; word or in Google docs and label and save the document as My Memoir book notes. Next, you could type out every idea from all those scattered notes from all the different papers and on your Evernote app, and put it all in one document on your computer.
This will help you keep all your ideas and notes for your book in one place and easy for you to find as you’re writing.
3. Decide what your book is really about.
The key to writing great memoir is about knowing the difference between the universal theme that you’re writing about and your story’s plot line. It’s critical to understand the difference when you write your memoir book.
As Memoir writing expert Marion Roach Smith says, your memoir is about the universal theme and your plot line of your life is the story you tell to illustrate what big universal thing you’ll write your memoir about. Your story is not about you. You are there. You are present and this story couldn’t be written without you. But you are not what the story is about. The story is about something universal and you are the illustration of that universal theme.
In an author interview I had with memoir expert Marion Roach Smith, I share a story of my own. I shared how when our oldest son was six years old he left our house to meet his friend’s mom to go to a birthday party. I cried as he went down the steps to meet his friend’s mom, because with each step he took down the stairs, I saw him grow a little taller until it looked like he had reached adulthood. I cried because it felt like I was losing him.
In the above real-life story about my son, Marion mentioned that if I were to write a memoir about that event, the universal theme would be about embracing loss. It’s about saying to be a good mom and to do your job well, your children leave you(that’s the argument). So this memoir would be about loss, then you write that story and illustrate it with word pictures so readers really understand the universal theme you are trying to get across.
So what’s your story about? Ask yourself questions and write down the answers that come to you from the ideas you started with.
4. What is it that you know for sure from something you’ve been through: write your argument.
Each memoir tells a part of your real-life story – a universal theme – that you’ve learned about life.
Some examples of universal themes are: grief is a process that must be gone through slowly or you’ll stay grieving forever; peace can be found in your own backyard; practicing meditation helps to get rid of distractions and brings your mind back into focus; or to be a good mom you’ll need to let your children leave the next and embrace loss.
You can write your story as simply or as complex as you’d like, since this is focussed on what you have learned after what you’ve gone through in your life. Ask yourself questions to help you come to a better understanding of what that is.
Some examples of questions to ask yourself might be: what did you come to believe in that faith walk you went through; what did you come to believe about yourself and the world around you as you went through healing and recovery from sexual assault or physical or mental abuse; what lessons did you learn after the death of your mother, etc.
This is about writing that part of your story that you are willing to tell readers who are listening to your experiences. Show us what you have learned from living your story.
5. Show(don’t tell) your real-life story.
Now you are ready to show and prove what you have learned from your real-life story. This is about you proving your argument.
For example: the argument in the above story would be that to be a good mom and do your job well, your children will leave you when they reach adulthood.
Next, to prove the argument I might write a few unique stories about my son’s growing up years. I might write about a few times when I tried to hang onto him and his childhood which he didn’t like vs. other times when I taught him life lessons to help him grow more independent. I would write about how I had to embrace the difficult choice of embracing loss and to raise my son to get him ready to leave home when he reached adulthood.
It’s important to write your story in a way that shows you making the choice. As an example, show us what happened after you finally made the choice to embrace the loss of your child growing up and leaving home as an adult.
When you show the story of how your adult son has grown into a responsible adult and how he is doing well as an adult and respects you for all you’ve taught him along the way, you’ve proved your argument.
Remember to start writing your memoir with the above 5 simple steps. Take a few minutes to listen to the interview with Marion Roach Smith… I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how her memoir writing tips will help you make your story interesting and compelling for readers.
I hope you have a lot of fun as you get started writing your memoir 🙂
What is your Memoir really about? What is the Universal theme of your Memoir? Please do share in the comments, I’d love to hear from you 🙂
