Memoir Writing - Three Tips to Help You Get Started

Getting started on a memoir can be daunting. Here are some ideas for making it less so.

1) Write a lot and write frequently. Don't worry about whether or not your writing is "good enough!" As you write, be comfortable with letting first drafts be first drafts: rough, incomplete, contradictory. Thinking in terms of "good enough" is a trap that will prevent you from writing a lot or writing frequently. It will inhibit your ability to remember.

Unfortunately, we all have an inner censor judging our actions. It is the inner censor who asks if our writing is "good enough." Our censor causes us to hold back, instilling fear that we will look silly.

Only the inner censor expects you to write elegant prose on your first attempts--so tell your inner censor to relax! You are not competing for the Nobel Prize in Literature: you are merely getting a start on your lifestory writing.

If you haven't already written some of your memories, stop right now and compose a list of memories. This memory list will provide you with a ready supply of topics for you to elaborate on later. Turn your computer on or pick up a pen. Do it now. Don't continue writing until you've composed at least one page of memories!

Writing is a different skill from that of remembering, but developing skill with one will enhance the other. The more you write, the more easily your memories will return to you.

2) Free yourself, once and for all, from the sense of obligation to write "from the beginning." Start writing your story from anywhere you want to start writing, and write for as long as you wish to write. Don't fret about how to start your story-if you do, you'll get bogged down at this stage. Remember: it is the reader's experience of a story that starts at the beginning, not the writer's. Compose the beginning of your memoir during the final stages of writing. The beginning sets the tone for a story, but until you have written the story and have come to understand its storyline and its meaning, you may not be able to establish the tone the beginning needs.

3) Each stage of your writing will provide its own rewards and challenges. Perfection is something to strive for later-but not at this early stage of lifewriting. For now, retire the inner censor and strive for volume.