If you are about to write your memoir, Perhaps you will extract some ideas, direction or motivation when it comes time to get started by checking out the following site:<\/p>\n
The American Scholar: How to Write a Memoir – William Zinsser<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It is a bit long, so the following is an excerpt:<\/p>\n
William Zinsser is the author of 18 books, including On Writing Well.<\/p>\n
He advises:<\/p>\n
Your biggest stories will often have less to do with their subject than with their significance\u2014not what you did in a certain situation, but how that situation affected you and shaped the person you became.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As for how to actually organize your memoir, my final advice is, again, think small. Tackle your life in easily manageable chunks. Don\u2019t visualize the finished product, the grand edifice you have vowed to construct. That will only make you anxious.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what I suggest.<\/p>\n
Go to your desk on Monday morning and write about some event that\u2019s still vivid in your memory. What you write doesn\u2019t have to be long\u2014three pages, five pages\u2014but it should have a beginning and an end. Put that episode in a folder and get on with your life. On Tuesday morning, do the same thing. Tuesday\u2019s episode doesn\u2019t have to be related to Monday\u2019s episode. Take whatever memory comes calling; your subconscious mind, having been put to work, will start delivering your past.<\/p>\n
Keep this up for two months, or three months, or six months. Don\u2019t be impatient to start writing your \u201cmemoir,\u201d the one you had in mind before you began. Then, one day, take all your entries out of their folder and spread them on the floor. (The floor is often a writer\u2019s best friend.) Read them through and see what they tell you and what patterns emerge. They will tell you what your memoir is about and what it\u2019s not about. They will tell you what\u2019s primary and what\u2019s secondary, what\u2019s interesting and what\u2019s not, what\u2019s emotional, what\u2019s important, what\u2019s funny, what\u2019s unusual, what\u2019s worth pursing and expanding. You\u2019ll begin to glimpse your story\u2019s narrative shape and the road you want to take.<\/p>\n
Then all you have to do is put the pieces together.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Write on,<\/p>\n
Kate Chamberlin<\/p>\n
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