Latest From the Blog
START HERE Before You Write Your Memoirs
Everyone asks me where to start writing their memoirs. You can make this as simple as possible, starting with a childhood photo of yourself, whether you have a memory of that time or not. You can simply describe the photo from both the omniscient and personal first-person point of view. In this photo (obviously from…
Read More January 25, 2023
The Attic Lesson: Finding Pres Freeland’s Songs
The trove from the attic looks like the boxes hiding in everyone’s attic (if you’re lucky enough to have both), and like the stuff in everyone’s storage, its greatest value is to my family only. At first I thought I had found Grandaddy’s music when I found the CD entitled: “Pres Freeland’s Natural Songs from 1955”. First I played it (here’s…
Read More February 18, 2016
Writing and Editing: Don’t Look Back
What should you do with old versions of your manuscript? I’ve written more than 20 books and my method is to drag them into a folder called “Past Versions of X (name of book)” –and never look back. The only reason I would ever go into one of those files is if the current version…
Read More April 13, 2015
Memoir vs Biography /What is the Difference?
The Oxford English Dictionary confirms how I view the difference, which is that a memoir is generally not considered a full historical record of a life, while an autobiography or a biography is thoroughly researched. My Simple Explanation: A memoir is written in first person (“I”) and includes only information that the subject of the…
Read More January 9, 2013