How to Write Your Memoirs | ReaLife Stories Self Publishing Services

Benefits of the memoir-writing process

Beginners are both fascinated and daunted by the idea of having a biographer writing their memoirs. In this video, made a few years ago, I briefly explain and illustrate some of the benefits to having your memoir writen.

Memoir Writing: Easy as Falling Off a Cliff

“Have you written your memoirs?” she asked me. I’m a biographer so the question leaves a big, long echo resounding in the air until I answer. It’s a test, I know. “I’ve written…parts,” I confess. A mini-memoir about my last year with my mom before she died (“My Name As A Prayer” on Amazon.com). A…

Paris in the Snow

Somewhere over the cold Atlantic, French words start sailing through the waters of my memory. Seventh- and eighth-grade French classes (thank you, Mrs. Watts!) and my three previous trips reward me now. “Bonjour madame!” I say to the border policewoman at the airport, feigning confidence. I manage the airport ATM, withdraw Euros (high to the dollar…

How to write your memoirs – organize by decade

The first step in beginning to write your memoirs is to think by decade. Create an outline that allows you to organize your memories by decade. This is only one of many approaches, but it helps the beginner because most people just do not know where to begin. If you map your life roughly by…

The Wake: Spirit Singing for the Dead

Last week I was asked to play harp and tone for a three-day vigil over the dead body of a friend. Dear Claire followed anthroposophy (see Rudolf Steiner), which holds that the soul hovers around the body for a while after the heart stops beating. They prescribe that the body be attended for three days…

Florence Nightingale and the Divine Feminine

Working with a client’s biography this morning, I took time to look briefly at one of my client’s heroes: the Italian-born Florence Nightingale. Nightingale felt a spiritual calling when she was a teenage girl. In thousands of pages of writings she left behind, she describes a painful awareness of the suffering of others, particularly European soldiers fighting…

Hire a Memoir Author On A Budget

“Dad’s birthday is coming up and I don’t know what to get him,” the voice said. “I thought maybe the perfect gift would be to hire a memoir author.” A memoir is certainly the gift for the person who has everything, who seems to need nothing. It is the ultimate gift. Most of the memoirs…

“We left Dad’s memoir at the nurse’s station”

When Tip Tyler was under nurse’s care in the last two weeks of his 94 years of life, his son found a new use for the book I wrote about Tip. “We left the book you wrote about Dad at the nurse’s station,” Steve told me. “They had a great time reading it and seeing…

First Person vs Third Person in a Memoir

I’ve spent seven days hip-to-hip with my client here in Memphis along the slow-moving Mississippi and throughout this great city. This morning, as I prepare to accompany her to her beloved Nazarene church in North Memphis, I realize that I now have my client’s voice “in” me. Walking by the river as a pair of…

What to Avoid in Working With Graphic Artists

“I am only paying $4 book to print my book,” the first-time author said to me. “Wow! That is fantastic,” I told her. “For how many copies? How many do you print at a time?” “As many or as few as I want,” she said. “And how about your design costs?” I asked. “Oh, well…”…

Latest From the Blog