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Write, Memory: Reflect on your life, fill in the blanks, write and finish your memoir or autobiography
This ebook is also available as a paperback workbook at www.createspace.com/3490219.
Writing a autobiography or memoir is a monumental act of generosity to yourself and to others. Autobiography and memoir want you to focus on you; it not only wants, it demands. Autobiography or memoir is your chance to speak authentically to yourself, to all your selves—the child, the daughter, the son, the warrior, the mother, the past self and the present self.
Autobiography and memoir also require that you give unreservedly. You must give up your memories. You must write them down and pass them on. You must let your memories go.
What do you get in return? Of course, what you get out of something always depends on how much you put in. In the case of autobiography and memoir, the generosity of your time and attention could result in the ultimate gift of self-knowledge.
Write, Memory will help you organize, write and finish your memoir or autobiography. Like a personal interviewer, Write, Memory asks questions, provides tips on storytelling and writing, and sprinkles around loads of inspiration in the form of quotes from famous authors and personalities.
Write, Memory is a tool, not a test. You are not required to fill in all the questions to make the book work. You are not required to complete all the chapters. You are completely free to rearrange the order of the chapters, to insert questions from one chapter into another, or even to add your own questions.
The organization of the chapters and questions is not designed as a maze of walls to herd you to toward a psychological jackpot. The questions are not Wonderland rabbit holes that lead to someone else’s tea party. The chapters and questions are simply guides to help keep the facts and memories of your life from burying your progress. They exist to help make a story from the complicated chronology of life.
Here’s how it works, practically. Let’s say you begin a story about your teenaged years. You might write about posters that went up on your walls, or a stereo that you rescued from the basement. That story might lead to another story about how you went to live in the basement, which might lead to a story about sneaking out or sneaking in, which might lead to a story about getting caught…
But then you get stuck. You’ve made this little island, but where to go now? Do you talk about how much you hated your parents, or do you talk about how you caught your kids doing the same thing, or do you talk about fly fishing in the American West?
Don’t worry about it. Step off the island onto the nearest rock—meaning the next question. Just end whatever story you were telling and start telling another. For example:
Are there books, music, or TV from your teenaged years that you feel influenced the path your life took?
And when you finish with that, go on to the next:
Did you introduce those books, music, or TV to your own children? How, when, and what was their reaction?
And the next:
Tell us about a piece of music that particularly moved you in your youth. Where did you first hear it? Where did you last hear it?
The questions are designed to function as natural stepping-off points within a theme, or in this case, a chapter about books, music, and TV. Even if you decide to skip a question or two, you won’t disturb the overall flow of the chapter/theme. And when you finish you’ll have a high point from which to view the whole.
Writing a autobiography or memoir is a monumental act of generosity to yourself and to others. Autobiography and memoir want you to focus on you; it not only wants, it demands. Autobiography or memoir is your chance to speak authentically to yourself, to all your selves—the child, the daughter, the son, the warrior, the mother, the past self and the present self.
Autobiography and memoir also require that you give unreservedly. You must give up your memories. You must write them down and pass them on. You must let your memories go.
What do you get in return? Of course, what you get out of something always depends on how much you put in. In the case of autobiography and memoir, the generosity of your time and attention could result in the ultimate gift of self-knowledge.
Write, Memory will help you organize, write and finish your memoir or autobiography. Like a personal interviewer, Write, Memory asks questions, provides tips on storytelling and writing, and sprinkles around loads of inspiration in the form of quotes from famous authors and personalities.
Write, Memory is a tool, not a test. You are not required to fill in all the questions to make the book work. You are not required to complete all the chapters. You are completely free to rearrange the order of the chapters, to insert questions from one chapter into another, or even to add your own questions.
The organization of the chapters and questions is not designed as a maze of walls to herd you to toward a psychological jackpot. The questions are not Wonderland rabbit holes that lead to someone else’s tea party. The chapters and questions are simply guides to help keep the facts and memories of your life from burying your progress. They exist to help make a story from the complicated chronology of life.
Here’s how it works, practically. Let’s say you begin a story about your teenaged years. You might write about posters that went up on your walls, or a stereo that you rescued from the basement. That story might lead to another story about how you went to live in the basement, which might lead to a story about sneaking out or sneaking in, which might lead to a story about getting caught…
But then you get stuck. You’ve made this little island, but where to go now? Do you talk about how much you hated your parents, or do you talk about how you caught your kids doing the same thing, or do you talk about fly fishing in the American West?
Don’t worry about it. Step off the island onto the nearest rock—meaning the next question. Just end whatever story you were telling and start telling another. For example:
Are there books, music, or TV from your teenaged years that you feel influenced the path your life took?
And when you finish with that, go on to the next:
Did you introduce those books, music, or TV to your own children? How, when, and what was their reaction?
And the next:
Tell us about a piece of music that particularly moved you in your youth. Where did you first hear it? Where did you last hear it?
The questions are designed to function as natural stepping-off points within a theme, or in this case, a chapter about books, music, and TV. Even if you decide to skip a question or two, you won’t disturb the overall flow of the chapter/theme. And when you finish you’ll have a high point from which to view the whole.
270 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 19, 2010
7 people are currently reading
5 people want to read
About the author
Heather Shaw
33 books6 followersHeather Lee Shaw grew up on a cherry farm in Yuba, Michigan.
In the third grade, Shaw decided she was a writer. To date, she has written and published eight books.
Shaw is Director of Design and Marketing at Mission Point Press.
In the third grade, Shaw decided she was a writer. To date, she has written and published eight books.
Shaw is Director of Design and Marketing at Mission Point Press.
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