Write for Your Eyes Only

One of the reasons memoirs never get written is a subtle saboteur: an imagined audience standing over the writer's shoulder—a parent, a sibling, an ex, a future reader with opinions. Even before a single sentence is typed, that imagined judgment can shut a story down completely.

So here's a rule worth adopting from day one: your first draft is for you, and you alone.

No one else needs to see this draft. Not your spouse, not your book club, not the relative you're worried might be upset by what you remember. This early writing time exists purely so you can get the truth of your story out of your head and onto the page, without performing, softening, or explaining yourself to anyone.

That means you can write about the argument exactly as you remember it. You can name the fear you've never said out loud. You can write the version of events that's messy, unflattering, or complicated—because a "for your eyes only" draft doesn't have to be fair to everyone. It doesn't have to be balanced, and it doesn't have to be ready for public consumption. It just has to be honest. 

This is where the real material of memoir lives—not in the tidy, dinner-party version of your story, but in the parts you'd normally edit out before anyone else could see them. Give yourself permission to speak what's in your head and your heart without a filter. You'll have plenty of time later, in the editing process, to decide what stays, what softens, and what gets cut entirely. That's a job for later-you, with a different task and a different mindset.

Right now, your only reader is you. Write like it.

If you are ready to write a "for your eyes only" draft, join me for Start Your Memoir. We begin on September 23rd.