Making Meaning of Your Memories

Building a new habit takes time, intention, and a fair amount of perseverance—and memoir writing is no exception. It's rarely a straight line. Some weeks you'll hit your writing goal every single day. Other weeks life will get in the way, and you'll miss more sessions than you'd like. Both are part ...

It's easy to convince yourself you can't start writing your memoir until the conditions are right—a dedicated home office, a beautiful desk, the perfect ergonomic chair, a laptop that doesn't lag. None of that is true, and waiting for it is one of the sneakiest forms of procrastination.

You don't n...

Here's a scene that plays out in first drafts everywhere: A writer types a sentence, reads it back, winces, deletes it, and rewrites it three different ways before moving on to the next sentence—where the whole cycle starts again. An hour later, they've produced two polished paragraphs and a mountai...

Every writer faces self-doubt. But memoir writers face it in a particular and personal way, because the subject matter is you. Your life. Your choices. Your wounds and your recoveries, your failures and your reinventions. When you write a novel, rejection is about the work. When you write a memoir, ...

This week in Memories to Manuscript, my course to get started writing your memoir, three writers read scenes from their lives. Different decades, settings, and emotional terrain.

But as I listened, I found myself noticing something deeper; not just what they wrote, but what good memoir writing requ...

Memoir writing is more than recounting events; it’s about uncovering the deeper truths of how those events shaped you. As memoirists, we dig through the raw material of our lives, not just to relive the past, but to understand it, learn from it, and share our hard-won wisdom with others.

Marion Roa...

Memoir writing is hard. Finishing a first draft—whether it took you weeks, months, or years—is a major milestone. But it’s only step one in the long, meaningful process of turning lived experience into a finished manuscript.

Many writers hit this moment and think: Now what? You have thousands of wo...

Let’s be honest—writing a memoir takes more than passion and a good story. It takes rhythm, reflection, and regular course correction. The end of each quarter is the perfect moment to pause, check in with your progress, and get back on track. Although you can reset your writing goals at any point du...

Every writer knows the feeling: you finally sit down to write your memoir…and then the voice in your head starts up.

“That sentence sounds terrible.”
 “You used the word ‘remember’ three times—fix it.”
 “No one’s going to want to read this.”

Before you’ve finished the first paragraph, you’re delet...

Here’s one of the biggest reasons why would-be memoir writers stay stuck: They try to sit down and write their entire life story in one go.

No wonder it feels overwhelming. No wonder the cursor blinks on the screen like it’s mocking you.

But here’s the secret: you don’t have to write your whole li...

If you’ve been carrying the dream of writing your memoir for years, there’s a good chance something invisible has been holding you back.

Maybe you’ve been waiting for someone to tell you your story matters. Or for the perfect block of time to magically open up in your life. Or for some kind of offi...

 If you’re writing a memoir, you’ve probably heard it before: “You should keep a journal.” But you might be wondering—why bother? Isn’t my memoir already doing the work of recording my life?

Not quite.

A journal isn’t a rough draft of your book. It’s something different entirely—a private space to...