Making Meaning of Your Memories

June 30th marked the midyear mark for 2022, the end of the second quarter, and the perfect time to evaluate how you’re doing with your annual writing goals. At the beginning of the year, I took a risk and publicly shared my 2022 writing goal:

By the end of the second quarter of 2022, I will have co...

If you live in a place where you experience the four seasons, you likely notice a change in your mindset and energy level when there’s a change in temperature and weather patterns. I definitely feel a shift in my creativity with each change of season. 

I live in Chicago, and though spring technical...

At the beginning of this year, I set a writing goal for myself: Finish writing the first draft of my memoir by the end of June. It’s a realistic goal if I maintain my writing routine. For me, this means writing first thing when I wake up. I set my Tomato timer on my phone for 30 minutes. Invariably,...

When you get to the end of 2022, what do you want to look back and remember the year for? Spending more time with your friends? Losing 20 pounds? Reading a book a month? Decluttering your closets? 

I’ve made several goals for 2022, but chief among them is finishing my memoir: “By the end of the sec...

I’m a goal-setter. I can’t help myself. At the end of the year, I like to take time to reflect on the year I’ve just lived. What were the high points, low points, and points in between? How far did I get in achieving the goals I set for the year? For my writing especially, I like to assess how much ...

One of the most common and paralyzing obstacles for memoir writers is telling stories that expose family secrets. The fear of being ostracized—or worse, excluded—from your family for disclosing long-held family secrets can cause you to get stuck in your writing.

If you're wrestling with how to writ...

When I moved to the city to start a new life after my divorce, I splurged and bought myself a special writing desk. It has the look of an old drafting table with a matching swivel stool. Both the desk and the stool can crank up and down depending on what height I want to position myself at or if I w...

I work with words all day, every day. I write and edit memoirs. I help others learn how to write memoirs. I ghostwrite people’s life stories. I’m a copywriter and a content marketing strategist. I write in my sleep. Literally. Just the other night, I spent a good part of my dreams writing an ideal c...

Writing prompts are a great way to get your creative juices flowing when you sit down to do your daily writing. They provide a focal point to quickly generate stories.

For memoir writers, writing prompts can help stir up new stories when it feels like your memory well has run dry. They can be a gre...

It’s been said, “If you want to be a great writer, you need to have an insatiable appetite for reading.”  Summer is the perfect time to grab a few books to bring on vacation or to read in your backyard. If you’re a memoir writer, here are Goodreads’ top picks for memoirs published in 2021 with excer...

Everyone has a story to tell. A slice of life to share hard-won wisdom, transformation, trauma, redemption, or laugh-out-loud hilarious moments. How many times have you thought, I should write my life story. Only to follow with, The End.

Thinking you’ve got a story to tell and actually sitting down...

My schedule was all set. I had my writing time blocked out for the week—30 minutes first thing every morning. The week started out great. Monday I woke up early and put in an hour-and-a-half of writing, which basically pushed me ahead of my writing schedule for the week. Good thing, because on Wedne...