Making Meaning of Your Memories

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...

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 ...

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 wo...

Some days you sit down to write your memoir with a clear memory in mind, and the words come easily. Other days you sit down, stare at the page, and nothing comes. Either way, you write.

It sounds counterintuitive—how can you write when you genuinely don't know what to say? But "nothing to say" is r...

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...

You've scheduled your writing time. Good. Now here's the tool that will do more for your memoir than any fancy notebook or writing app ever could: a plain, ordinary timer.

Set it for 15 to 30 minutes—whatever length you committed to when you scheduled your session. Then start it, put your fingers o...

If you've been telling yourself you'll write your memoir "when things calm down," I have some bad news: things rarely calm down. Life stays full. The laundry keeps needing to be folded, the inbox keeps refilling, and the story you've been carrying around in your head stays right where it is—unwritte...

You want to write your memoir—but something keeps getting in the way. Time. Energy. Fear. Perfectionism. Life. All legitimate barriers.

But writing a memoir isn’t just about finding inspiration. It’s about building habits.

In Atomic Habits, James Clear’s best-selling book on how to make tiny chang...

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...

How many times have you thought, “I’ll start my memoir when life calms down”?

Here’s the problem: life rarely “calms down.”

If you’re waiting for a three-day writing retreat or a magically cleared calendar, your memoir might never happen.

But here’s the good news: you don’t need hours. You just n...

Two weeks ago, I did something radical.

I unplugged.

Not just from email or social media. I unplugged from my job, my routines, my productivity mindset. I stepped away from the day-to-day demands of being a communications director at a research company and gave myself permission to simply be—to ex...

You know the feeling.

You're standing in a room full of half-unpacked boxes, random objects scattered everywhere—a lamp on the floor, papers in piles, a chair draped in laundry, and zero idea where your water bottle went.

Welcome to Scattered Brain Syndrome.

Okay, it’s not an official diagnosis, ...