I am so excited to announce that my very first client’s memoir is officially published! I started working with this wise woman last year, interviewing her about her life, in order to pull together the stories from hers. As an elderly woman approaching the end of her life, she is no doubt like many people in the world–looking back at her life and wanting to put in perspective, and determining its purpose in the big scheme of eternity.

I whole-heartedly love memoirs myself because they are real. Some of my favorites include Alcohol: A Love Story,  Hypocrite in a Poofy White Dress, and Running in the Family. These are real stories about real people. I have certainly learned from these memoirs and especially from interviewing this woman that we do not need fiction to have a good story.

It took a few weeks of interviews to pull all her stories together, but let me tell you–I laughed and I cried, and I wept with this woman as I walked in her shoes during those one-hour interviews during the Fall of 2014. When it was all over, I thanked her for her wisdom and her desire to take the bitterness and pain in her life and use it for good–to teach and to warn others about how family dysfunction can affect people their entire lives. Her stories made me want to go home and cling to my children and to my husband and speak nothing but hope and love into their ears. It made me look at my childhood baggage and how I could use it for good.

While her book is not published for the public, but for her friends and family–the 50 people who will read this book and their own friends and family members will have difficult time putting it down.It will be an amazing record/imprint for her children, grandchildren, and their future generations.

If you are thinking about your own life and wanting to get it down, no matter what your age, I highly suggest writing your memoirs now while your memory is still good and the individual stories don’t fade or merge with others. I work for an awesome Memoir Writing company called The Sound of Your Voice Memoir which offers workshops on how to write your own memoir,  but also offers help in writing yours along with some amazing memoir packages, so you can have a numerous copies to give to your friends and family.

Do you write your memoirs? If you blog them, I’d love to read some. Share some of your blog links to memoirs you have written in the comments below as well as any questions about memoir writing. I’d be happy to give you some tips.  I myself have written a few memoirs from my life. Rather than putting it together as one long story, right now, my memoirs are smaller stories about different episodes of my life. I do hope and plan to one day thread them all together into one book.

If you are thinking about writing your own or want to improve your writing craft, I highly recommend this classic book that most writers will swear by–On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction.

This book has been monumental in my own craft as a writer. You will enjoy it too. The writer is entertaining as he is informative. I use an affiliate link here. So if you choose to buy it on Amazon with my link, you will not be paying extra. But Amazon shares with me some change from their profits to support my blog.