Denis Ledoux's Blog, page 12

July 1, 2022

22 Memoir-Writing Goals for the Second Half of 2022: Your Half Year Boost

DL: This post was originally published on December 29, 2021 and I have tweaked them to fit the second half of the year. How many of these goals have you accomplished in the first half of the year? These remain great goals. There’s still 6 months left in 2022 for you to succeed at these!

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Did you find yourself wandering along with your memoir writing in the first half of the 2022 year and not achieving your memoir-writing goals?  Do you have a sense that you might have accomplish...

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Published on July 01, 2022 04:00

June 30, 2022

How to Write a Memoir for a Broader Audience: 4 Tips

Would you like your memoir to attract a broader audience?  While family and friends are a worthy readership for your memoir, are you one of those many writers who aspires a larger public?

Writers will admit, if pushed, that they would enjoy a public response to their efforts. Your story can appeal to strangers—if you pay attention to these four tips—and may even move these strangers to new insights and motivations. And how knows—this broader audience may write you a fan letter.

My newest Y...

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Published on June 30, 2022 06:21

June 28, 2022

Memoir vs. Autobiographical Fiction? Which is Best?

I sometimes get asked this question and I have to confess that my reaction is firm. There is a clear difference—a chasm really—between the choice of writing memoir vs. autobiographical fiction.While one has a choice to write one or the other, one does not have a choice to call one by the name of the other.

The writer owes it to the reader to be honest. My latest YouTube video deals with this topic.

1. Let’s look at autobiographical fiction first. It is plot driven.

In autobiographical fi...

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Published on June 28, 2022 08:36

June 26, 2022

Writing Feelings into Your Memoir

Recently, David asked in an email about “writing feelings into your memoir,” about writing a memoir that, if I am understanding him right, is not all all details and facts.

Below is my response which can serve as a stand-alone article to help you write your own memoir.

Leave a comment below expressing your experience of writing feelings into your memoir.

Here are some of my suggestions for writing feelings into your memoir:

If I were coaching you, I would frequently ask you: “How did th...

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Published on June 26, 2022 07:42

June 23, 2022

Three Pillars of Memoir Writing

Writing a memoir requires a lot of time and energy—but you can do it. You can succeed in writing a memoir. Many people just like you have succeeded in doing so already. Today I am offering you my three pillars of memoir writing.

I want to share a system with you for getting started on writing a memoir. I call it the three pillars of memoir writing.

As with so many projects you might undertake, you can reinvent the wheel or you can plug into a system that has been shown to wo...

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Published on June 23, 2022 13:36

June 21, 2022

Writing An Old Family Story

I was one of those fortunate children to have known well both sets of grandparents. My Ledoux grandparents lived upstairs for most of my growing up while by Verreault grandparents lived 10 miles away. Because of this, I’ll admit writing an old family story is somewhat easy for me as I heard so many of them when I was child!

My grandmother Marie Bilodeau Ledoux was the first to leave us. That was almost 60 years ago November 23, 1964.)

The following story is drawn from a booklet I wrote in ...

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Published on June 21, 2022 04:01

What would support for writing your memoir look like for you?

No one said that writing your memoir would be easy. If you are like many people, getting support for writing your memoir would be a powerful gift to give yourself.

While some people succeed at writing an interesting and meaningful memoir on their own, the fact is like many people who need both more technical expertise than they now have and more emotional underpinning, you too need support for writing your memoir, for the long effort you are undertaking.

Many people find the task of...

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Published on June 21, 2022 03:15

June 18, 2022

A French-Canadian Legacy Podcast with Denis Ledoux

Listen to this podcast on writing memoirs on the French-Canadian Legacy Podcast. Denis Ledoux talks about writing memoirs in general and the memoir he wrote with his mother We Were Not Spoiled.

Writing Memoir

If you’ve had any interest in writing down your story or someone else’s, this is an amazing episode to listen to.

– Louise Simoneau

Ledoux is currently working on his childhood memoir.

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Published on June 18, 2022 04:03

Memories of My Grandfather

My grandfather William Ledoux would be 133 years old were he alive today. I would like to take a moment to honor his life by sharing some memories of my grandfather.

His early years

He was born in Lachine, Québec, on February 17, 1889, the oldest of what would be a family of six children. His mother was 20 and his father 19 at the time of his birth. The family moved from Lachine, then a small town, to Montréal when he was quite young. He grew up in Montréal in an apartment on Papineau...

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Published on June 18, 2022 04:00

June 17, 2022

Hot Flash Memoir: Family Photo Album

This is how I learned about hot flash memoir.

As I was cleaning out my parent’s house I made all kinds of discoveries. Like most kids (I’m referring to myself here), I never once thought of my parents as people. They were Mom and Dad. What they did before me really never entered my mind. Their life consisted of station wagons, split two-level houses in subdivisions named Spanish Trace, North Village, or Highmill Estates. They were first of all parents, then perhaps golfers or members of th...

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Published on June 17, 2022 03:00