Denis Ledoux's Blog, page 17

Writing Time Wasters

Writing Time Wasters Do Not Elude Me

I’m no more immune than anyone else to the plague of time wasters. Time wasters are habits we fall into that consume the time we have allotted (or could allot) to writing so that we end up not writing! Here are some of the most insidious that take up too much time and squander my writing energy.

1. Checking on e-mail before I begin to write for the day.

Either it takes up a lot of time as I read through the e-notes or I come across an e-mail that gets m...

Where Do You Begin Writing Your Memoir?

Is there a best place to begin writing your memoir?

It’s a quandary: where do you begin writing your memoir? Many people may say: from the beginning. But, I don’t think that is the best place to start composing.

The answer is actually quite simple: Start writing your memoir from anywhere in the story.

Start from where you feel like writing about on any given day and keep writing as long as you wish to do so. Then, if the topic ceases to interest you and you would like to write about someth...

Revealing Ourselves in a Memoir — 3 Reasons We Don’t Do It.

Why are we afraid of revealing ourselves in a memoir? While writing our stories, all of us, at one time or another, come against the fear of revealing too much of ourselves. The fear is founded—it’s not always a friendly world out there. And…

As we reveal too much about ourselves, we may be revealing too much about someone else.

But, excessive revealing is generally not the problem most memoir writers face. Revealing too little is a much more frequent problem for writers I coach or edit.

O...

Don’t Wait To Write Your Story!

“What are you waiting for? Why are you avoiding the real work? What will it take for you to go deeper?”

—Phil Cousineau in Stoking the Creative Fires

The Phil Cousineau quote above ought to be for all of us a stirring call to continue—or to begin if that is where we are at—the work of writing a depth memoir we may have procrastinated about for so long.

It is later than you think. In the years I have been doing this work, I have seen writers die and writers grow too old. The energy not only...

Truth in Your Memoir – Three Tips For Including Safe “Guess-timates”

Truth in Your Memoir – Three Tips For Including Safe “Guess-timates”

When writing a memoir or family history, you will inevitably come across bits of information that you want to include, but which you cannot verify. Once you have ascertained all the facts that can be checked, other truths may become evident. But these truths may not be of the sort that anyone can authenticate. For instance, you believe your parents were not in love with one another. How to honor the truth in your memoir? ...

Slow Writing is the Literary Relative of Slow Cooking

With all the blog posts I have read about learning to write faster—I have even heard of “how to write a book in a weekend, I want to take a moment to re-emphasize the value of writing slowly and carefully. Perhaps, what I would like to stop a moment to ponder is the literary equivalent of “slow cooking”: slow writing. But…

This is not the first time I have taken time to consider the value to you of slow writing. I wrote a piece for this blog entitled “Linger With Your Story — It’s a Good H...

Memoir Ghostwriter – Five Questions to Ask When Interviewing

Memoir Ghostwriter – Five Questions to Ask When Interviewing a Potential Ghostwriter

Working with a memoir ghostwriter can bring you great joy as you collaborate to produce the book you have so long dreamed of. On the other hand, it can be a nightmare. Here are five questions to ask the references your writer has given you about working with him or her.

1. Was the memoir ghostwriter able to meet deadlines?

Deadlines can be intermediate such as the pace of writing (50 pages a month) or when...

2 Causes of Memoir Writer’s Block: Not Telling the Truth or Writing Unimportant Material

Many writers suffer from writer’s block, yet few understand—and much less resolve—its possible causes. There are a number of reasons that contribute to difficulty—especially blockage—in writing.

In memoir writing, the infamous “writer’s block” can result from avoidance—that is, you don’t want to deal with uncomfortable material and so you “block.” Perhaps you haven’t admitted to yourself the importance of your material or—as a way of avoiding the importance—you are not yet telling the tru...

How to Solve a Wrong Narrator Problem

Do you have a wrong narrator problem?

(This is a note I created as I struggle with choosing the narrator’s voice for a memoir on my early life. This memoir has been stalled by simply not having the right voice. I had a wrong narrator problem. I offer this rumination as a sample of the sort of writing you can place in a writer’s journal and of the sort of issue you must resolve.)

Many narrator possibilities

Whom to choose to narrate of the story of those years when I yearned to become mysel...

Who Cares About My Memoir?

 

Have you ever asked, “Who cares about my memoir?”

A perennial, and perhaps inherent, challenge every memoir writer faces is that of audience. Specifically, every writer is saddled with the incapacitating doubt that there is an audience for his/her memoir.

“Who will want to read my memoir? Who cares about my memoir?” asked enough times can bring your writing to a halt.

Of course, it’s a good question. Who will want to read about someone else’s life or even—horrors!—MY life.

“But,” you ga...