Denis Ledoux's Blog, page 22

November 2 Activity: Show Up to Write Your Memoir

Showing up to write your memoir is the key to writing your book. Wanting to write an interesting memoir is a start, but wanting will not get your memoir written. What gets a memoir written is showing up to write when you had promised yourself you would show up. 

Show up to write! That is being accountable.

Being accountable requires a certain amount of measurement, quantification.

When will you show up to write?
How many times a week will you show up?
For how many minutes or hours are you...

November 1st of November Is Memoir Writing Month: A Warm Up Writing

Thanks for registering for the November Is Memoir-Writing Month. It shows that you are serious about writing and finishing your memoir and we will not disappoint you with our warm up writing activity

Writing a memoir is something of a marathon, but it is not more than you can handle. Many people just like you, who stood where you now stand, have succeeded in writing an interesting and meaningful memoir—and you can do the same.

The benefits of warm up writing

During this month, you will be ...

Memoir Interviewing: how to prepare for one and carry it off!

Memoir interviewing is an integral piece of research. Although you may assume you can depend on your memory when you write your lifestories—memory isn’t always as reliable as you want it to be. Interviews with relevant family members and friends can supplement your memory and broaden the perspective of your memoir.

Below are some notes on how to prepare for the best memoir interviewing you’ll ever undertake!

1) Select whom you will be memoir interviewing.

If your time is limited, or your f...

About the making of the Photo Scribe: A Writing Guide / How to Write Stories into Photo Albums

One day in 1996, I read an article in a local newspaper about a scrapbook workshop called Creative Memories that was about to be presented. The article mentioned both designing photo albums and writing stories for photos—actually the article said “photo captions” but I immediately thought of stories.

There was something about the tone of the article that led me to believe the woman offering the program and Creative Memories, once the largest company focused on enhancing photo albums, were ...

Dare to Share Your Writing

A critical steps to take as a developing writer is to share your writing with others. Those others might be writers, they might be friends, or they might be family members.

Sometimes you make your writing public by having an in-person audience or a virtual audience. Sometimes your first audience comes in the form of blog readers.

This post is geared to the novice writer and may not apply to a more experienced memoirist.

To Share Is To Grow

Don’t let your hard work sit in a drawer or comput...

Cindy Doucette’s Self-Published Memoir Has A Powerful Impact.

Cindy Doucette (Berwick Maine) has seen the poignant story of her daughter’s death depicted in It Can Happen To Any Family used by the juvenile correctional system of York County, Maine, to effect turn arounds in young people. Her memoir has a powerful impact as you can read below.

There is power in telling your story! Never forget that. Below is a testimonial written by a young person who was in the correctional system and who is testifying to the influence of Cindy Doucette’s self-publis...

Cindy Doucette’s Memoir Has A Powerful Impact.

Cindy Doucette (Berwick Maine) has seen the poignant story of her daughter’s death depicted in It Can Happen To Any Family used by the juvenile correctional system of York County, Maine, to effect turn arounds in young people. Her memoir has a powerful impact as you can read below.

There is power in telling your story! Never forget that. Below is a testimonial written by a young person who was in the correctional system and who is testifying to the influence of Cindy Doucette’s self-publis...

My first publication story: publishing independently

Let me share the independent publication story of my first book, What Became of Them. It is a collection of short stories that I had written over a number of years in the 1980s. In 1987, I decided it was time to send the collection out into the world, but I was not ready yet to do publishing independently.

Taking stock of myself, I knew I had no need to be approved by someone, to have my writing found to be worthy.  I know many writers want to have a “real book,” and by this, they probably...

What Motivates Me to Write?

The simplest answer to what motivates me to write is that I’ve always loved to write, and lacking the creativity to write fiction or the tenacity to research subjects for non-fiction, I write about what I know, my life. I love memoir.

If I look beyond my lack of creativity, I see writing memoir feeds a certain voyeurism.  I’ve always been fascinated by letters and the glimpse they provide into other people’s lives. I’ve never been able to resist an epistolary book, fiction or non-, and I’v...

How to write a last chapter of a memoir

“How do I write the last chapter of a memoir?” coaching and editing clients will sometimes ask me.

It is a good question because the last chapter of a memoir is your final shot at affirming your theme and at creating a satisfying ending to the story the reader has been engaged in for perhaps 200 or 300 pages.

Revising the last chapter is also something I have been working with on my childhood memoir—which, alas, is still nameless.

As I write this

It’s early September and, here...