Denis Ledoux's Blog, page 5

Monday Focus: “Trying to Write” Your Memoir

Today is Monday, and it’s a great day to write a bit on your memoir!

People tell me all the time that they are going “trying to write” their memoir. By and large, people who “try to write” get sidelined by so many good reasons.

Really. You know how it is: work, family, fatigue.” In the end, they tried but didn’t have time.

I urge you to set a writing time for yourself today rather than to “try to write” when you have time.

Don’t wait: get started today to write—or continue to write—your ...

More memoir-writing resources at The Memoir Network.

Recently, we sent our  list of free resources. “Free” is great—in fact, we call it “superior”—but “free” can take you only so far. For more memoir-writing resources, explore the following.

Your fee-based options to learn memoir writing:

Our store:

~ The Memoir Store contains dozens of titles on the art and craft of memoir writing. Stock your ereader and / or bookshelves with quality memoir-writing titles.

Your books have given me a foundation in writing. They’ve taught me what to expect...

How can memoir writer go wrong knowing more about how to write a memoir?

We can say emphatically that you can’t! Especially when you receive free memoir-writing resources.

Our experience tells us that the higher your skill level, the more easily and the more deeply you will write.

~ Do you want to jumpstart your memoir? It’s stalled, and you don’t know how to get it going?

~ You have written large parts of your memoir, but you know it needs fixing. How to do that?

~ You’ve written your memoir, but you know it needs something more. If you knew what and how, yo...

Monday Focus: Pre-writing is more important than you think.

Today is Monday, and it’s a great day to write a bit on your memoir!

Look to doing pre-writing today. Your pre-writing lays out the ingredients of your memoir on the “kitchen counter” of your mind.

Pre-writing is the process of gathering and ordering information before you begin to write. It includes memory Lists, genealogical research, Internet research, interviews, reviewing diaries and scrapbooks, etc.

No memoir should be written without some or even significant pre-writing. What you ...

A Best Memoir Writing Practice

When learning to write memoir, it can feel awkward and uncomfortable as you learn the process, just like in learning to swim. We often see people who are not comfortable swimming flail about in the water, their heads reaching up high, desperately, to catch a breath of air. They usually execute strokes too fast. This awkward gesture soon tires them. Try as they might there is not enough air for them as they constrict their ribs, twist their heads, contort their jaws. Soon enough, consider...

Learning to Write Memoir Is Like Learning to Swim!

When learning to write memoir, it can feel awkward and uncomfortable as you learn the process, just like learning to swim. We often see people who are not comfortable swimming flail about in the water, their heads reaching up high, desperately, to catch a breath of air. This awkward gesture soon tires them. Try as they might there is not enough air for them as they constrict their ribs, twist their heads, contort their jaws. Soon enough, considering that they had set out to enjoy the wat...

The Memory List: How to identify events and relationships to put in or leave out of a memoir

The Memory List — This task is a core endeavor, strictly useful and strictly necessary.

People are always careful to say “There’s no magic bullet” when they offer advice.” Well …

The Memory List is as close to a “magic bullet” as you can get. You will be thrilled at how it facilitates your writing. 

A Memory List is made up of three-to-five-word memories of everything you can remember about an experience, a time, a person, an event, anything.

Don’t write without a Memory List. If you’ve ...

Writing a Memoir Is a Big Project. It Calls For the Project Manager Function.

Succeeding in writing a book of memoirs in an expeditious and meaningful fashion is important. If you dwell in your memoir project manager function for even a short while before you jump into your worker mode and write, write, write, you may be very pleased with how more smoothly and quickly you create.

I am not talking about outlining a story here. No, I am talking about setting writing schedules that don’t interfere with commitments, clearing unnecessary commitments so tha...

Don’t Let Feelings Tyrannize You. Focus On Your Goal

Yesterday started out as a blah day. I was uninspired to do anything. I would gladly have moped all day! But, it was my gym day.

I thought of canceling my visit, but, no, I went ahead and showed up. I wanted to honor my commitment and not my feelings of the moment.

At the gym, it was like pulling teeth to get going, but I had said (a long time ago) I would go to the gym on a regular basis and so here I was—feeling like it or not!

Guess what happened? After a while, I began to enjoy myse...

‘French boy:’ Maine writer explores era of discovery and loss in the 1950s

Thousands of kids grew up in Lewiston and its surrounding towns in the years following World War II, but few had the time, skill or inclination to tell the story of what it was like.

Writer Denis Ledoux’s new memoir, “French Boy: A 1950s Franco-American Childhood,” is a valuable exception.

“It’s more than just a memoir,” said James Myall, who co-authored a history titled “The FrancoAmericans of Lewiston-Auburn.”

Ledoux called his new book “the story of my tribe at a time when so much tha...