Denis Ledoux's Blog, page 54

Evoking Emotions in Your Readers

You Can Evoke Emotions in Your Readers. Here’s How.

Instilling your memoir with enough emotion to stir up a response from your readers is do-able. It is undeniably one of the most important results an author must set out to achieve. A memoir seeks to move a reader and without evoking emotions, a memoir cannot move a reader. The beauty of writing is, of course, that you have a great freedom of approach, but there are some basic tips and techniques that, if well implemented, will make it muc...

Wanting to run away from Cancer

For other posts in the My Eye Fell Into the Soup series, Click Here.

Wanting to Run Away From Cancer

November 10, 2006

Denis:

So very hard. Terror. Wanting to run away—but there’s no “where” to run to.

Some of the office work must continue. It seems like such an irrelevant thing to do, but there are deadlines our clients have invested in, deadlines that keep revenues coming. If Martha’s cancer crisis lasts for a long time, we will need the income.

I have made a list of a few things that mu...

A Co-Writer Can Make a Business Memoir Happen

In a previous article, I highlighted four business memoirs that I helped bring to life. Each book was a significant one not only because of its subject matter but also because of its length. Each business memoir ranged from 300 to 400 pages, making them into hefty accounts of lives well lived.

How do you go about writing your business memoir?

In this post, I would like to show you the process of writing your business memoir with a co-writer/ghostwriter. It’s probably safe to say most people...

Business Memoir: What’s Special About Writing One?

Over the years, I have had the pleasure to collaborate on a number of memoirs which highlight the lives of men and women who have attained a significant result in their work life.

Why would somebody want to write a business memoir?

People write business memoirs for some of the same reasons people write any other kind of memoir.

People want to honor the world from which they sprang.

Sylvester Myers, a black man from West Virginia, wrote From Coal Fields to Oilfields and Beyond because he w...

Turning a Journal into a Memoir

Steps for turning a journal into a memoir

I have been slowly revising my latest book My Eye Fell Into the Soup. This book is the first of a two-book set depicting the two years that Martha and I lived with her cancer illness. I have described some of the writing process elsewhere.

There was a time when writing / organizing / revising this so-personal manuscript was difficult, very difficult, but that is no longer the case. When I was first working on My Eye Fell Into the Soup, I would take...

Showing up for writing—regularly

Showing up for writing is essential.

In the first days of creating a manuscript when we writers sit down to write—or rededicate ourselves to writing—it is often a struggle to find the energy to show up for the task. So many things seems to compete for our attention. We ask ourselves about “the point of all of this” and “who will read this book anyway” and “will people find this memoir a bit lightweight.” But showing up—regardless of what negative thoughts go through your head—is important b...

Draining the Cancer from the Pleura

Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time. (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.)

The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, after a dream in which one of her eyes fell into a cauldron. She later interpreted this to mean she was not paying attention to her health. (This is written about elsewhere.) As with most peopl...

Historical Present: A Better Relationship to Memoir Story Time

Your relationship to memoir story time

Writers often jumble the use of time in the memoir. The time in which the story unfolds is considered to be the present of the story—often called the “historical present.”

When I write, “She ran into the woods,” the run occurs in the present of the narration—that is the memoir story time. While I have used the past tense (ran), the reader sees the woman running in the mind’s present. We call that the “historical present.”

The reader is always mentally...

Use Time Wisely to Write Your Memoir

Below, I share two ideas about how to use time wisely to write your memoir. Time has many permutations and I would like to take you on a coaching journey. We’ll make a couple of stops to help you hone your ability to use time wisely. I hope you enjoy reading these ideas and let them inform your writing.

1. My first stop is with clock time and how we relate to that. Writing requires a commitment of time.

Have you wondered what distinguishes one writer who perseveres and completes a memoir f...

The Pleura Is Full of Fluid

Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time.  (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.)

The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, after a dream in which one of her eyes fell into a cauldron. She later interpreted this to mean she was not paying attention to her health. (This is written about elsewhere.) As with most peop...