Denis Ledoux's Blog, page 65
May 25, 2016
How Is Learning to Write Memoir 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 water, these people quit and return to the shore. Swimming is over for the day.
As I was swimming in Ceasar Pond last summer, not...
May 19, 2016
Writing My Memoir: Zero to Seventeen
At the beginning, I was concerned about the way to write a memoir of my grandchildren’s stories. My three grandchildren and I had collected a memory list based on completing the sentence “Do you remember when…” Together we built a list of dozens of their earliest memories through their elementary school years. Then we wrote a short paragraph about each memory with the intention to write a children’s story book based on our memories....
May 16, 2016
Why You Should Work With a Coach or an Editor Early in the Process
Clients will often come to me after having done a considerable amount of writing. Sometimes I will receive 200- and 300-page manuscripts all formatted and seemingly ready for publication.
Among them are manuscripts that are really at an end stage of writing and need only a bit of editing, but…
There are too many that are still—in spite of their polished look on the page—in an early stage of development. The writer has not mastered voice, or perhaps it’s pacing and shaping. Perhaps the write...
April 23, 2016
Better Book Production is Possible
My most recent book, A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage, is making its way to publication. To launch it, as many readers know, I created an advanced reader community and was able to gather 90+ people who volunteered to write a review for Amazon in exchange for a heartfelt thank you from me, and upon sending me a copy of the published review, a link to the finished e-version, a hard copy and a $50 voucher in The Memoir Networ...
April 19, 2016
What Is Developmental Editing?
In another post, I wrote about proofreading and editing—both copy editing and content editing, but I did not write about developmental editing. Every memoir, during its preparation stage, needs to have the three first functions—proofing, copy editing and content editing—filled by an appropriate professional. No book ought to go out into the world without having these three tasks addressed seriously.
Devel...
April 14, 2016
Should You Create an Outline for your Memoir?
DL: This is a perennial favorite with the search engines. I consider it to be a foundational post whose info can guide you to success. I hope you enjoy it.
A Memory List is far superior to an outline!For some writers, there comes a moment in writing a memoir when the audacity of the undertaking hits them. Perhaps they think doorslammers like: “This can take forever.” “Writing a memoir will never pay for itself.” “I can’t afford to do this!” They reach for certainty. And that certainly if o...
April 6, 2016
The First Paragraph Can Make or Break a Memoir for the Reader
Writers sometimes struggle with how to begin a story and will not write the story until they have the beginning—the first paragraph.
This is not a good way to proceed.
The first paragraph of a memoir sets the tone.The first paragraph creates the tone and often presents imagery that will shape the reader’s appreciation of your story—whether a vignette or a full memoir.
In a short story I wrote many years ago, I did not compose the first p...
March 26, 2016
Preparing for A Successful Book Launch
[Two previous posts have appeared on the writing of A Sugary Frosting/A Memoir of A Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage. Read the first and the second.]
I’m finished writing the text for my next book, A Sugary Frosting/A Memoir of A Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage. The book is now farmed out to a support group of readers drawn mostly from my mailing list. These readers are preparing to write a review on Amazon so that, when I launch the book, there will be a n...
March 12, 2016
Mechanics of Writing a Memoir
In a previous post, I wrote about the inspiration for writing A Sugary Frosting / A Memoir of a Girlhood Spent In A Parsonage. In this post, I will write about some of the mechanics ofwriting a memoir.
I started to write the memoir seriously in May of 2015. Since I continue to be active in the daily running of my business, The Memoir Network, I could commit myself only to writing 30 minutes a day—but, and this is important, to showing...
March 8, 2016
Why Choose a Ghostwriter?
“Between you and me, I’m never going to do this,” said the woman on the other end of the phone line, a woman who was signed up for my forthcoming workshop here in Maine.
As soon as she said that—actually as soon as she had announced herself, I thought, “Oh, I suppose this is going to be the usual!” She had registered for several of my Turning Memories Into Memoirs workshops and had always, somewhat at the last minute, asked to have the tuition rolled...
