Start close in. Start even closer. Now, write your memoir.
Decision #7 from Sixteen Superpowers Memoir Writers Need to Have. Over sixteen posts, I help you make pacts with yourself so all will go well for you.
Photo by Andraz Lazic on Unsplash
7. Start close in. Think you’re close? Start even closer.
YOUR MANTRA: Be immediate or go home.
Immediacy is where it’s at. Immediacy means it’s fresh, it’s palpable, it’s dynamic. The trap many memoirists fall into is relying on remembering to carry the story. Already can you feel that remembering is a little boring? It’s not active.
Your job is not that. Remembering is too many lengths removed. Immerse yourself into the experience like it’s fresh, like you’re feeling it for the first time and like you don’t know how you’re going to get out of it.
Recognize that the obstacle to immediacy is that you do know how you got out. You’ve reached some conclusions about what happened and what solved the problem. And you made them beliefs you lived by and haven’t questioned much over the years, until now, when you sat down to write a memoir.
To re-energize your story, you have to crawl back underneath it to the time when you didn’t know and you were figuring it out.Â
DECISION: Immerse yourself in your scene with all five senses. Place yourself back into the field of possibilities. Then write.
ABOUT SIXTEEN SUPERPOWERS OF MEMOIR WRITERS
It’s easy to write a memoir! All you need to do is write something with universal resonance that is true and comes from your life.
Let’s get real. To write a memoir, you need a basket of superpowers.Â
As a memoir writer with a forthcoming book (BOUNDLESS, coming December 2024 - pre-order here at Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Amazon and as a book coach/developmental editor who works with memoir writers, I’ve learned quite a lot about tapping into literary superpowers.
What’s enduring about memoir is that it is real, and it matters. A few decisions you make on the front end will determine whether it will go well.
In this series of posts, I give you 16 decisions to install at the beginning of your journey. Make these pacts with yourself, stick to them and you’ll get there!
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The Sixteen Superpowers of Memoir Writers: Make These Decisions on the Front End, and All Will Go Well for You
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