Stay present. Bear witness. Write your memoir.

Decision #6 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 Katie McBroom on Unsplash

6. Stay present to your story.

YOUR MANTRA: Even though it’s unpleasant, I’m here and I’m bearing witness.

Commit to staying present to the experiences you’re rendering in the book—even if it hurts. The French writer Anais Nin said,

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”

ANIAS NIN

If it hurt to live it, it’s probably going to hurt to write it. This is a good thing. That means you’re going to be successful in evoking emotions in the reader that make it a book worth talking about.

Stay present, even when you don’t want to remember—or cannot remember. 

If you cannot remember events from your deep dark past so well, I have a handy guide for retrieving and reviving your past, drawing on my skill set as a journalist as well as a book coach and memoirist. It’s available to paid subscribers as part of my Memoir Catalyst series.

DECISION: Steady on and stay present. It’s OK if you need to microdose this “staying present” business and do it i…