From Memory to Memoir

Writing the Stories of Your Life

Mark David Gerson

• Publisher: MDG Media International
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781950189014
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Authorship
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Get the Stories of Your Life onto the Page Today!

• Share Your Wisdom...naturally, spontaneously and without struggle
• Craft Rich, Compelling Stories...regardless of writing experience or perceived ability
• Engage, Entertain and Inspire...with eloquence, confidence and ease

What you have lived is unique. What you have learned through your years of living is beyond price. And the value of all you share through your words is incalculable.

"I wish I’d had this book when I was writing my memoir!"
– Karen Walker, author of Following the Whispers

"The writing guide every memoirist has been waiting for!"
– Nancy Pogue LaTurner, author of Voluntary Nomads

Whoever you are, whatever your experiences, whatever your perceived writing ability, From Memory to Memoir will connect you not only with the stories you remember but with the stories you have forgotten. It will serve up the inspiration guaranteed to get you writing and keep you writing, the tools and techniques guaranteed to help you craft a rich, compelling narrative, and the support guaranteed to sustain you from the initial word of your book’s first draft to the final word of its ultimate draft.

"Join me on this adventure of a lifetime...this journey into the experience of your own creativity as, together, we write the stories of your life!"

1. Getting Started

To be a human is to constantly weave stories.

Dr. Anne Foerst

Every “true” memoir must be incomplete;
what I remember may not be “true”;
and people who know me may disagree with what I recollect.

Tom Grimes

Your Life, Your Story

You are a storyteller — not because you are unusual (though your experiences may well be), but because we are all storytellers. We each carry an infinite potential for self-expression-through-story that, if we open to it, can reshape our lives and the lives of others in ways we cannot begin to imagine.

In a sense, we are also all memoirists. From the moment the first caveman returned from a day’s hunting and grunted his experiences to his mates over the cooking fire, we have been not only telling stories, but telling our story. From the moment of our first newborn gurgle, we have been communicating something of our brief life. From the moment the first diary entry reflected back on days, months or years past, we have been unconsciously crafting memoir.

Yet writing a memoir involves more than reciting dates, facts and what-happened-next’s. A memoir is an intimate journey into what underlies those dates, facts and occurrences.

A memoir is also not autobiography. Autobiographies are vast and encyclopedic. Even should it span your life from conception until last week, a memoir is both more subjective and less comprehensive than any autobiography. Like an Impressionist painting, it includes more shade and texture than detail, more personality than panorama.

Nor is a memoir simply a published journal. While it may draw on your journals and may even quote from them, a memoir is more focused and less self-indulgent. It’s a story built, however unconsciously, around a theme. It’s a story that transforms the personal into the universal. It’s a recounting of your experiences that transcends your experiences. It’s a story designed to be shared.

Perhaps you have come to this book willingly — in order to leave a legacy for your children or grandchildren. Perhaps you hope to communicate your story to a larger audience — to strangers, as well as to family and friends. Or perhaps you come to this memoir-writing journey, as I did to mine, reluctantly, doubtfully, skeptically. Perhaps you don’t believe you have stories worth sharing, stories that others would want to read, stories with the potential to inspire.

Of course you do. We all do.

Here’s the thing: What you have lived is unique. What you have learned through your years of living is beyond price. And the value of all you share through your words, and of all the ways you awaken and grow through your words, is incalculable.

It’s true for you. It’s true for me. It’s true for everyone.

It doesn’t matter whether you are eager or resistant, overflowing with anecdotes or unsure where to find yours. Whoever you are, whatever your experiences, whatever your perceived writing ability, From Memory to Memoir will connect you with the stories you remember and, perhaps even more important, with the stories you have forgotten…with the stories you are keen to tell and, perhaps even more powerfully, with the stories you are reluctant to reveal. It will serve up the inspiration guaranteed to get you writing and keep you writing, the tools and techniques guaranteed to help you craft a rich, compelling narrative, and the support guaranteed to sustain you from the initial word of your book’s first draft to the final word of its ultimate draft.

That’s why you are here. That’s why I am here.

So what are you waiting for? Turn the page and join me on this adventure of a lifetime…this journey into the experience of your own creativity as, together, we write the stories of your life.

How to Use This Book

If you have read any of my other books for writers, you will find some familiar guidance in these pages — not only in this chapter but through the book. That shouldn’t surprise you. If you are even somewhat familiar with my approach to writing and creativity, you will know that it applies universally, regardless of form, genre or medium. My first “rule,” for example — that there are no rules — is as relevant to memoir-writing as it is to fiction. It’s equally relevant to your journey with this book.

For that reason, it would be hypocritical for me to insist that you travel these pages as they are presented to you. After all, I didn’t write them in this order (any more than you may find yourself writing your memoir in order). In this as in all aspects of your creative journey, trust your intuition. Trust it to guide you from Page 1 through to the end of this book if that feels right or, should some seemingly random skip-about feel more appropriate, trust that.

All I suggest is that you visit the next section, “First Principles,” early in your explorations, as it presents the philosophies that lie at the heart of this and all my books for writers.

Also consider keeping a journal dedicated to our time here together. Use it, of course, for the exercises scattered throughout the book; it may prove helpful to have all those writings recorded in a single place. But your From Memory to Memoir journal can serve a deeper purpose.

Writing a memoir is often a profoundly life-altering experience as you revisit the old patterns, old personas and old emotions of your past lives. Let your journal be the safe haven where you explore the many memoir-writing moments that have no place in your memoir — be they joys or struggles, fears or frustrations, obstacles or insights. All these (and more) will surface, so give yourself an outlet that will help you move through them.

In this digital age your journal needn’t be a written one. Keep an audio or video journal should that feel more beneficial.

Finally, this is your life and your story. As I will repeat frequently in the pages ahead, there is no right way to write it. There is only the way that works for you and, even more important, the way that works for your book. So trust yourself, trust your story, surrender to your Muse and read on!

Guided Meditations

From Memory to Memoir includes eight guided meditations that will help you more fluidly remember, deepen and weave the stories of your life. These are powerful, cutting-edge tools designed to make your memoir-writing experience more free-flowing and spontaneous and to help ensure that your readers find the resulting stories more dramatic and compelling.

How to ...