The Memoir Project<\/a>: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life<\/em>. Here are a few tips from the book.<\/p>\nThis is an x<\/em> and the illustration is y<\/em>.<\/strong> Much of the book uses this formula. For example, this is a piece of humor, and the illustration is a day at the \u2026 The author uses this formula well and provides several longer pieces that she wrote using it.<\/p>\nYou are not writing your autobiography when you write your memoir.<\/strong> An autobiography is a book-length depiction of one’s entire life while a memoir depicts a specific aspect of that life.<\/p>\nWrite the details; the theme will come.<\/strong> Write, write, and write. The theme will come. Then delete all the details that don’t fit the theme.<\/p>\nWriter’s block is a myth<\/strong>. I had to mention this one as I never had writer’s block and I am glad to read that this author dismisses it as well.<\/p>\nThe whole truth is a fool’s errand.<\/strong> Just go for little bits. Write those. Write little pieces\u2014many of them.<\/p>\nIndex card<\/strong>. Write the theme on one side of the card. Write the illustrating details on the other side. Now write the piece. If you are writing a book, each card is a scene in the book.<\/p>\nLong-form memoir\u2014write one sentence<\/strong>. Each word in the sentence becomes a chapter of the book.<\/p>\nIndexing<\/strong>. Print you draft with a three-inch right margin. Read the draft paragraph by paragraph and write a short note in the right margin telling the topic of the paragraph. Now step through those topics. Do they each work as steps through the story?<\/p>\nWhat you kill is there for another day<\/strong>. Don’t delete material. Move it out of one computer file to another computer file. It is put away for now; it is not thrown away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Dwayne Phillips Tips from Marion Roach Smith. I recently finished reading The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Here are a few tips from the book. This is an x and the illustration is y. Much of the book uses this formula. For example, this is a piece of humor, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[128],"class_list":["post-1940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-writing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1941,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions\/1941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}