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Memoirs: Writing About Your Life
There are two key points to keep in mind when you embark upon the project of writing about your life:
Everyone should write about his or her life — it's important to make sense of what has happened to us, how we handle it, what lessons we glean from our experiences, what we've learned that has made our lives better.
Publishing your writing about your life, however, is another story.
What Are Publishers Looking For?
Publishers, who are in the business of selling books — and that's the bottom line — are looking for (a) celebrities whose lives are inherently interesting to a wide audience or (b) beautifully written and crafted stories by professional writers (journalists, fiction writers, poets, science writers, and so on) or (c) people whose lives would be of wide interest (politicians, activisits, adventurers).
So the odds of us ordinary folks getting our memoirs published are pretty slim unless we're really willing to put in the time to craft a compelling narrative. All of us have plenty of events and experiences — some have too much, some have unbearable tragedy, some learn great lessons and insights — but only those who are willing to devote the time to building up their skill as writers are likely to be published.
Just Do It . . .
If you are contemplating writing about your life, do it — start putting down what you want to say in a notebook or on your computer. At the same time, begin reading the best memoirs you can get your hands on. If you don't know what they are, go to a local bookstore and ask for their recommendations, or investigate the top titles on an online bookseller such as Amazon.com.
Notice what you like or don't like about the way these memoirs are written. Try to imitate their strengths and avoid their weaknesses. If you aren't already an accomplished writer, plan on taking a workshop or class devoted to teaching you how to write your life story. Get feedback from other writers and from instructors. Keep refining your writing and your story.
But Think About Your Readers
Writing your life story is not a case of instant gratification. There's no publishing market for books simply about the horrific or even edifying events of someone's life unless the story is well told. The irony is that just at the point when you want to think about your own life and how to write about it, you have to start thinking of your audience: Why will people care about your story? What have you done to make the quality of writing in your memoir as excellent as in a first-rate novel?
Those are the kinds of things you need to be considering. The fact that you love to write is a great start, but you need to back that up with much more time, energy, and craft if you want to be published.
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