What does it take to write a memoir?

"Writing is easy. All you have to do is sit at your desk 

until blood 

spurts out of your forehead."

I have a question for you readers:  Would you benefit from having a writing coach help you with writing your memoir?  If you do, I want to hear from you. My email is tom@tomplummer.com.

I have been coaching several people in writing their memoirs, and from that experience, I can say with some authority that numerous factors go into writing one.

1) Time. Most successful writers, not all, have set aside time, a specified, limited amount of time each day to write. The old complaint, "I plan to write my memoir someday, but I just haven't gotten to it," doesn't wash. A half hour a day, and hour a day writing will kill no one.

2) Even experienced writers are stumped when writing about their lives. Most are confused with what they hope to see as their end product. Most need help in learning to write details, to write in scene, and to balance narrative styles. Some  can do this by taking workshops or classes or by working one-on-one with a trained and seasoned writing coach.  Many find that they are unable to travel or have no idea how to find a writing coach.

3) Courage and training. Many who tackle a memoir have had a rough path in their lives. Teaching memoir for 20 years with Louise at Brigham Young University convinced me that hardships outweigh or certainly balance normal life styles. Writing about family hardships can feel intimidating, embarrassing, shameful, and humiliating. Professional coaching will help. Whether taking a seminar or college class working one-on-one with a writing coach can teach you strategies for writing your stories that are honest and far reaching.

4) Feedback. Most of us need feedback from one person or another about our writing, our style, our grammar, and generally our writing skills. The best feedback will not come from family members, whose memories conflict with yours. A writing coach can help you formulate your memories, not someone else's memories.

I have developed a program for coaching people either locally or long distance. Chat sessions online for an hour each week are proving to help people write with more detail, more confidence, and more purpose for the end result of their efforts.

My question is this. Should I expand my efforts? Do you need help writing your memoir? Would a writing coach help?

If you are interested, you may comment here. Or you may email me at tom@tomplummer.com.  I'll be happy to chat with you about your project and how I might be able to help you get underway.

Do you want a good laugh?

This is it.

Enjoy and pass it on. Compliments of Jonathan.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152642257355300

Sticking with My Style

I've had a problem. I do not paint realistic pictures, and I when I try, the colors are wrong, the lines are wrong, the shapes are wrong, everything is wrong. I have learned this lesson over and over. Most brutally one evening in art class, when our teacher, Marian, looked over my shoulder as I was trying to paint a straight line or a straight curved line, or something.

And she spoke in a voice that I had only heard when she was arguing with Irwin, another painter. "What are you doing? That's not your style. This is your style." And she took the paintbrush from my hand and splotsched green paint right through the middle of my picture. "That's how you paint," she repeated. I went home and started over. 

And still I struggle. I work from photos, and the photos scream in their squirky voices, "We are photos. We are real." And I fall for those voices every time. The above painting comes from a picture of a young woman whose photo I took in Las Vegas. She was pleasant, charming really, and her face was covered with studs and rings. I liked her from the moment I asked her how she dealt with a cold. She said in a matter-of-fact tone, "I take out the rings and studs." 

So she let me take her picture, and I fell right back into my rut of wanting to paint her in a realistic style. So I was desperate one night before art class and decided I needed to talk with someone who knew something about my messy style. I began a meditation in which I took myself along a colorful path to a dead German expressionist painter, Karl Schmitt-Rottluff.  He was sitting on his porch smoking a pipe. Here's one of his paintings: 

And in my meditating mind, he asked me what I wanted. I said I had a problem. I said I kept trying to paint in a realistic style, and it wasn't working. And he erupted. "Oh, no no no. (He was speaking in German, which would be Ach nein nein nein. It's more brutal than English). You can't paint realistically. You have to screw up the lines and shapes. You have to mess with colors. You have to feel sexy. You have to PAINT SEXY THINGS. What has gotten into you? You have to have fun. Don't go getting all serious."

So I said, "Well, she's a nice young woman, and I don't want to turn her into a nightmare."

And then he said something that astonished me: "Well, then you have to get inside her, you have see the world from her point of view, you have to feel colors like she feels colors. You have to feel the way she feels. You can't just go violate her with your colors."

And that ended the conversation. I knew what I had to do. That night I went to art class and let fly. Most of all, I tried not to use hideous colors. I tried to use softer colors.  I know. I know. She looks grotesque. But I feel kindly toward her, and that's what matters to me. I don't expect you to like it. That's OK. Go ahead and be tasteless. Marian likes it, and that's quite enough for me. I haven't asked Herr Schmitt-Rottluff what he thinks of it. He's dead. Oh, I think I said that.

Who are your mentors, living or dead? Do you have a hard time sticking with your style?