Tell your story

Schedule Your Time. How many hours per week are you willing to devote to your memoir? Will you work on it daily or only on certain days? Can you schedule free time for those days? When do you want the memoir to be finished? Set milestones and deadlines.

Identify your audience. Are you writing for your children, grandchildren, spouse, associates, the general public, or just for yourself? Having an audience in mind at the start helps determine your memoir’s direction. But, it’s your story you can always change your direction or audience.

Decide who will do the writing. You can write alone or have any number of collaborators. You can work with a writing coach or go it alone.

Brainstorm. List all the potential subjects you’d like to cover in your memoir. Record important memories. Identify what you care about. Identify the themes and patterns in your life.

Organize your material using timelines or topics

Write your first draft. Dont stop to edit until you’ve finished it. If you need to, you can review the last few lines you wrote during your last writing session. But don’t review or edit until you’ve finished your draft.

Review it.  Is there anything you’d like to change? Have your themes stayed the same or are different themes emerging.

Write some more or call it done. Is this what you want? If yes, congratulations. If not, ask yourself what improvements are needed, and start rewriting.