Below are prompts for the first week of November. To help you to write your memoirs more prolifically–and even bring them to a finish in the form of a published memoir–I offer these eight suggestions to help you succeed. They are tried and true tips that bear repeating and repeating.
November 1: Ask someone in your family to tell you some of his/her lifestories.
November 2: Share a few of your lifestories with someone with whom you have not done so before.
November 3: Visualize an event from your early life. Take notes on what you recall.(See pages 52 and 136 of Turning Memories Into Memoirs, third edition)
November 4: Create a memory List of at least 200 items. (See page 41 of Turning Memories Into Memoirs, third edition)
November 5: Write a story from an item on your Memory List.
November 6: Organize a lifestory party at which you invite your siblings. Have a free exchange of memories.
November 7: Tell a story to your child or grandchild about one of your grandparents.
November 8: Tell a friend or relative the back story of an object in your house. Write the story down.
November 9: Write in a journal about today. Include salient details that will make the day vivid when you reread this entry years from now.
November 10: Write a 3-to-5-page story about something in your life you have not spoken to many people about.
November 11: Volunteer to write five pages of a relative’s lifestory.
November 12: Find your memorabilia (diplomas, newspaper articles, certificates) and write at least 50 memories that come to you.
November 13: Reread old letters and write down as many memories as they bring to mind.
November 14: Find a memoir in a bookstore or library. Begin reading.
November 15: See a movie that is a biography.
For a free e-book on writing memoirs, The Memory List Question Book: http://www.turningmemories.com/memorylist.html
