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Memoir coach and author Marion Roach

Welcome to The Memoir Project, the portal to your writing life.

Boomers: Are Ours All The Same Tale?

A recent study of Baby Boomers revealed that the single thing they most want to do in retirement is write a book. The single biggest topic? Themselves. Hmmmmm. So how do we differentiate our story from those tales of our peers?

In writing what we know are all of us of the same age group merely voicing the same concerns? I would argue that we are not, since everyone has a story, and that each of those stories is unique. To avoid sounding like everyone else, perhaps the key is to also avoid grand sweeping statements about our generation and instead look to the small moments of life to illuminate those grand themes.

If you avoid making yourself the story, and instead think of yourself of the illustration of a universal theme, you’ll succeed. Looking for a good tip on how to do this? Watch this video.

I’d invite some discussion of this here.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. writerwoman says

    July 13, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    Thank you for I.D.ing the elephant in the room. Writing practice and morning pages suck and are a time suck. I know the rules, I just need a little push in the right direction, along with a container, a little structure, a box for my thoughts to morph into a decent piece of writing. Sounds like your book provides that. I’ve already ordered it. Hope you sell a bunch of them.

    • marion says

      January 19, 2012 at 2:26 pm

      Hi, writerwoman.
      So glad to read you here. We agree on those time-sucking practices, yes we do. So glad. Thanks for the good wishes on the book. And please keep in touch.

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