WELCOME TO THE NEW MEMOIR PROJECT BLOG. Let me show you around. You’ve been asking, and I’ve been listening to what you want to find here. My goal is to provide the best online advice on how to write memoir. Ready? Let’s take a stroll.
The first thing to notice is that the blog is now the main event. Front and center, you get what you came for when you land on the homepage. Look above the blog post and find an interactive subhead that quickly transports you to those most-needed tips on how to get started writing memoir.
Now Let’s Look Right
Look at the six tabs in the upper right corner. Click on Resources, and you’ll find a whole range of new products, including two audio programs to jumpstart your memoir writing. The first of these is my Memoir Manifesto, a free, 12-minute audio that is yours after signing up for my free weekly newsletter. The second, Memoirama, is a 35-minute class that you can listen to over and over again, and that includes everything you need to know to write memoir. And if that is not enough, I am offering signed gift books as part of that ever-expanding line of products now ranging from that free audio all the way up to a full read, edit and consultation on a memoir manuscript. In between, you’ll find one-day, weekly and once-a month memoir classes, and more.
The enormously successful series, Writing Lessons, continues, this week featuring the great Kate Cohen, author of two well-published memoirs. Her topic is one of my all-time favorites, as well as one that is right on brand for any New Year celebration – How to be entertaining when writing memoir.
What Has Moved
I have moved and tweaked the interactive calendar. If you’ve never tried it, you are missing on of the gems of the site. Complete with 12-months of deadlines and news pegs, many of its links will connect you to blog posts that teach you on how to write the kind of piece you can read on public radio or publish in in the newspaper. Please find it in the right-hand sidebar.
And there’s lots more. Discover it all on your own. It’s my gift to you, my readers. So make it your number one New Year resolution to read it and write on.
Jim Geddes says
Dear Marion,
Congratulations on your new and improved blog. I look forward to following the
variety of resources on the site.
Best wishes and happy new year!
Jim
marion says
Thank you, Jim.
Wishing you great writing in 2014.
Please come back soon.
Leslie says
Yay!! Thank you for the gift! I can’t think of a better one for the new year. I am looking forward to reading, learning, listening and yes, writing.
marion says
You are most welcome, Leslie. Enjoy the site, and let me know when you stop by again.
Dee Matthews says
Happy New Year Marion. I’ve been exploring the new site-so far, so great! Looking forward to 2014 being filled with new adventures in writing. Thanks so much for everything you do for us writers out here. Keep on keepin’ on!
marion says
Thank you, thank, you, Dee. Write on. And please consider signing up for the free weekly newsletter. There’s a free 12-minute audio with your name on it when you do.
Dee says
I just signed up, woo-woo!
Barbara McDowell Whitt says
Marion, the new look for your website is very well done. Your approach to memoir writing, on your site and in your book, The Memoir Project, along with the testimonials of your students, has me convinced that your work is among the best I have seen, right up there with Paula Balzer’s book, Writing and Selling your Memoir.
marion says
Hi, Barbara:
How kind of you. I am deeply honored that you think so. Please let us know how your work is going, what challenges you face and how you are writing your way through them. Hope so read you here again soon.
Tracey K says
Best of luck to you and happy new year. I am looking forward to spending more time here.
marion says
Thanks, Tracey. Wishing you a great year of writing in 2014.
Barbara Quackenbush says
Marion – Happy New Year! Love the new format of your website. It is very helpful and even more full of information that previously. I’ll continue to follow it weekly and to recommend it to others in my Arizona writers group. I’m sure they too will find it most helpful. Be well!
marion says
Hi, Barbara:
Many, many thanks. I so appreciate it.
Please consider signing up for the weekly newsletter, which simply delivers the site to you once a week. Free, it now comes with a free 12-minute audio. I mean, who doesn’t want to have my voice in her head all the time? Ha! Hoping your Arizona writers are all thriving.
Lyrysa Smith says
Marion, the new blog design and website are terrific! Thanks for your ongoing ingenuity and creativity. Here’s best wishes to you and your family for a hopeful, healthy, and Happy New Year.
marion says
Thanks, Lyrysa. I am delighted for the compliment on the site and for the best wishes. Best of 2014 to you and yours, as well.
Marie says
Love the new look and navigation. Clean. Fresh. Precise. I’ve referred others to your site before when I hear of them talk of their “morning prompts.” AUGH! I find them as much a waste of precious writing time as you, but I’ve found You have far more leverage than I in convincing anyone of that HA!
Thank you for all the time, energy and resources you expend on this website. I don’t believe I would have ever begun writing my own memoir if I had never ‘discovered’ you. Your book is a treasure as well. Much happiness, health and prosperity in the New Year!
marion says
Dear Marie:
How incredibly kind of you to write with this message. I am delighted to read it, and delighted to be here to help writers. Thanks, too, for the kind words about my little book. I am deeply honored that it helps you. Best of everything to you in 2014. Write on, sister.
Lynda Lee says
WOW! I love it!
I had already decided that 2014 would be THE YEAR I finish and publish my memoir. Your New Memoir Project Blog gives me the extra encouragement I need to believe that it’s really going to happen.
XOXO,
Lynda
marion says
Thank you, Lynda. I am delighted. Please consider subscribing to the newsletter, which means you get the blog delivered free to your email box every week. In return, you get a free 12-minute audio. And who doesn’t want my voice in her head all the time? Thanks again.
Lynda Lee says
Your voice in my head! Ha ha, It’s got to be better than the voices that used to live in my head! Seriously, my memoir, GOING CRAZY: from Horror to Healing, is about how I was (mis?) diagnosed with schizophrenia in the 1960s when I was 14 years old… and yes, there really were voices in my head. Eek! However, the good news is that by the time I was 16, those scary voices were GONE FOR GOOD.
Many doctors have told me over the years that they believe I was badly misdiagnosed. I have been told that what I probably had was Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, with dissociative features, rather than full-blown psychosis. PTSD was not a diagnostic label until 1980. Prior to this, schizophrenia was more or less the default diagnosis for people who suddenly were not quite right in the head.
For the past 40+ years I have tried to believe that I never really was schizophrenic, and that I never did belong in that horrible insane asylum where I spent nearly two of my teenage years. I married young, raised three children, then went to nursing school, where I was elected class president and graduated at the top of my class. Encouraged by these successes, in April 2000 I fulfilled my lifelong dream of writing and publishing a novel. There was nothing Schizo about me, Baby!
But since I turned 60 in 2013, AND became a great-grandmother for the first time ~ double eek ~ I have spent a lot of time remembering, researching, and writing down my memories and… by golly… I am not so sure that I wasn’t genuinely schizophrenic for a couple of years as a teenager. That’s humbling to admit! But one of my mottoes is: FEAR NO TRUTH. If we refuse to face the truth, we cannot deal with it.
I hope that by writing my real story, humbling and embarrassing though it is, someone somewhere may be helped. If nothing else, maybe my story will add to the understanding of mental illnesses ~ of how people go crazy, and how their minds can heal again.
My story is difficult to write, though. I need all the help I can get. That’s why I bought your book on memoir writing and read it twice. Now, I am signing up to get your voice in my head. Just please don’t be mean like those other voices, okay? ;)
Lynda
marion says
Hello Lynda, and thank you for giving me the best new year laugh yet. I suspect you could hear it, and when you did, I know you could hear in its strains the combination of hope and joy I felt when reading of your struggle, combined with the sheer joy of knowing you will triumph, as evidenced by your ability to lead off with such humor and grace. May my voice elbow out any voice that is less than kind, less than supportive and anything less than utterly confident that yes, if you share your tale, both you and every reader who is smart enough to read you, will benefit. Many thanks, Lynda. You are a brave writer, and I simply love that.
Lynda Lee says
Your incredibly kind words just gave me goose bumps and tears. Wow. You ROCK, dear Marion. I am printing out your words and tacking them on the wall above where I do my writing. THANK YOU! MMMMMAH!!
marion says
Thank you, Lynda.
Let me know how it goes as you progress with your work.
Sister Hilda Kleiman says
I just recently finished your book and now have the “punch list” from the final pages posted above my desk. I’ve used some quotations from the book on my own blog and included links to your site as well.
When the new semester starts, I will be sharing some of your writing wisdom with my own students. Thank you and Happy New Year!
marion says
Dear Sister Hilda,
What a distinct joy it is to meet another writing teacher. Many thanks for being in touch. Being on your fine, smart blog is an honor. Many thanks. Let me know how else I may help you and your students to write memoir. And happy new year.
Susan Kayne says
Marion, The new website is quite friendly and bright, it is a beautiful representation of all the good wisdom for words and life you so generously share. I am so grateful that our paths have crossed and I look forward to continuing to learn from your experience. It is a privilege to call you my teacher. With sincere thanks, Susan Kayne