4 Reasons Why You Should Write a Memoir Now
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One of my coaching clients was writing a memoir on a tight deadline. Bill had to finish his book and self-publish it in time for a family reunion. His children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, brothers, sisters and cousins were coming together from the four corners of the globe to celebrate connection and renew relationships. There were even a few surprise guests thanks to the popularity of DNA testing through genealogical websites. Bill wanted to give everyone a copy of his memoir.
My job as a book writing coach was to help him finish on time and produce an effort that he could be proud of. Bill also hoped that his book would inspire pride in all of his family members because his story included many of them. Bill managed to meet his deadline and print 83 copies. There was one copy for all in attendance including the babes in arms so they too could read his story someday. It might be the only way the newest members of the family would ever be able to know him.
Bill’s memoir was a huge hit and a wonderful keepsake to take back as everyone returned to the far-flung places they called home. He was thrilled with the result and so were his family members. But Bill’s book almost never happened, and that’s why I’m writing this post.
Here are four reasons to write your memoir now. Not tomorrow, or next week—now.
Reason #1: Preserve and Control Your Legacy
A few months ago I read an article in USA Today about the “digital afterlife.” It described how people receive jarring notifications on social media when Facebook sends them a “memory” from the account of someone who has passed away. Harsh as that may sound, Twitter actually received a lot of backlash when they announced plans to delete the same sort of inactive accounts. People didn’t want to lose tweets from loved ones who had passed away.
Social media has become a repository of memories, so legacy issues are understandably getting more attention. But are your random tweets and photos of office parties how you want to be remembered? Much of your own story might even predate social media. The rest is an eternal online scrapbook of how you connected with others rather than a coherent account of the life you have lived. Writing a memoir puts you in control of your legacy. If you don’t organize your story into a memoir, then an algorithm will be in charge of how your story is told. Or it will simply cease to exist entirely.
A well-written and professionally published memoir allows you to tell your story the way it deserves to be told. And if you self-publish your story, you can control every aspect of your legacy project, right down to the type of paper your book is printed on and the quality of the binding—crucial choices if you want your legacy to last.
Some of the greatest legal battles in history have been waged over who gets to say what about someone’s life. Controlling your story is crucial. Writing your memoir puts you in control of your legacy instead of someone like Mark Zuckerberg.
Reason #2: Memoirs Make a Difference
Many memoirists don’t appreciate how much their book will matter. Although Bill only produced 83 copies of his work, those books will remain a treasured part of the family history for generations. Bill was completely taken aback by the pride, love, and delight demonstrated at the reunion due to his efforts. His book also inspired two of his relatives to pen their own memoirs.
Some of the best-selling and most impactful books ever written are memoirs. Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl tops most lists as the #1 memoir of all time. Her account of life under Nazi occupation exposed the stark horror of the Holocaust through a teenager’s journal. Dreams From My Father introduced Barack Obama to America and helped him become the first African-American President of the United States. Memoirs make a difference.
Your story might have a happier ending than Anne Frank’s. Your goal may be less lofty than that of the presidency. But never underestimate the potential of your personal narrative to touch another person’s life. There are potential readers going through similar things to what you experienced, and through your memoir they could find connection. Even if you don’t extrapolate any life lessons in your memoir, readers will still see themselves in your story and learn from it.
Memoirs can even double as self-help books. In this type of narrative nonfiction, the author takes their life experiences and uses them to illustrate tips for dealing with a specific kind of challenge. What starts out as a book about you evolves into a work that helps others who are facing whatever you faced.
You don’t need to be famous (or infamous) to write a memoir. Anyone can do it because we all have a story. Thanks to the advertising power of social media platforms like Facebook and the advantages of self-publishing, you can target very specific audiences who might be interested in your book. They will purchase a copy because it could make a difference in their lives.
Reason #3: The Clock is Ticking
When I was writing my book about my journey across the Sahara Desert I was desperate to find the journal that I had kept during that harrowing adventure. I looked everywhere but it was nowhere to be found. I soldiered on without it and hoped for the best. About a year after Shifting Sands was published, we had a flood in the basement. As I was clearing out the wet boxes of stuff I should have gotten rid of long ago, I found the desert journal. It was mostly dry and quite readable.
I was surprised (and relieved) by how well I had remembered the things I had written about. But twenty years had passed since my odyssey across the dunes of North Africa. The journal contained some wonderful anecdotes and insights that I had completely forgotten in the ensuing two decades. While I was only in my forties when I wrote the book, some memories of that life-changing journey had already faded.
On the other hand, there is something to be said for letting time ripen your experiences before you share your story. Time gives us a bit of distance so we can approach the material more objectively, almost like a journalist writing about someone else. But at a certain point you risk running past the “best before date” on those recollections. As we get older, nostalgia and sentimentality can gloss over the gritty truth of what we are writing about.
This can happen at a much younger age than you think. The problem is that our brains have a hidden agenda. There is a neural activity called the “narrative focus” that has been identified by researchers at the University of Toronto. They’ve discovered that your brain takes almost everything that happens to you and turns it into a story. This is not simply a function of memory creation. It’s mostly about “making meaning” so that you can store the lesson and learn from what happened; to the brain, the details of the experience are less important. Your brain is going to do this automatically and subconsciously whether you like it or not.
When you sit down to write your memoir, you are consciously retelling your story and drawing your own logical conclusions about a given period of your life. You are in the driver’s seat. You can bring the full power of your intellect into the process of storytelling and meaning-making rather than letting the subconscious take over. So, don’t put off writing that memoir too long. A little time passing helps you become more objective—but if you wait too long, memories can fade or get reshaped.
Reason #4: Writing Puts Everything in Perspective
In the era of COVID-19, it feels like everything is changing. It’s a time of upheaval. Some people are seizing this moment to launch movements for social change. Others are using the emergency to consolidate power. Many of us are just trying to get by until there’s a vaccine. But one thing is inescapable: all of our lives have been affected by this pandemic.
A time like this forces us to take stock of our lives. We start to see what really matters and what doesn’t. The crisis clarifies our thinking and our values. We re-evaluate our priorities and that can get us to wonder what we can contribute to the conversation of this tumultuous time.
This more reflective mindset is a valuable gift in the middle of such hardship. It’s worth taking advantage of it, because being more reflective is a great starting place to begin writing a memoir. We realize that we’re doing more than telling a story. We are actually providing a service to others by framing our life, or an interesting slice of it, and sharing that narrative with the world. Whether we are preserving a snapshot of a time and way of life that will never return or drawing helpful life lessons from a challenge we overcame, our personal stories have value now more than ever.
Bill’s family reunion was originally scheduled for this year during the height of the pandemic. It would never have happened because of international travel restrictions and local orders on the size of gatherings. Of course no one knew what was looming on the horizon, but the event was actually moved up a year due to the health and age of some of the family members. This is why Bill was on such a tight deadline. He’d started the book thinking he had two years to complete it but that time was cut in half overnight. Bill was motivated to preserve a legacy and he knew the clock was ticking. The response to his efforts proved that his memoir really made a difference. If the reunion hadn’t been moved up a year, I doubt if his book would ever have been finished.
The world has become a lot smaller during the pandemic. We’ve learned that we have more in common than we thought. We’ve realized that we are all connected and that our stories are worth sharing. That’s a good thing for those who want to write a memoir. Seize the moment; tell your story the way it deserves to be told.
Steve Donahue is a professional speaker, book coach, and the author of two bestselling nonfiction books. His works have sold over 100,000 copies and have been translated into Korean, Turkish, Russian and Greek. Steve helps new and experienced authors turn their book ideas into well-crafted publications that delight readers and inspire change. To learn more, visit his website at MyBookCoach.ca.
