“Don’t be discouraged because there’s a lot of technical work to writing. There is, and you can’t get out of it,” said Ernest Hemingway, advising a beginning writer, Arnold Samuelson, age 19.
“It’s your object to convey everything to the reader so that he remembers it not as a story he had read but something that happened to himself.”
Read that last part again: “so that he remembers it not as a story he had read but something that happened to himself.”
You want readers to enter your story, to experience your story alongside you. That’s how your story can make a difference in their lives. That’s how God can use your story to inspire, heal, and mentor your readers.
Work hard to make your memoir that kind of memoir.
Join (or form) a writing group. Critique each other’s manuscripts.
Attend writers’ conferences.
Study the best writing books available, like On Writing Well by William Zinsser, The Writer’s Portable Mentor by Priscilla Long, and Writing the Memoir by Judith Barrington.
Follow the best writing blogs, too. I recommend the blogs in the right column.
To make your memoir the very best it can be, you’ll need to make revisions and edits, but it will be worth it in the end.
Pray about your writing and rewriting. Ask God to guide your work and use your finished memoir to bless others.
There you have it, your Tuesday Tidbit.
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