More inspiration for beginners: And then I remembered the weevils . . . .

“I didn’t know you had these pictures, Mom!”

Matt’s face beamed. He grinned his biggest grin, spellbound by the photos he held in his hands.

Hushed, he studied one snapshot after another.

“These will be great, Mom, to show my girls the people and places I’ve been telling them about all these years.”

Matt was talking about pictures I took in South America when he was age six through nine and our family lived in a remote mission center at the end of the road in the middle of nowhere. 

Because of Matt’s delight in discovering those old pictures, I scanned old slides by the hundreds, getting prints, scrapbooking them, and placing them in three-ring binders among written stories from those years. (And eventually, I wrote a memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.)

What are the takeaways for you?

Point #1: Include photos with your memoirs. Your children and grandchildren will be at least as delighted as my Matt was to see our old photos.

Point #2: Photos can help you discover, and then add, detail and richness and depth and breadth to your memoir—and those are important ingredients for (a) capturing readers’ interests and (b) helping them live your stories with you. 

Readers can get inside your stories when you recreate them through the five senses—sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. Photos can help you do that. (Remember Peter Jacobi’s words, “No story has a divine right to be read.”)

For example, here are two photos of the little commissary at our mission center in South America. That's me in the red shirt. (Oh, my, I was much younger then. And slenderer.  Sigh . . . .)

When I stumbled upon those pictures many years later, I remembered the commissary’s smells: ripe, tropical fruit. Powdered laundry detergent. Broccoli. And rancid bread—if the bread man had come.

And then I remembered the burlap bags. Since we had no paper bags, one of our options was to lug groceries home in colorful locally-made burlap totes. They were coarse and scratchy and had a dried-grass-burlap-ish smell.

And then I remembered the flour I bought at the commissary, hand-scooped (by someone, somewhere—I probably didn’t want to know the specifics) into tiny little plastic bags, usually a bit grimy. 

And then I remembered the weevils that lived in that flour.

And then I remembered that at first, I didn’t know what to do about the weevils. I must have led a very sheltered life because I didn’t even know what weevils were, let alone that they could live in flour.

When I first arrived at the mission center, no one taught me that I could (a) put the flour in the freezer and freeze those little critters to death, or (b) spread the flour on a cookie sheet and bake them to death. Then all I had to do was sift out their lifeless little bodies.

And then I remembered that before I knew how to murder weevils, I fed them to a big crowd. I was asked to bring cinnamon roles to an event and, you guessed it—they were speckled inside with little black, crunchy dots—dead weevils. (You can read more in my memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.)

See what I mean about the value of photos? I knew those stories—but I had forgotten them. I needed to rediscover them. Taking another look at those photos did that for me. And then I could include them and their stories in my memoir.

Sharon Lippincott, too, knows the value and joy of old photos. Reading her "Photographic Memory Jolts" was pure enjoyment for me. From only one photo, she listed dozens of memories.

Take, for example, Sharon’s memories of saddle oxfords. Her post reminded me that every morning before school, I spent a lot of time polishing my own saddle shoes—the white part and the black part.

And I’d forgotten all about my Ivy League saddle shoes with the oh-so-cool little buckle in the back.

And then there was Sharon’s memory of Natalie Wood using Scotch Tape to keep her bangs in place while they dried. Yes, I did that too.

Sharon’s post is a fun read, a treasure trove of history especially if you’re around my age—and all from just one photo!

How about you? Pull out an old photo related to one of the stories in your memoir.

• What emotions does it stir up?
• What songs were popular at that time?
• What styles of clothing, eyeglasses, hairstyles, shoes, furniture, and architecture does the photo capture?
• Does the photo raise questions?
• What happened just before the photo was taken? Just afterward?
• Was something significant brewing at the time, even if you didn’t know it until later?
• In later years, what happened to the people in the photo?
• Does it remind you of additional stories?

Go beyond looking at your old photos. What smells come to mind? Textures? Sounds? Tastes? Sights?

Listen. Smell. Feel. Taste. 

Relive. 

Unravel.

I have a hunch you’ll discover details 

that will add gusto to your stories.

Have fun!

 

“Don’t write words, write music”

 

Recently we've been focusing on ways to craft your memoir's sentences.

Why? Because . . . 

• you want to draw your readers in,
• you want to entertain them, 
• you want them to keep reading.

We started by looking at short sentences and sentence fragments—they offer impact and punch. (Click on “Sentences are a little like purses” if you missed it.)

 

Next, we looked at using long sentences. (Click on The beauty of long sentences as well as Especially for wordsmiths, ink-slingers, and painters of words.)

 

Today we’ll look at the importance of varying sentence length—that is, writing short, simple sentences, medium-length sentences, as well as long, complex ones.

 

“Don’t write words, write music,” writes author Gary Provost. “Great writing moves you effortlessly through the words; reading becomes as quick as thought. 

“Part of mastering flow, this ‘music’ in writing, means understanding the interplay between short sentences and long sentences.”

 

Provost explains the importance of finding such harmony in his book 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing:

 

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.

 

“Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings.

 

“It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony.

 

“I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length.

 

“And sometimes when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of cymbals—sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

 

“So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music.” (100 Ways to Improve Your Writing, Gary Provost)

Monica Sharman says this about Provost's sentences, above: “See what he did there? . . . By simply varying sentence length, he gave it life.

“Hear the pulse? Don't flatline your writing. Give it a heartbeat, a rhythm, a singing pulse. Make the sentences undulate, like verdant rolling hills or sea-blue waves or a dancer’s movements.

“Then watch your story dance—or hear it sing.”

Henneke asks: “Do you know whether your writing jigs or jives? Waltzes or boogies? Struts or strolls? 

“. . . Writing can stutter and stumble. Writing can flow so softly, it almost sends you to sleep. Writing can hop and skip, putting a smile on your face.

 

“Rhythm is one of the most underrated aspects of writing. . . .

 

“Rhythm creates a mood. Rhythm can make you rush ahead, or slow you down to quietly enjoy reading. . . .

 

“In writing, rhythm is defined by punctuation and the stress patterns of words in a sentence. Long sentences sound smoother, while short sentences make your content snappier. . . .” Don’t miss Henneke’s article, Rhythm in Writing: How to Make Your Words Swing and Swirl. 

Look over your memoir’s rough draft

and analyze the way you structure and combine sentences.

String words together with rhythm, with texture.

Make ’em sing.

Read your rough draft aloud

and listen for smoothness and cadence and melody—

or thuds. Or clunks. Or choppiness.

 

Tuesday Tidbit: A prayer for you as you write your memoir

 

Here’s a special prayer for you, the writer of your memoir:

 

“Sovereign Father . . . 

I lift up my voice in confessing total dependence on You. 

I believe that You are the author of my life 

and destiny. 

I know that the work You began 

when you called me to follow You 

will continue to develop to fruition. 

Help me move forward in keeping with Your vision. . . .

 

Think Your thoughts through me, 

speak Your truth through my words, 

and enable Your best for others 

through what You lead me to do.” 

(Lloyd John Ogilvie, Quiet Moments with God)

 

I love that. Don’t you? I especially cherish this thought: “Enable Your best for others through what You lead me to do.”

 

What a privilege God has given us to serve Him and to bless others through our stories!

 

There you have it, a little Tuesday Tidbit.

“I’ve failed dreadfully if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant”

 

I have one more important tip for you, following up on last week’s post about the need for clarity in our writing. (If you missed it, click on “If there is any possible way for readers to misread or misinterpret what you write, they will.”)

 

To communicate effectively with readers,

aim your writing at an eighth-grade audience.

 

You read that correctly.

 

Years ago, when I studied journalism, instructors taught us to write in a way eighth-grade students could easily understand.

Recently I saw the same advice so it must still be the best practice.

 

What’s true for journalists is true for memoirists: Aim at an eighth-grade audience.

 

Ken Follett, Welsh author, says his goal is to make his prose “utterly easy to understand.” He calls it “transparent prose.”

 

“I’ve failed dreadfully,” Follet says, “if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant.”

 

You know what Follett means.

You have had the unpleasant experience

of reading a sentence or a paragraph

two or three times

before you could figure out the writer’s message.

Don’t be that kind of writer.

 

Revise your sentences and paragraphs

and chapters until they are

“utterly easy to understand.”

 

Have fun!

 

Back to Basics: Use humor “like a sneak attack”

 

Years ago, I ran across a brilliant technique you can use in writing your memoir.

 

Johnny B. Truant told a story from his high school years when 1,200 students gathered for an assembly—but no one knew why.

 

Two men took the stage and, instead of telling why they were there, they told jokes and funny stories, commiserated with students about how bad high school is, and poked fun at teachers and administrators.

 

“We liked these guys,” Johnny said. “They thought like we did. Their stories were interesting and fun. We settled in and relaxed.”

 

“We stopped caring why we’d been called to the assembly. Someone made a mistake and had booked pure entertainment, but we weren’t about to complain.”

 

“But everything changed about halfway through the talk.

“It was like a sneak attack:

it was on us before we knew it was coming.”

 

The guest speakers started talking about AIDS, abstinence, teenage drinking, and drug use.

 

“It was all the stuff that adults usually talk to teenagers about—the stuff teenagers usually roll their eyes at.

 

“But we weren’t rolling our eyes. We were listening. We’d been transfixed.”

 

The speakers didn’t preach that AIDS is something to avoid.

 

Instead, they brought the crowd back to a girl they’d talked about in their funny stories—and told them she died of HIV.

 

They didn’t tell the students not to drink and drive.

 

Instead, they brought the crowd back to a boy they’d heard about earlier in the funny stories—and told them he was hit by a drunk driver and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

 

Afterward, when those 1,200 kids filed out of the auditorium, Johnny says, “Most of the kids who streamed past me were silent or crying.”

 

Those guest speakers had come to urge the teens to avoid dumb choices and reckless living and peer pressure and, instead, to be smart, to make the right choices.

 

Usually, high schoolers thumb their noses at adults who try to tell them such things, “But because they did their selling through stories, we’d bought it all,” remembers Johnny.

 

What do you think? Isn’t that a brilliant technique? A winning method?

 

Using humor in the beginning was a factor in their story’s success—which brings us back to last week’s post and the importance of making ‘em laugh in your memoir.

 

Humor establishes a bond between you and your readers. It makes you seem real. Humor endears you to them. It makes them enjoy you. They’ll remember you and your story.

 

Including at least a little humor early in your memoir can do all that for your readers. (Maybe your memoir does not lend itself to humor—a small number don’t—but I encourage everyone else to consider using it.)

 

If you can get your readers to laugh, they’ll let their guard down a bit. That will make them more interested in what you tell them later—in the takeaways you will offer them. (Click on Your memoir’s all-important takeaways.)

 

Think of this:

You don’t know who your readers might be.

You’re writing your memoir

for people who come after you,

perhaps generations not yet born.

You can’t look into the future

to know what their situations and challenges might be.

 

But you do know everyone has hardships and heartaches.

Everyone needs wisdom to make important decisions

and to live their lives well,

and your memoir’s stories could help readers

find their way through the bumps 

and potholes in the road of life.

 

Remember: God used other people’s stories

to help make you who you are.

Their stories rubbed off on you.

It’s as if other people’s stories are infectious. Contagious.

 

Someone’s story:

• taught you how to be courageous
• showed you how to live an honorable life
• helped keep your faith strong
• helped you not give up hope
• kept you on the right track
• inspired you
• passed on wisdom
• pointed you to God.

 

Now it’s your turn. In the same way other people’s stories helped you, you can help others.

 

Your stories are important, so try the techniques those guest speakers did:

 

Win over your readers with comedy, and then carry out your sneak attack: Bring out the deeper lessons of your stories.

 

To help you get started:

 

Who impressed upon you the importance of safe driving, or standing up to peer pressure, or the consequences of cheating or lying? What are your stories? Write them. Try to include some humor.

 

Who taught you the merits of keeping a promise, or arriving at work on time, or being loyal? What are your stories? Write them. Search for ways to include something funny.

 

If you want to pass on

important lessons

to future generations,

write engaging stories

with well-developed characters.

And consider using humor

to draw them in.

 

Back to Basics: WHEN to write the seared, charred, blistered parts

 

Not all memoirs involve deeply sad experiences. Some are humorous, many are tender. Some are full of adventure.

 

Others, though, include traumatic incidents.

 

And so, today, we’ll look at writing a memoir that includes seared, charred, blistering parts.

 

I’ve seen something happen too often and saw it again when my friend began composing his memoir by writing about the most disturbing year of his life. Wow!

 

When memoirists start by writing the super-painful stuff, too often they become overwhelmed all over again with the devastation they endured—and soon they give up altogether.

 

Don’t let that happen to you.

 

A word of caution:

Re-living and writing about past traumas

can cause PTSD.

Consider seeing a good therapist (not all are good!)

before and during your writing.

 

Begin by composing your easy segments—not the harrowing ones. Write the funny incidents, the fascinating experiences, the happy vignettes. That way you can ease your way into both writing and doing the reflecting that memoir entails.

 

Jot down thoughts, reactions, questions, memories, conversations. Create descriptions of key people (click on “No cardboard characters!”) and of main places in your story (click on “The importance of 'place' in your memoir”). Before long, you’ll be assembling a rough draft of your memoir.

 

You don’t have to craft your chapters/vignettes

in the same order they’ll appear

in your completed memoir.

Write them in any order that’s easiest for you.

Later you can organize them in the best way.

 

My heart wants you to fall in love with:

• pondering,
• and discovering the good stuff you overlooked in the past,
• and making sense of what used to mystify you,
• and discovering how far you’ve come,
• and choosing just the right words,
• and fashioning your memoir as a gift for yourself and for others.

 

For now, give yourself permission to begin with uncomplicated parts of your stories. Tackle the hard ones later.

 

And here’s something interesting: Even if you’re not physically putting your aching, tender, throbbing accounts into words (with pen and ink or on a computer screen), you are working on the story. I can’t explain how that works but, behind the scenes, your heart and brain are working on how to write the troubling stuff.

 

Be encouraged by what memoirist Kathleen Pooler said about writing her two memoirs:

 

“When I first started writing out my stories, facing painful memories was difficult. As I kept writing, new insights revealed themselves to me . . . just through the process of facing them and writing about them. I experienced healing through reading my own words and began to feel I was on the other side of pain.”  (Kathleen Pooler, author of Ever Faithful to His Lead and Just the Way He Walked)

 

If you’re not ready to write, let your heart and mind rest for a few weeks or months—or however long it takes. Pour out your heart to God. Wait patiently before Him, putting your hope in Him (Psalm 62:5-6).

 

He bends down and listens to you. He hears and answers (Psalm 116:1-2).

 

Stay alert. One day you’ll be vacuuming the car, or playing catch with your grandson, or folding laundry, and you’ll have one of those A-ha! moments.

 

Or maybe you’ll hear a song, or someone else’s story, or a Bible verse, or a poem and, out of the blue, God speaks, or maybe nudges, offering you insight and clarity about your hurtful experiences.

 

When that happens, listen. Jot down notes to yourself. You’ll be mining treasures. Later you can use your notes to add to your rough draft.

 

Speaking of your rough draft:

It is for your eyes only.

 

Because of that, you can write it all—the seared, charred, blistered parts, the questions you never had the courage to ask aloud, the doubts you kept secret, the anger you kept bottled up.

 

You will revise your memoir

numerous times before you publish it

so keep this in mind:

You can always delete, or revise,

the bleeding, raw portions of your first draft.

 

For now, just wrestle them into writing, for your own sake. (Review last week’s post about using method writing, a creative, helpful way to recall situations, and then to write about them.)

 

Invite God to sit close beside you. He wants to help you remember, maybe to see things differently, to notice the ways He helped in the past and continues to help you day by day, year by year. He wants you to see there’s a good place for you on this side of your pain.

 

My heart longs for you to experience that “He heals the  brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3)

 

 

Back to Basics: How’s your progress in describing your memoir’s key places?

 

Are you making progress in describing the key places—the key settings—in your memoir? I hope our recent blog posts have inspired you. (Click on Details, a must for your memoir;  It’s super fun to gather “crackly” words. . . . ; and The importance of “place”. . . . )

Today I offer you more inspiration:

Write your memoir so that 

your “reader gets zipped into your skin,” 

in the words of memoir guru Mary Karr. 

When you include sensory details 

(smell, taste, sight, sound, and touch), 

readers will feel drawn into your story with you—

and when they’re “zipped into your skin,” 

your message will make its way into their hearts and minds.

Think back: Think of a book that made you feel you were in the story, smelling scents she smelled, tasting flavors he tasted, seeing sights he saw, hearing sounds she heard, feeling textures he felt. 

Often the best way to learn how to describe a place 

is to study how others have done that.

With that in mind, notice sensory details of sight and sound that Naomi Benaron used in her novel set in Rwanda, Running the Rift:

 

“He stood until the truck became a speck in the red swirl of dust. When even the speck had disappeared, he broke into a run down the road, where life paraded on as if nothing had changed. He strained up the hill, sacks of sorghum and potatoes draped over bicycle handlebars or stacked in rickety wooden carts. Children herded goats fastened with bits of string, lugged jerricans filled with water, trotted with rafts of freshly gathered firewood on their heads. Women chatted on the way to and from the market, basins filled with fruits and vegetables balanced like fancy hats.”  

 

Because I lived in East Africa for several years, Benaron’s details transported me back. For those not acquainted with that culture, her details offer an authentic view of life there. Her words make the reader feel he’s in the scene.

 

Notice details of sight, sound, and smell in another excerpt from Running the Rift:

 

“Market goers created a congestion through which the truck barely moved. In the dying afternoon, hawkers called out bargains, packed up unsold tools and clothing, used appliances held together with hope and string. Flies swarmed around carcasses of meat. The aromas of over-ripe fruit and gamy animal flesh made Jean Patrick queasy. A bicycle taxi swerved into their path. . . . The woman on the back loosed a stream of insults in their direction. The radio droned; the truck engine whined and coughed. Their bodies jostled together from the potholed road. . . .”

 

Butch Ward offers advice inspired by Jacqui Banaszynski: 

“Write cinematically. 

Movies pull us through stories with strong themes, 

compelling characters and revelatory details. 

Written stories can do the same thing. . . . 

Zoom in tight on details or images 

that have the most meaning; 

be descriptive and specific.”

 

Caution: Avoid subjecting readers to irrelevant details—details that don’t enhance your main settings, details that don’t pertain to the point of your story/vignette.  Extraneous details slow down your story.

 

Revisit key places and scenes in your rough draft and ask yourself, “What did the place smell like?” Were you in a stable, or at the perfume counter in Macy’s?

 

Ask yourself “What noises were in the background?” The rumble of trains? The hush of snowfall?

 

What did you see in the distance? Mountains? Unending desert? Jungle? What did you see within your immediate surroundings?

 

If you were with a group of individuals eating tadpoles in okra sauce, how did that feel on your tongue? What was the texture? Find words to describe the taste and smell.

 

Include details that invite readers 

to encounter the same experiences you did. 

“Zip them into your skin.”

Back to Basics: Details, a must for your memoir

 

The holidays are over—!! So . . .

we’re returning to our Back to the Basics series

for our newcomers—and for all of us,

no matter where we are

in the writing of our memoirs.

 

You want your story to come to life so readers will feel they’re a part of your experience. Sensory details can do that for your readers.

 

Your task is to write so readers connect with you. Invite them to see, feel, hear, taste, and smell what you saw, felt, heard, tasted, and smelled. That way they can enter into your story with you.

 

Make your story happen all over again, this time for your readers.

 

The following quote will help you understand sensory details and why they’re important:

 

 

“You must recreate how you experienced the places,

people and situations of your life experiences

through the senses.

Where you were and what was happening to you

originally came in through your ears,

nose, tongue, skin, and eyes.

That is what the reader needs, too,

to experience your world

and draw the conclusions you did . . . .

 

As writers we must learn to rely on the outer world

for the images a situation provides,

rather than relying on thoughts and summaries.

Sure, those will come into our writing, at times,

but using them sparingly . . .

makes them all the more powerful.”

Sheila Bender,

“Letting Images Do the Talking”

 

 

Below, I offer you additional quotes for inspiration:

 

 

“In writing, imagery is the key

that can unlock a reader’s imagination.

When an image is rendered with the right combination of words,

it magically appears in the reader’s mind

like a photograph or a film clip.”

Melissa Donovan,

“Creative Writing Prompts for Crafting Compelling Imagery”

 

 

“Concentrate your narrative energy on the point of change. . . .

When your character is in a new place,

or things alter around them,

that’s the point to step back

and fill in the details of their world.”

Hilary Mantel,

“23 Writing Tips from Booker-Prize Winning Authors”

 

 

“If you’re like most writers

the dominant sense is visual.

That’s because most of us write ‘by sight.’

That is, we include what we see and, sometimes,

what we hear.

Rarely what we smell, taste, or feel (as in the sense of touch).

If your writing tends to fall within this ‘mostly sight’ category,

you may fail to engage your readers.

If you want to write vivid memories,

then you must learn to remember vividly—

not just see, but smell, taste, feel, and hear those memories. . . .”

Amber Lea Starfire,

“From Memories to Memoir, Part 3—Remembering Vividly”

(See Amber’s whole post for step-by-step tips

on how to remember vividly.)

  

Look over your rough drafts and have fun crafting scenes that include what you want your readers to see, smell, taste, feel, and hear.

 

Back to Basics: How do you begin writing your memoir?

 

If you’re new to writing, you might wonder just how to write your memoir—that is, how to find the precise words and how to put them in the right order.

 

The process can seem mysterious, even daunting. The specific how-to might feel out of reach.

 

You might be wailing, “How do I do this? How do I get started?”

 

Don’t let such worries incapacitate you. Ban discouragement. You can do this!

 

Take a deep breath.

 

Believe me when I say:

 

• Keep in mind you’re writing a rough draft. Don’t worry about making it perfect because you will revise it several times. (Revision is not punishment! All writers, even the most accomplished, revise and polish.)
• You can start writing anywhere in your storyline. You don’t have to begin at the beginning. Write short vignettes, knowing you can string them together in the correct order later.

 

Start by writing an easy part of your story.

 

Don’t do what a friend of mine did:

He started his rough draft by tackling

the most painful experience of his life!

 

That’s a recipe for disaster—

the pain can overwhelm you

and you’ll likely stop writing altogether.

 

Instead, begin writing the easy stuff, the fun stuff, fond memories, the light-hearted parts.

 

Describe key places in your story: your grandmother’s kitchen, or a rainforest, an Air Force base, a classroom, a nursery, or a factory.

 

Describe a key person: your favorite teacher, your best friend, your uncle.

 

In the process, get accustomed to the writing life. My heart longs for you to enjoy the process of writing.

 

Here’s encouragement for you:

 

“Do not despise these small beginnings,

for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.”

(Zechariah 4:10 NLT)

 

Go ahead and get started, even if you feel you’re accomplishing only “small beginnings.”

 

Take heart. We all start small—and that’s okay!

 

In fact, it’s good. Look at the rest of that verse. “The Lord rejoices to see the work begin.”

 

Now, doesn’t that make you smile? Give you hope? Inspiration? Encouragement? A desire to keep at it?

 

I hope so. 

 

You have no idea how many people your story will touch.

 

Don’t underestimate the value of your story.

 

Think back: When did a sentence or chapter or book turn your life around?

 

I still cling to a single sentence I read almost half a century ago. It altered my perspective and the way I’ve lived all these years. How I thank God for inspiring that woman to write her book!

 

And I can never thank God enough for leading a man to write his book—because one chapter rescued me and healed me and revolutionized my relationship with God.

 

Your book

could do that for readers, too.

Believe it!

 

Jeff Goins offers this perspective to those who haven’t begun writing:

 

“Starting is hard.

It requires courage and perseverance

and all kinds of gumption.

That’s why most people just talk about it,

but never do it. But starting is necessary.

It’s crucial to making your mark and leaving a legacy.”

("Start Today, Not Tomorrow")

 

No matter how long it takes, write your memoir!

 

“The legacy you leave hinges on your decision to start.”

(Jeff Goins, “Starting”)