Memoir in a Year

Margaret Ghielmetti — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 17:24:49 +0000

So what’s the key to writing a memoir in a year? For me, it helped that I’d long been writing Trip Reports from everywhere we lived around the world: Europe, Asia, Africa, the US. (That’s a lotta three-ring binders o’ stuff to draw from.) It helped that I took “Memoir in a Year” at Chicago’s StoryStudio: I learned so much from our instructor and my fellow memoirists. It helped that I was able to hire top-notch development editors. It helped that I have a smart, engaged writers group plus friends ready to train their eagle eyes on my manuscript. Most of all, though, I gotta tell ya, it was a matter of getting my butt in chair and keeping it there. My butt is sore from sitting for hours writing, editing, researching, revising, word-nerding, and proofreading. That’s OK: it’s my butt and it’s my book! I’ve dreamt of achieving this goal since I was a little girl, but – for decades – I was too busy living others’ lives for them to follow my dream. But in 2019, I put the key in the lock, I turned the key, and now I’m delighted to say that my book baby will be born on September 15, 2020!

Commitment | Brave(ish)

Memoir in a Year