Tag: memoir

Writing my story and sharing it with anyone feels a bit risky and involves a certain amount of bravery. I imagine others feel the same about sharing a narrative hitherto private. Life Stories Diary seems like the perfect place to take this risk. The private Self-Paced Life Stories Course within...

Postscript: I apologise if you have received a “Demo!”newsletter  – sigh, I’m  still getting used to the new functionality available on this wonderful new website.  Writing a memoir is rather like running a marathon. Success requires time, dedication, preparation, planning, and perseverance. Between us, I think that holding your own...

The Diary Healer has transitioned to this new site with a new aim and a new name. Building on The Diary Healer’s accomplishments, lifestoriesdiary.com is here to encourage story-sharing and help you write your story. Are you one of the many people who say, ‘I will write my story one...

As I ‘came out’ and began to share my story publicly through my memoir, A Girl Called Tim (2011), an amazing thing happened. Shame, stigma, and secrets that had been the bane of my life for decades, were quelled. Rather than remain quiet, my diaries ‘came out’ too. For instance,...

Writing about one’s life is like walking along a gravelled country road, picking up a dusty stone, and giving it a good rub to reveal the gem within. Often all that’s needed is a bit of a dust-off, a sprinkling of self-belief and encouragement, and away we go. Especially when...

When I mentor clients in memoir writing, I explain this can be a three-stage process, depending on their goal. Stage One involves writing the first version of your story for yourself. This is the time to put everything on the table. Don’t hold back. Maybe there are repressed experiences that...

I was a fixture at all students’ writing contests and didn’t expect to be congratulated with just mundane prizes, but from second grade in high school, I was unable to write. I could write only self-pitying, crappy things, bleak, fragmented poems and, above all, things the judges of student writing...

Six months after developing anorexia nervosa, at age 11, I received a diary as a Christmas gift. The diary and I  became inseparable. Nobody told me to write or gave guidance in what to write. I just did. More than 60 years later, my diaries fill a bookcase. These books...