Memoir Mentoring
Everyone has a story to tell, and this includes YOU.
Writing Your Story
Reach out and start today
Many people talk about writing their life story “one day.”
Many start the process but never finish it. Is your desire to write your life story stuck in the too-hard basket?
I have good news for you. I can help make your memoir dream a reality. My mentoring can guide you in writing your story to a professional, publishable standard. Your memoir can preserve “who you are in your own words” and can be a priceless treasure and keepsake for family, friends, and community.
Importantly, you can write a memoir at any age. A memoir is a story about part of your life. You can write a memoir in your 30s or your 80s. You might write a fresh memoir every few decades. Writing a memoir is a worthwhile and gratifying pursuit at every life stage.
Write Your memoir –
Two stages
“Where do I start?” you might ask.
My mentoring guidance makes writing your story manageable, one step at a time. There are two main stages.
Firstly, you make your way to what I call “Base Camp.” To reach the base camp, you work through a series of seven writing tasks at your own pace. These tasks help you map the contours of your life, structure your memoir, and outline each chapter. When completed, this initial stage creates a foundation and framework for writing your story.
In the second stage, you fill in the content of the chapters outlined in the first stage. In this way, you climb your literary Everest. I am by your side as you draft each chapter and bring your complete story to a professional, publishable standard. The rewards are two-fold: they are reaped through a) participating in the writing process and b) achieving your goal of completing your memoir.
Writing as a survival, coping and self-recovery tool
Developing a trusting and empathetic relationship between writer and mentor brings many benefits.
For example, I can be beside you in navigating, confronting and healing from traumatic experiences, managing grief, recovering from or managing mental illness, and adjusting to significant life changes.
Using narrative skills, I can guide you in transforming painful experiences into a manageable perspective that liberates you to live more fully in the moment.
As your memoir mentor, I will guide you in developing and improving your self-awareness and problem-solving skills. These skills, in turn, will help you strengthen your self-esteem and self-compassion and pursue a more purposeful life.
To write a memoir, whether you are a writer, a diarist, or a complete novice, is irrelevant. If you want to improve your quality of life, be the navigator of your life, and know that your life counts, write your memoir now.
Life writing &
narrative mentoring
Life writing can be a valuable tool for’ speaking’ on our behalf when verbalising our feelings seems too difficult. Finding safe ways to share our private world in a narrative way can enable us to process, validate, debate, and challenge our experiences emotionally. It can also help us gauge helpful responses when sharing snippets of our private world with others.
Be in the driver’s seat of your life!
The process of sharing writing in a safe, supportive environment can help ease deep-seated feelings of shame and stigma that may be the cause of resistance to engaging more positively in mainstream and realising life dreams. Traumatic and hurtful experiences cannot be undone. However, narrative mentoring can enable painful emotions and related inhibitions to be addressed, re-packaged and placed in the context of life in a healing way, allowing us the freedom to move on over time.
When we lose confidence or the ability to express our thoughts and feelings verbally, our quality of life can suffer.
We can be misinterpreted or misunderstood and feel isolated and alienated.
The good news is that life writing can be a valuable tool for’ speaking’ on our behalf when verbalising our feelings seems too difficult. Finding safe ways to share our private world in a narrative way can enable us to process our experiences emotionally, validate them, debate them, and challenge them.
Writing in a safe and supportive environment can also help us gauge helpful responses when sharing brief extracts of our private world with others.
When we develop trust with a mentor, the next step is gaining confidence in sharing our writing, if not wholly, perhaps in summary form or letter, as a basis for discussion and reflection.
Such sharing between writer and mentor can help ease and confront deep-seated negative feelings such as shame and stigma that may be the cause of resistance to engaging more positively in mainstream life and realising life dreams.
Traumatic and hurtful experiences cannot be undone, and some losses cannot be retrieved. However, narrative mentoring can enable painful emotions and related inhibitions to be addressed, re-packaged, and placed in the context of life in a healing way, allowing us the freedom to move on over time.
Gradually, we can gain confidence in our ability to voice in public the thoughts and feelings we have learned to share through writing with a mentor.
I offer my clients safety in exploring painful or traumatic areas of life experience. For more than a decade, I have specialised as a narrative mentor in guiding and supporting clients in writing their memoirs or parts of their stories. My PhD explored life writing as a self-healing and therapeutic tool.
How long will it take
to write my memoir?
Memoir writing is an individual journey – your memoir may comprise 20,000 to 100,000 words.
It is not the number of words that counts, but what your words say that counts.
The mentoring timespan varies according to your writing pace and the length of your memoir; generally, allow 18 months. As a first step, I invite you to reflect on why you want to write your story:
- Do you want to write your life story generally or about a specific part of your life, such as a relationship, career, travel, illness, or traumatic experience? Do you have a special message to deliver?
- Have you accomplished some initial work on your story and seek advice on how to proceed?
- Have you completed your first draft and want to refine it, or want advice on sharing your story with others?
- Why do you want to write your story, and who is your envisaged audience?
- Are you writing for yourself only, or do you plan to share your story?
- What kind of mentoring are you looking for? For emotional support, writing skills, and editing expertise? The lot? You are in the right place!
As your writing mentor,
I assist with every stage of preparation
I provide:
- Emotional support and encouragement in planning, writing and completing your memoir.
- Guidance in resource gathering and mapping your narrative.
- Assistance with writing techniques, editing and proofreading.
- Understanding and support throughout the entire process of creating your story—the writing process is as important as the completed manuscript. With a mentor, the benefits of writing your story can be many and ongoing.
At all times, you may expect:
- Transparent and objective editing and responses.
- Guidance in developing narrative skills.
- Prompt turnaround of submitted work.
- Opportunity for regular discussion online.
- Support tailored to guide you to that moment when you hold a printed copy of your memoir and celebrate your achievement.
Dear Diary
Articles
The diary, a book in which a daily record of events and personal experiences can be kept, offers a window into life in the past.
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