Write Your Memoir in Six Months offers the support, encouragement, and accountability you’re looking for to write the book that’s in your heart and ready, or almost ready, to be on the page. We are here to make sure that happens by providing you with structure, skill, deadlines, and community.
If you’ve been wanting, trying, or longing to write a memoir, know that you’re not alone. It’s hard work to write in isolation, and sometimes in fear of churning up memories that you might feel are better left buried underground. The inevitable questions of who you might hurt and whether you’re telling the whole truth can niggle their way into your writing process, creating paralysis and self-doubt. Or maybe you’re just a busy person who would benefit from knowing that others are going through the same thing you’re experiencing. There is comfort in hearing others’ stories and knowing you aren’t alone. No matter what has prevented you from completing your memoir, we will address it here, and you will have the support of your team—your two mentors, Linda Joy and Brooke, as well as eleven other memoirists who are equally passionate and compelled to bring their story into the world.
Where do you get stuck?
There are generally 4 places where memoirists get stuck:
1. Not knowing the scope of your memoir.
This class is for anyone who has an important story to tell. Maybe you’ve considered that you might have two books needing to be expressed, or that your story needs to be pared back. Maybe when you tell people what you want to write about, what ends up coming out is a 20-minute diatribe that you don’t know how to condense. If you have a sense of what you want to write but haven’t been able to wrap your mind around what your book is, you’re dealing with a problem of scope. And will help to solve it.
2. Feeling worried about what others think.
This is a big issue for anyone delving into personal histories that may be fraught with pain, emotion, or intensity. You may come from a family who doesn’t believe in sharing secrets. You may have been hurt in some way and told never to tell. You might be worried about the other people involved in your story, not wanting to misrepresent them in some way, or tell all the truth about them. And yet you know your story is your story. There are ways to handle these issues, and if they’re holding you back, we have solutions!
3. Not having a clear sense of your process.
Process is how you decide to structure your book, create an outline, and develop the arc of your story. Process involves managing chronology, theme, and takeaway. It’s about knowing the milestones of your life and your story and having the skill to know where to weave them into your book. Your English classes were a long time ago, or you might be coming from another type of writing (like academia or business). In this class we focus on supporting you to build your foundation for memoir writing, to get onto the page the story you want to tell, and to work to elevate your craft along the way.
4. Feeling paralyzed, not knowing where to start, or not knowing how to continue.
Falling into this category of writers are any of you who feel you don’t have enough time, energy, or motivation to write or keep writing. Sometimes real time issues come into play, but oftentimes—most times—this is the inner critic at work. It’s just in disguise. This can be overwhelming: knowing you have something to say but not knowing what it is; feeling fuzzy or scared or just plain stopped in your tracks. Getting to the root of this and understanding what’s holding you back will set you free.
Write Your Memoir in Six Months
In thirteen sessions over six months (including an orientation), you’ll be filled with information about process and craft, as well as receive the support you’ve been craving as you delve into your life story, your memories, and the essence of who you are and what you have to say. We honor your voice and your story in this course, and it’s our job to support you to get 60,000 words written—words you can be proud of and words that speak your truth.
You will quickly feel supported in understanding the scope of your book and where it’s going. You will have a community of like-minded writers to give you encouragement that you are not alone. And you will have two experienced mentors who have coached hundreds of memoirists to manuscript completion and publication.
Best of all, you’ll be able to say you’re an author. We’re here to support you to get an early draft of your manuscript complete over the course of these six months.
Registration for our January-June 2025 class is now open. Please email Brooke with any questions you might have.
Here’s what you’ll learn in these 13 supportive and fun classes. All classes are 1 hour and 15 minutes.
**The dates below are for our January-June 2025 course (with an orientation in December 2024).
ORIENTATION (Monday, December 16, 2024, 4pm PT/7pm ET)
- Introduction to your mentors
- What a memoir is and the challenges of memoir writing
- Accountability and expectations
- Goal-setting and information on how to make this course work
- How to take advantage of partnering with fellow students
- Confidentiality agreement
Class 1. Structure, Aboutness, and Turning Points (January 8 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
- Students introduce themselves and share what they’re writing about
- Turning points and timelines
- The emotional terrain of writing your personal story
- Introducing the inner and outer critic
- Types of structures—linear, braided, framed, and more
- Types of memoir—coming-of-age, spiritual journey, identity and belonging, and many more
Course 2. The Joy of Mapping (January 22 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
- Turning points and scaffolding
- Scenes—how to anchor your memoir in story
- Time, structure, and how story is created
- Permission to write a first draft, weaving in craft elements
- Content buckets—what are they and how do they work?
Class 3. Write Your Memoir Like a Movie—Scene by Scene (February 5 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
• What makes a scene?
• How to recognize when you’re telling vs. showing
• Types of narration
• Including context and grounding in your story
• Past vs. now reflection
• Scene breaks/line breaks
Class 4. Character and Dialogue (February 19 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
- Characters—composites vs. real people
- Balance of narrative versus dialogue
- Body language and characterization
- Varying up “she said” and “he said”
- Correct formatting of your manuscript
- Tools for drawing motivation from inspiration
Class 5. The Journey of Writing Memoir (March 5 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
- The 3 stages of writing
- When to research and when not to
- How to be more prolific
- Making time for your creative process
- Tips for dealing with lapses in memory
- Learning how to keep on track by using “TK”
- Dealing with crises of confidence, writer’s block, resistance, and more
- How to start or build your platform
Class 6. Reflection & Writing Outside the Memoir Box (March 19 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
- Theme—big picture, through-threads, and containment
- Writing the family memoir
- Whose memory is it?
- Point of view in memoir—when can you take creative license?
- Jumping heads—keeping track of point of view like a novel
- Metaphor, simile, and analogy to build a fictive dream
Class 7. The Psychology of Memoir Writing (April 2 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
- Dealing with your inner and outer critics
- Doubts about memory and truth
- What to do about memories and truths that are emotionally jarring
- Secrets, lies, and shame
- Affirmations—the antidote to the inner critic
Class 8. Voice and Narration (April 16 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
- Who is the narrator?
- The voice—what is it and how to find yours.
- Breaking through silence—the labyrinth of truth, memory, and trauma.
- Working through the kinks—what gets in the way.
- Revisiting your scenes—how they get you through the labyrinth.
Class 9. Recapping Craft (April 30 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
- Scenes, dialogue & transition
- Theme & through-threads
- Common conflicts in memoir
- Flashback and memory
- Direct and indirect dialogue
- Takeaway & reflection
Class 10. The Long-Range Vision of Your Book (May 14 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
- You’re in the thick of it—what do you do now?
- Problem-solving to the finish line.
- Revision
- Where are you stuck? What do you do when it’s not working?
- Your finished product.
Class 11. Becoming a Author from the Inside Out (May 28 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
• The author mindset
• The writer’s life, and living as an author
• The spiritual tending of your story
• Sharing your work with others—rules of engagement
• Why you need comparative title research early in the game.
• Building and maintaining a platform
• Social media and blogging
Class 12. All the Way to the Finish Line (June 11 at 4pm PT/7pm ET)
- Getting published—is it on your horizon?
- How far to your finish line?
- Closing sharing
Bonuses!
- Two one-on-one 15-minute coaching calls with your mentor—one early in the course and one halfway through (in the Muddy Middle).
- A download of Linda Joy’s Journey of Memoir, a fantastic resource for memoirists at any stage in the journey.
- Opportunities to develop support groups with your fellow students.
- Download of “Mastering Scene,” a 4-hour course to watch at your own pace so you’re prepared to learn about scene and story-writing. For those wanting to get a taste of our teaching, watch Structure: The Backbone of Your Memoir.
- Download of our ebook, Breaking Ground on Your Memoir, which is a great way to get started learning about structure and other craft points we cover in this course.
- Access to the monthly teleseminars by experts in writing, marketing, and publishing through the National Association of Memoir Writers.
- Community! There is nothing like a group of like-minded fellow writers all on track with a single goal to help you over the finish line.
Premium Bonus
Sometimes you need or want one-on-one individual support, guidance, and coaching. Do you anticipate feeling extra stuck? Do you want to share something too personal to share in the course? Want focused attention just on you? Want to go beyond the course into other territory? An individual session with Brooke or Linda Joy may be just the remedy. Most students explore the possibility of working one-on-one with Brooke or Linda Joy once they’ve been assigned to a particular mentor and class is underway.
Your “Lock-It-In” Resources
Because we are committed to you not falling behind, and having a finished draft of a manuscript by the end of this course, we have designed the following resources that will help you lock in the learning and stay on track.
- Linda Joy’s workbook download: Journey of Memoir: Three Stages of Memoir Writing.
- Memoir-writing partner. Linda Joy and Brooke will set you up with a class buddy with whom you can meet on off weeks, or as often as you feel comfortable with and/or need, for the purpose of sharing insights, writing, tips, and support.
- Two fifteen-minute coaching calls to discuss particular craft and process questions you may have with your mentor.
If what we’ve presented here feels like something you want to be a part of, we invite you to join us!
NOTICE: All courses are limited to 14 students and we’re enrolling for our Jan-June 2025 course.
We welcome you putting in a deposit for our July-December 2024 class, or be in touch with Brooke if you would like to be on our “interested student” list to be contacted as we start to fill up the next course.
The cost of the course is $2495 (payment plans are available once we send you the class contract). Claim your spot now with a $500 deposit. Enroll now!
At the point of registration, Brooke will contact you to establish the details of your payment plan, which entails your credit or debit card being be charged the difference:
$2495.00
-$500 deposit (nonrefundable)
= $1995.00 (which will be divided by 6 payments over the 6 months of the course for a total of just $332/month)
If you’re interested in the premium bonus of one-on-one coaching, sessions during class are billed at the discounted rate with your mentor. We are happy to weave this into your payment plan if you’re interested.
Course Expectations
We want to support you to write 60,000 words in 6 months and we will do everything in our power to help you keep on track with that goal without forcing it. You are assigned one mentor, either Linda Joy or Brooke. We will read and comment on your work, which is due to us the weekend before each class. We will read approximately 2500 words in preparation for each class.
Course Discounts
We offer multiple discounts in our free classes and online. Our policy is that each student only qualifies for one discount per course.
Cancellation Policy
After the course begins, there is no cancellation policy unless there’s a serious emergency; we make exceptions on a case-by-case basis. Consider your down payment to the course as a full commitment to this course. We do this for a reason. People get stressed about their writing and the inner critic can come up to tempt writers to stop. We know that if you keep going, you will be glad you did. The structure of the course is built on supportive partnering with each other, along with the biweekly workshops and sharing the writing. It’s important to maintain the stability for the course so you can move forward and get that first draft of your memoir done in six months!
