Anna Meryt - Memoir Writing: How to Write A Story From Your Life

WRITING MEMOIR

How to tell a story from your life

Anna Meryt

First published in December 2017

by Tambourine Press Ltd

5 Harringay Gdns, London, N8 0SE

All rights reserved

Anna Meryt 2017

ISBN 978-0-95765122-8-0

www.tambourinepress.com

Anna Meryt asserts the moral right to be identified

as the author of this work. All rights reserved in all media.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,

without the prior written permission of the author and/or publisher.

Front Cover Designed by Freya Newmarch

Photos owned by Anna Meryt

Illustrations by Anna Meryt

WRITING MEMOIR

How to tell a story from your life

Anna Meryt

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou

Dont die with your music still in you.

Wayne Dyer

Acknowledgements

So many people to thank for supporting the process of writing my book.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

• Jam in a Jar my local bar/caf for putting up with me writing for hours with just the odd snack and a cappuccino.
• Bettina Von Cossel from my writers group Greenacre Writers [http://greenacrewriters.blogspot.co.uk/] for agreeing to edit my manuscript at short notice. You edited in detail with invaluable commentary
• Alison Macdonald my English friend in Morocco for being a great beta-reader and giving me a whole page of feedback ALL useful.
• Edmund Coulthard , my brother, a busy CEO, who gave very useful comments.
• To my daughters Pascale and Tamlyn who continue (as always) to encourage my writing and give invaluable feedback.
• All the interesting, fascinating, aspiring memoir writers who have attended my Memoir Writing courses you inspired me to write this book. Every single one of you.
• Freya Newmarch (and Charlie) for using their wonderful top-class artistic skills in creating the book cover I wanted. Thanks so much.

AND all the great memoir writers out there whose books I have read and who have inspired my small efforts.

H ELLO TO MY READERS ,

This book was written to help and guide you through the process of telling your story. How do you write it all down in the best possible way so people will read it, from beginning to end?

In this book youll discover

• Whether you really want to write a memoir?
• Perhaps youve already begun? Where do you go from here? How do you plan to reach the end?
• Or you havent started yet, but something happened to you and you know itll make an interesting story?
• Or a series of things happened to you that are unusual, shocking, historical or unique?
• You want some support and guidance to get you from start to finish? Throughout the book I give short exercises to get you practicing the key points in the chapter youve just read.

* * *

Firstly, you might want to know a bit about who I am.

Ive written and published one memoir and Im half way through the second. I have based this book on what I learned from writing the first one, which was called A Hippopotamus at the Table and is set in 1970s South Africa. Im sure, (had I spent more time) I could have improved it. But its a good story, and it was time to let go and move on to the next project. Youll have to do that at some point to.

Throughout this book, I refer back to the first memoir and include extracts here and there. My second d memoir will be called Beyond the Bounds and is set in London and Indonesia.

I also learned a great deal from teaching my memoir course participants, whose stories continually fascinated me. The various writing groups Ive belonged to and their feedback have been invaluable for improving my writing too.

Before that, I had a varied career, going in all sorts of directions. I started work life as a copy typist, in the 1970s now theres some stories for a future memoir. I dropped out of a law degree, got married and had a baby before going off to South Africa (read my first memoir for (a) why we went and (b) what happened there).

When we returned to the UK, I went to University College London (UCL) and studied for a degree in Ancient and Near Eastern history. I taught Ancient Egyptian history in Adult Education at City University and then at Birkbeck, University of London, to undergraduates.

By now, the age of computers was upon us, I found that I had a facility and ended up teaching Information Technology (at seminar level) at London Metropolitan University and at Holloway Womens Prison. This led to working in Criminal Justice and then delivering Cognitive Behavioural Programmes to offenders for the next 10 years. In the noughties (2000-2014), I began working with victims of violence and for the next ten years I wrote reports and risk assessments on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, I was writing poetry and began to get poems published in anthologies and literary magazines. I had also started writing A Hippopotamus at the Table and joined a writing group. I completed an MA in Professional Writing in 2010. In 2011, I won first prize in the Lupus International Poetry competition, then published two poetry collections (2013 and 2014). Hippo was published in 2015.

Ive travelled quite a bit in Africa usually solo and always take my small laptop with me and write as I go along in cafes or libraries. I still do that in London. The British Library is my current favourite place to write.

* * *

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