Joanne Fedler - Your Story: How to Write It So Others Will Want to Read It

Praise for Your Story

I love this book! Brimming with candor, wit, and surefire advice, Your Story by Joanne Fedler is a rich and juicy guide to writing the memoir youve been longing to liberate from your heart. She lays it all out with practicality and leads us within in service of putting it out there. If you are compelled to bring Your Story to the page, and youre looking for tips, courage, and answers, look no further, everything youre seeking is right here.

Nancy Levin, author of Worthy

Your story can change someones life. Fedlers message is a powerful reminder that ordinary stories of growth, healing, and transformation are the medicine this world needs now, and that each human life has its place in the great unfolding narrative of our planet. A book that inspires hope and teaches each of us how to use our words to leave a legacy.

Van Jones, CNN contributor and New York Times best-selling author of Green Collar Economy and Rebuild the Dream

My favorite line from any book ever is the very last line from Charlottes Web... It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.... which is what came to me as I dove in to the first chapters of Your Story. Joanne Fedler is a true friend to her reader, and an amazing writer. She is also a brilliant teacher. Get this book if youve ever dreamed of writing a book. It will not only elevate your spirit and teach you that your experiences, your heart, and your soul are a rich and worthy voicebut it will show you exactly how to capture that voice in the written word.

Christine Kane, president and founder of Uplevel You

Joanne Fedler is a compassionate word tour guide on the bumpy journey into writing. Her book is a comforting companion for writers as they navigate the joys and sorrows of their internal landscape. Joanne understands the writers loneliness and desperate need for belonging. In this book, she has created a menu of encouraging possibilities on how to overcome our fears and dig deep into our souls, so that our true voice can emerge. Thank you, Joanne, for reminding us that though we are writing from our story, we are writing for others.

Nava Semel, award-winning author and playwright

[This book] has been life changing, perhaps one of the best books Ive ever read on writing. Now to actually do some writing!

Kevin Ritchie, regional Executive Editor, Gauteng & Northern Cape, The Star, South Africa

ALSO BY JOANNE FEDLER

The Dreamcloth

It Doesnt Have to Be So Hard

The Knot List

Love in the Time of Contempt

The Reunion

The Secret Mothers Club

Things without a Name

When Hungry, Eat

Copyright 2017 by Joanne Fedler

Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast Books: www.raincoast.com Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Cover design: Amy Rose GrigoriouInterior design: Alex Head

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private useother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviewswithout prior written permission of the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Previously published in Australia by Joanne Fedler, ISBN 978-0-9954063-0-8.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress

Tradepaper ISBN: 978-1-4019-5431-4

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1st edition, July 2017

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to all my students
who have shown me the way;
to everyone who longs to write but hasnt had the courage yet;
to anyone whos ever thought, I have a story to tell;
to everyone brave enough to put feelings into words.
Its dedicated to you, my reader.
Write your story.
You never know whose life it might change.

Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty.

- Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor

You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.

- Bren Brown

Contents

If youre anything like me, youve probably read way too many books on writing. Most of the time they keep us from doing the very thing we long for, the very reason we are reading a book on writing, which is to actually write. At the same time, as aspiring authors, we do need guidance. We want someone whos walked the path ahead of us to show us the way.

As with all life experiences, theres a fine balance each of us must strike between learning and doing, between research and forging our own path.

Over the past 12 years, Ive been writing my own books and teaching others to write. Ive written in just about every genre (except crime fiction and erotica), and what Ive found is that no matter whether were writing fiction or nonfiction, we cannot escape the fact that were writing from our own selfthe being who embodies the consciousness that compels us to write as well as the emotional history and sensuous existence from which we write. At the core of all great writing is a deep connection to the human heart. Even when we dont write about ourselves, we always write from our felt or imagined experience.

This book, then, is to help you find your way in to that beautiful, complex self and to value all it has felt, suffered, and known. Too many of us discount the victories and tragedies of our ordinary lives. We devalue our pain, we diminish our little loves. But truly, they are the source of any story we write.

This book is clearly for those of you who wish to write memoir, whether its with a view to publication (traditional or self-publishing) or as a private record to leave a legacy for grandchildren. Or perhaps your words are just for you, and given that youre not one for public-restroom graffiti, writing your story is your way of telling the world, I was here.

But it is also for those of you who want to explore the territories of your life and make sense of all youve experienced. What youll discover in the writing and the remembering is that your life is rich with stories. And in those stories, you may find the seed of a fictional love story. The beginning of a murder mystery. The whisper of a dystopian young-adult novel.

As you begin, its important to hold on to the hope that this book will be read by others. As the subtitle of this book indicates, this book will guide you to write your story so others will want to read it. This is not because I believe a book read only by its author is of necessity a sad little book that didnt get out much. I am not here to judge your books karma. Its because writing for a reader is a discipline. It requires techniques I will share with you in this book. Even if youre the only one who ever reads your book, I invite you to treat yourself as your books author first, and its reader second. And whether your book is read by others or not is irrelevant as long as you write it