Brenda Peterson - Your Life is a Book: How to Craft & Publish Your Memoir

Copyright 2014 by Brenda Peterson and Sarah Jane Freymann All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by Sasquatch Books

Editor: Gary Luke
Project editor: Michelle Hope Anderson
Cover design: Briar Levit
Cover photograph: Lisa Warninger
Interior design: Anna Goldstein
Copy editor: Elizabeth Johnson

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-57061-930-4
eBook ISBN: 978-1-57061-931-1

Sasquatch Books
1904 Third Avenue, Suite 710
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 467-4300
www.sasquatchbooks.com

Brenda Petersons An Authors Guide to Publishing, May 30, 2013, and Occupy the Book, October 26, 2011, were originally published in the Huffington Post and adapted here.

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To the memory of my mother, Nita Florence. The older I get, the more I appreciate her courage and dignity.
SARAH JANE FREYMANN

For my inspiring students, who are also my teachers.
BRENDA PETERSON

Be yourselfeverybody else is taken.
~OSCAR WILDE

With this book, we hope to help you write the best memoir possible from the often confusing, exhilarating, and unexpected raw material of your life. Between usBrenda Peterson and Sarah Jane Freymannwe are writer, memoirist, teacher, and literary agent.

Brenda is the author of more than eighteen books; she has gained insights through a long career as a writing teacher and by publishing two memoirsBuild Me an Ark: A Life with Animals and I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth. Brenda has taught private writing classes in Seattle for two decades and delights in seeing many of her students published.

Sarah Jane is a New York City literary agent who has shepherded books onto best-seller lists, mentored fledgling writers, and helped authors transform their lives through memoir.

We have also taught memoir writing seminars together on the East and West Coasts. From our decades of experience, we can say with absolute certainty that every life is remarkable, rich, and amazing in its own way. But the story of those lives has to be well told if its to yield a book others will want to read. That is the mission of Your Life Is a Book.

Whether youre writing for self-exploration, to leave a legacy, or for publication, well take you on a step-by-step journey from concept to completion. Weve structured this book for accessibility and exploration. is Getting Serious about Publishing. In each chapter, we share with you our knowledge of both how to write memoir and how to bring it to what editors call its brightest light. We also tell real-life stories of other authors whose memoirs have transformed their life and work.

A memoir is like a love story, with all the ecstasies, disappointments, and turning points of any relationship.

At the end of each chapter, we offer writing prompts, as well as practical publishing tips, which will help you decide which audience you want to reach: private or public. For those of you who are intent on publishing your memoir, guides you through the real-world business of traditional and indie publishing.

How you use this book is entirely up to you. Our advice is to read Your Life Is a Book from beginning to end, so you can build your book on the solid ground that it has taken us years to discover. But you may choose to first review the chapter headings and sample the content that interests you most. For example, if you are writing a travel memoir based on a spiritual journey, you might begin with , Spiritual Memoirs. That would give you the foundation for your narrative arc.

You could then read the other chapters to learn such vital elements as characterization, setting, dialogue, and building epiphanies, so the reader can share in your hard-won wisdom. Because thats what a memoir is all about: giving to your readers the pleasures, dramas, and insights from your unique life story. We hope that in this book youll discover how writing your memoir adds another dimension to your life.

Good readers await you. And were with you every step. So begin the work!

A memoir is like a love story, with all the ecstasies, disappointments, and turning points of any relationship. And at the end, you might be surprised to discover that the love of your life isyour life.

Your memoir will open doorways to yourself and the world: to acceptance, awareness, and fulfillment. In memoir, we come home to ourselves and ultimately realize that life makes sense. And with this realization often comes the happiness of true understanding. Memoir is always a search for self, and everyones personal story is rich in drama, relationships, and surprising discoveries. Yet nobody comes to us and says, Im writing a book about myself. Theyll say, This is a search for family roots, my homeland, and lost relatives, or, This book is about surviving illness and finally finding happiness. Those may be the main themes and characters in your story, but ultimately, every memoir has one main themeyour evolution as a person. And one main characteryou. This is the drama that drives the book. The question of a memoir is not just, Who am I? but Who am I in this story?

Often its not what you expect that makes your story remarkable. Perhaps it is your achievements, your travels, or your philosophies. But maybe its something simple and familiar that youve just taken for granted, something hidden in the background that emerges only as you reflect upon your life.

Best-selling memoirist Sy Montgomery, Sarah Janes longtime author, found her life story in her own backyard with an endearing pig named Christopher Hogwood. Sy has traveled the world writing about animalsfrom Amazon pink dolphins to Sumatran tigers, but Sarah Jane finally convinced her to write about life with her charismatic pig. This huge, cheerful Buddha master, taught Sy lessons in self-acceptance, extended family, and the value of community. Christopher Hogwood even taught Sy to be more human. Her memoir, The Good Good Pig, concludes with the understanding that many of us long for: One thing I know for sure: a great soul can appear among us at any time, in the form of any creature. Im keeping my eyes open.

So much of memoir is simply keeping your eyes open. The most engaging memoirs are not facts-on-file records of life dramasbut vivid details of the where and what and how. In the twentieth century, memoir edged out fiction as the most popular literary formand that trend endures into the twenty-first century. Happily, memoir is no longer the exclusive province of celebrities or those whose fame is their sole credential. The fad of publishing just celebrity memoirscelebrity wisdom would fill a very thin volumeis being replaced by what we call the egalitarian memoir. The story of how everyday people survive the loss of a child, an illness, a search for a homeland, or a life-changing romance can be as compelling as a famous persons autobiography. And certainly more authentic. In memoirs, we now turn to our peers to learn better how to live.