Kia Ora from wintery Tākaka.
This is perfect writing weather! I’ve been cosying up beside my slumbering dog and a heater all morning, working.
As you may know, writing your memoir takes time and focus. How long does it take? Well that depends. I’ve worked on books ranging from 10,000 to over 100,000 words. The longer your word count, the more detail you’ll include, and the more time it’ll take to write and edit.
At some stage, probably once you’ve written your first draft, it’s good to share your story with others to get their feedback.
You can get specific about the kind of feedback you want. You might ask people to tell you if any parts confuse them, or if they see obvious mistakes, or if parts don’t work for them (and why not) or what they enjoy the most.
During my journo days I’d allow people to check articles for ‘accuracy’ but ‘not style.’ We want your voice to shine through, and we want the info to be as accurate as possible.
A really great personality type to invite to look over your draft are those detail oriented people who notice mistakes every time they read a newspaper! If you’ve got one of those in your life, put them to work on your story! I’ve got a few of them on my book production team and they are GOLD.
While writing your story can be a solitary journey, you definitely need the outside perspective of another human (or five) because they’ll spot things that you won’t notice. They might each pick up on different things, but maybe there will be a common thread emerging from their feedback. And you can take their advice with a ‘grain of salt,’ actioning the feedback you value, and bypassing feedback you don’t agree with. After all, this is your story.
Keep writing dear one,
Charlotte x
PS and if you’d like some help with feedback, join my online course Write Your Memoir in time for our monthly meetup, Friday June 27. Our theme will be notable characters. I’ll invite students to share half a page of writing about a significant person in their story. We meet monthly to share work as a group, plus if you join this month I’ll read 10 pages of your story and give you my own feedback on areas I think are working, others that I think you could strengthen.
Charlotte Squire 