Is it time to write your memoir, life story or history?
I'm Kiwi writer, publisher and newspaper owner Charlotte Squire and I'd love to help
I write to you from my other living room - The Dangerous Kitchen cafe, in downtown Tฤkaka. Howโs your memoir feeling today? Honestly, email me back with three words to describe how itโs feeling, Iโd love to know! Iโm in the design stage of two books right now. This is where we take the text …
Continue reading "Preparing for the design stage of your book ๐"
Kia ora, how is your story coming along? You may know by now that Iโm big on letting your first draft be gloriously imperfect, so that you can get on with writing it, without questioning whether itโs good enough. Because usually, itโs more than good enough and itโs a wondrous thing to have written it. …
Kia Ora, Howโs your memoir coming along this week? Whatever stage youโre at with it, just keep going. Last week my 16 year old son Kฤhu headed off on an adventure to the West Coast of the South Island with his dad to sit his restricted licence test. The nerves were high. For my boy, …
Continue reading "Writing about that time you did that hard thing."
Kia ora, how are you? Today Iโm writing to you from my cosy kitchen to encourage you to keep going, keep writing your memoir, life story or family history. Think of the satisfaction of seeing your family reading it in the future, and of knowing youโre leaving them with the facts, and your perspective of …
Kia ora, hello you. Just a short blog tonight, which is fitting for a question that someone on my memoir course asked our guest speaker Gerard Hindmarsh earlier this week: โHow do I know if my story is too long and rambly?โ Actually I may have made the word โramblyโ up. But moving on, here …
Continue reading "9 tips to avoid writing a long and rambling memoir"
Kia ora, hello there ๐๐ผ How are you? And how is your precious story? Last night award winning author Gerard Hindmarsh spoke to members of our Write Your Memoir course and I wanted to pass on something he said that inspired me. He said: โget your blood movingโ before you write. He likes to cut …
I was talking to an avid reader of my newsletters earlier today and she told me about her impressively long (90,000 words, after being edited down) story. She said it was quite dense with text. That got me thinking about something I often use to break up text, in memoirs, and anywhere I want to …
Kia ora ๐๐ผ If youโre new here, welcome! And if youโve been with me for a while, itโs good to be with you again this week. Last week I invited people to share a small snippet of their story, a mere 100 words, so I could share it with others. And they did! Hereโs (slightly …
Kia Ora, hello there lovely, Iโm loving the cosines of winter. Weโve had a few days of rain and itโs been a great time to write, sitting as close as I can get to our impressively real looking fake fire, ha ha! Iโm most productive as a writer in the mornings. How about you? If …
Continue reading "When you write, and 100 words of your story"
Kia ora, If youโre new here, welcome! Iโm Charlotte, I live in Tฤkaka, Golden Bay, top of the South Island of New Zealand, with my family, and Iโve been a writer for decades - journalism, blogging, social media, reports, marketing, books - you name it, Iโve written it! And youโre here to learn how to …
Continue reading "Let’s get back to the basics memoir writer"
If youโd love a lot more support and guidance to write your memoir, life story or family history, join my online course Write Your Memoir (learn about it here) before August 1st to get: Access to my online course Write Your Memoir, which will teach you to write your story One on one support with …
Continue reading "Winter special on my memoir course! โ๏ธ"
Kia Ora, if youโve just joined me, warm welcome from a Tฤkaka writer. This week I want to invite you to take stock of how far youโve come with your memoir. Sometimes celebration is called for. I know some of you are making great headway, youโre persevering, despite some hard days, and youโre writing amazing …
Continue reading "Celebrate how far you’ve come memoir writer"
Did you ever think about writing your history as a fictional story? Meet Gerard Hindmarsh. He calls this โfactionโ - fiction based upon fact. I first met Gerad 20 years ago after I read his book Angelina - From Stromboli to D'Urville Island: a family's story.โ He wrote this story about his grandparents Angelina and …
Continue reading "Gerardโs book โAngelinaโ – where fiction meets factย "
Kia ora from my cosy kitchen, Iโve got curry and rice on the stove and the fake fire ablaze. Howโs that story of yours coming along? Iโm just about to finish a book for a client and weโre working on the cover. Weโve gone back and forth about it quite a few times, and I …
Well hello there dear memoir writer ๐ How are you and how is that story of yours? Yesterday I met with a student on my memoir course, for an online chat to make sure she had everything she needed. She shared a few pages of her story with me and once again I was transported …
Continue reading "Your โnormalโ could be someone elseโs ‘fascinating.โ"
Kia ora, Warm welcome to you if youโre new here, and good to see you if youโve been on this journey with me for a while. Iโve said it before, and Iโll say it again, itโs ok for the first draft of your story to be messy and imperfect. In fact, itโs kind of hard …
