5 Questions Every Aspiring Memoirist Asks Before They Begin
Before I began even thinking about writing Accidental First Lady, I was enjoying a double-tall latte at a local coffee shop. I hadn’t seen Melanie in months. We were friends brought together because we were both adoptive parents. She was an executive with a local professional sports team, something I admired, a woman leader among a cadre of former Wall Street finance buys fulfilling a childhood dream and filling their bank accounts.
Melanie and I had also served on the board of directors for a local non-profit organization that helps children in the foster care system find forever homes.
It was just weeks after my husband’s re-election to the position of mayor of our city, the fifth largest in Florida. It was not even two years since President Trump had been elected, and the temperature of social burned hot that summer before my husband’s own election, fueled primarily by rhetoric around the recent Charlottesville, Virginia, violence.
Even in St. Pete, a city of about 260,000 at that time, we learned that some believed, in Trump’s words, “there were very fine people on both sides.”
To say that election was stressful was an understatement. The win felt anticlimactic, but I was grateful that my husband had earned another four years, despite the vitriolic opponents who wanted to take him down.
I didn’t even realize that I was still recovering from the stress of trying to keep a smile plastered to my face, my blood pressure at a safe level, and my distress from words hurled at my husband. I was adjusting to post-campaign life and settling back into a long-awaited “new norm,” when Melanie asked me, between sips, across the table, “How do you do this?”
What she meant was how did I live this often-nasty public life while raising kids, sustaining a marriage, working as a public relations manager. After almost two decades as a political spouse, I’d learned how to craft canned responses that I’d give in car line, at the grocery store, in the neighborhood. They weren’t lies, but they satisfied the questioner and allowed me to quickly move on with my day without being roped into a conversation that the questioner wanted to invariably steer toward my husband.
When I gave Melanie my honest answer, she replied, “You should write a book.”
The idea of writing a memoir doesn’t usually arrive like a dramatic knock on the door. There’s no soundtrack swelling in the background. No cinematic lightning bolt of inspiration. More often, it looks like someone standing at the kitchen counter unloading groceries while thinking, “Maybe I should finally write my story.”
And then almost immediately, the questions begin.
Who would want to read this?
Am I really a writer?
What if I start and never finish?
What if my story isn’t important enough?
What if it’s simply too late for me?
I know these questions intimately because I asked them myself before writing my memoir, Accidental First Lady: On the Front Lines (and Behind the Scenes) of Local Politics. And now, after years of teaching memoir writing and walking alongside aspiring authors, I can tell you something with certainty:
These questions are normal, and they’re often a sign that someone cares deeply about telling the truth well.
People who want to write memoirs are usually thoughtful people. Reflective people. People who understand that stories carry weight. And because memoir writing is personal, many aspiring authors hesitate before they ever type the first sentence.
I understand that hesitation.
Writing a memoir asks us to revisit old versions of ourselves. It asks us to examine moments we survived but perhaps never fully processed. It asks us to shape memory into meaning. That’s vulnerable work. Beautiful work. Sometimes painful work.
But it’s also deeply worthwhile.
One of the biggest misconceptions about memoir writing is that you must already see yourself as “a writer” before you begin. I hear this all the time from people who have lived extraordinary lives yet still disqualify themselves because they don’t have formal writing credentials.
Meanwhile, these same people have raised families, built businesses, survived heartbreak, cared for aging parents, reinvented themselves after loss, navigated illness, endured uncertainty, and gathered decades of hard-earned wisdom.
Storytelling is not reserved for literary elites.
Storytelling is profoundly human.
You do not need an English degree to write honestly about your life. You do not need perfect grammar, a fancy writing office, or a social media bio that says “author” before you are allowed to begin.
You simply need a willingness to tell the truth.
Another question aspiring memoirists often ask is whether they can simply learn everything online for free. And technically, yes—you absolutely can find endless information online. YouTube alone could keep someone occupied for the next forty-seven years learning about writing structure, publishing, editing, dialogue, pacing, and storytelling.
But information is rarely the true obstacle.
The obstacle is usually the overwhelm writers feel when attempting to begin their memoirs.
Many aspiring authors become trapped in research mode. They consume information constantly while never actually beginning. They watch videos about memoir writing instead of writing memoirs. They download free resources instead of sitting with their own memories long enough to shape them into scenes.
I think sometimes research feels safer because it postpones vulnerability.
Beginning means facing the blank page. Beginning means admitting you care about this dream. Beginning means risking imperfection.
And that’s why support and structure matter so much.
When I created Make Memoir Magic, I didn’t want it to feel like another pile of information dumped onto already overwhelmed people. I wanted aspiring memoirists to feel guided. Encouraged. Supported. I wanted them to stop feeling alone in the process.
Because memoir writing is not simply an intellectual exercise. It’s emotional work.
Which leads to another fear many aspiring authors carry quietly: “What if I start and don’t finish?”
Oh, this one runs deep.
So many people already have half-filled journals, abandoned documents, or folders labeled something like “Memoir Draft FINAL Real Version.” They carry guilt about unfinished writing projects and begin to believe the problem is a lack of discipline or talent.
But often, the issue is far more human than that.
People stop writing because life interrupts them. Because perfectionism whispers that their writing isn’t good enough. Because they become emotionally overwhelmed revisiting difficult seasons of life. Because they lose momentum without accountability or support.
The middle of any creative project is messy. Memoirs are no exception.
There comes a point in nearly every memoir journey where a writer wonders whether they should continue. This is why community and coaching can become transformative. Sometimes what a writer truly needs is not more information, but someone gently saying, “Keep going. You’re closer than you think.”
And then there is perhaps the deepest question of all:
“How do I know if my story is worth telling?”
This question breaks my heart every single time I hear it because it reveals how many people quietly believe their lives are not meaningful enough to preserve.
Some assume only dramatic stories deserve books. Others believe they must be famous, extraordinary, or publicly accomplished before anyone would care.
But memoir is not always about celebrities. It’s about making meaning out of our life experiences. Writing a memoir implores us to seek what it is about the life experiences we choose to share, when arranged in chapters in a book, conveys the reason why all of these vignettes from our life matter. The reader hopefully understands why they must care about your story and what it means for them.
Some of the most moving stories are not the loudest ones. They are stories about ordinary people navigating love, loss, identity, caregiving, resilience, reinvention, faith, family, grief, healing, and survival.
Human beings connect through shared experience. Often, the memoirs that stay with us longest are the ones that quietly remind us we are not alone.
I also think many aspiring memoirists wonder if they have simply waited too long. Especially women. Especially people over fifty. Especially people who spent decades taking care of everyone else before finally considering their own creative dreams.
But life experience is not a disadvantage in memoir writing. It is an asset.
Perspective deepens storytelling. Wisdom creates nuance. Time helps us understand the meaning behind moments we could not fully process while living through them.
In many ways, memoirs ripen with age. And perhaps that is why so many people eventually feel an ache to preserve their stories—not only for themselves, but for children, grandchildren, loved ones, readers, and future generations.
Stories disappear when we do not tell them. Memories fade. Details vanish. Voices are lost. Memoir writing becomes an act of preservation. And no, it is not too late. Not even close.
If you have been carrying the idea of writing your memoir quietly inside your heart, perhaps this is your reminder that you do not need permission to begin. You do not need to become someone else first. You do not need to wait until you feel fearless.
You simply need to begin.
One memory. One page. One honest sentence at a time.
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HOW TO START WRITING YOUR MEMOIR
1. Make Memoir Magic - my 4-module, 16-lesson, online course. Learn more here.
2. Join my free Facebook Group, Memoir Magic for Aspiring Authors
3. Listen to the Making Memoir Magic Podcast.