You Retired Here With a Life Behind You
Pinellas County is full of people who did something substantial somewhere else and then moved here, and almost none of them have written it down. The reasons are always the same three, and all three are wrong.
Tag: Writing a Memoir
Everyone has a story worth saving, and most people wait too long to write it down. These posts are for anyone who wants to write a memoir — where to start, how to structure a life into a book, formats to choose from, and why the time to capture your story is now, before the witnesses are gone.
griefBehind the Book: Buttercup
I spent almost twenty years unable to write about my marriage to Claudia. The book only worked once I stopped telling it and let Buttercup, our cat, tell it instead.
Authority Through AuthorshipTen Skilled Trades Where the Knowledge Is Dying in This Generation
Skilled trades hold knowledge that does not move through textbooks, certifications, or YouTube, the kind that takes thirty years of apprenticeship to build and dies in a single generation when the master retires silent. Here are ten trades, master electricians,…
Authority Through AuthorshipThe Veterinarian Book Nobody Has Written Yet
Veterinarians hold an authority almost no other profession does, because they are the last person in the room when an animal dies and the first on call when one is sick. The right book is not a pet-care manual; it…
Authority Through AuthorshipIf You’re a Veteran and You’ve Been Meaning to Write Your Memoir
If you are a veteran, especially Vietnam- or Korea-era, the window for your memoir is closing faster than you think. Once you are gone, your children get fragments and your grandchildren get less than that. The memoir is what survives,…
AI vs Human GhostwritingThe 71-Year-Old Memoirist Who Uses AI Better Than You Do
A 71-year-old writing his memoir uses AI better than most professionals half his age, to find the gaps in his draft, to refocus when he loses the thread, to leave his ghostwriter notes on what to tackle next, and never…
DefamationThe Revenge Memoir: Who Shouldn’t Write One
A revenge memoir is a bad idea for the writer and a worse one for the ghostwriter. I once turned down a former mob informant who wanted to name names and settle scores, then promised to keep my role secret,…
ADHDCatastrophizing and Writers: A Personal Account
A client goes quiet for two days and my brain writes the entire catastrophe: he hated the chapter, he is firing me, the refund, the career-ending review. From he hasn't emailed to professional ruin in under an hour. If that…
FamilyWriting Christmas: How to Capture Holidays on the Page
Christmas is brutally hard to write, because its cultural weight pulls you toward generic warmth, the lights, the cookies, the sentiment every reader has heard a thousand times and feels nothing for. The fix is specificity: not Christmas in general…
DefamationHow to Capture Your Life in a Memoir Readers Will Love
The hardest part of a memoir is never the prose; it is the people, the parent, the ex, the business partner whose presence the story needs and whose inclusion creates a problem no amount of craft can fully solve. All…
Book SalesWhy Successful People Need Memoirs
Roger Enrico ran Pepsi during the Cola Wars and signed the biggest celebrity endorsement of its era, then wrote a memoir that defined the story instead of just telling it. That is the power these books hold. Here is why…
Book ProposalHow to Organize Decades of Memories Into a Memoir
Decades of experience only become a readable memoir with structure. How to choose an organizing principle, decide what stays, and shape raw memory into a book someone wants to read.