How Thoughtful Creative Writing Can Actually Help Save Precious Memories
Creative writing has many benefits, but often it can be intimidating to start.
One way to dive into creative writing is through documenting your memories.
Remembering and writing life moments that might otherwise disappear. You don’t have to start with make-believe stories if that feels too difficult. You can write about your life, loves and experiences. In doing so, you can treasure them forever. Even passing them on to family as your legacy. You never know, it might even inspire fiction along the way too.
Why Should You Write Your Precious Memories Down On Paper?
There are lots of benefits to writing down your memories and life moments. Most importantly you are saving your stories. Often when we hold on to memories mentally, we lose the details. The colours, and the experience dull after time. The full emotional force of the experience disappears. However, thoughtful, creative writing saves precious memories.
Other benefits include:
Finding clarity and truth within your life. Sometimes life is more clear when it’s out in front of us on the page. We can work through ideas and move things around when we aren’t carrying them in our heads.
Bringing closure and healing. Writing about your life helps bring closure to events. It allows you to (literally) put a full stop after them.
Finding value and meaning. Your life has so much meaning and purpose; sometimes, we don’t realise what we’ve achieved unless we write it down.
It's rewarding. Writing about your life can be so rewarding. You can look back and see the things you’ve achieved with a new perspective.
Preserving your family history. You are saving your stories and special memories to share with generations to come.
Rediscovering elements of your life. The journey of discovery will surprise you. Memories you thought lost will reemerge.
Document Your Life
I’m passionate about documenting our lives through stories. It’s a gift we can pass to our families but more than that; it allows us to appreciate and be grateful for what we have. We can almost see time passing when we write about it. I’m so passionate about this, I even wrote a book about it.
Writing helps save your memories, but why not take it a step further and go from memories to writing a whole memoir?
Have You Considered Writing Your Memoir?
The word memoir is French in origin, it comes from the word memory or reminisce. Which sounds beautiful! What better way to remember your life and save memories, than reflecting on the past?
What Is A Memoir?
The dictionary tells us a memoir is:
“A written record of a person’s knowledge of events or of a person’s own experiences.”
There are a few conventions that you need to follow in your writing to make it a memoir.
Your memoir must be true. Memoirs are always 100% truthful, they are not based on true events; it is the telling of true events. This is critical, as readers of memoirs expect the truth. Sometimes real life is even more interesting than fiction, anyway!
Your memoir should tell a story. In the same way as a fiction book, it needs a narrative. A memoir isn’t only a statement of facts, it’s a story. In our Memories to Memoir course, we look at literary techniques to help you tell the story.
Your memoir must show change. A reader wants to see a journey of transformation, to see how you’ve changed because of the story you are telling. It could be simple or complex, but it must show change.
You may base your memoir on a theme, a set time, or a specific event. Whilst memoirs are a story, they are not a full story. They are usually focused on one event from your life. Or a recurring theme and that’s one of their defining factors. It might be your school years. It might be a job you had. You could base it on the theme of love and share all the great love stories of your life. But narrow it down to one of these themes or time frames. Otherwise, it would be an autobiography and not a memoir.
Is It Time To Tell Your Story?
You are unique, your view of life, your experiences, they will never come again. Writing a memoir is your chance to tell your version of events. To tell your story. To make your mark.
We would love to help you do this with our Memories to Memoir course. We cover all the details of what makes your creative writing a memoir and much more in the course.
Creative writing can help you find clarity, closure, and healing.
It deepens a sense of gratitude about your past life. It preserves your past, and it creates a legacy for the future.
So you can see that reflecting on your life has many benefits. But most of all thoughtful, creative writing can actually help save precious memories, and that has to be worth the effort of starting.
Memories to Memoir Course
You have a story to tell. It’s time to bring it to the page. Our Memories to Memoirs course is perfect for those looking to start documenting their life through written stories. This introductory online course will give you an insight into life writing and you’ll be bursting with ideas ready to start your memoir.
This is an online course delivered live via Zoom.
Memories To Memoir Creative Writing Course Derbyshire
