You and I are alike. My friends have tortured me to do a memoir. In the beginning, I was concerned about my kids and family. My brothers and I were not the average teenagers. My friends have been pushing me to write about my life. For me, I’m used to the craziness of my life, but I wonder if they really know what went on in our family. I too have lots of family and had a strange but successful career, married and divorced. I had a financial practice and wanted to go to at least 75 years. Unfortunately, I have a brain disorder, and I have about 4 years left. I wasted the first two, and am now putting my life together. I hope whoever reads it will be entertained.

The answer to your question is to start anywhere you want! I am 84 and have been writing my memoir stories for several years. We all have those special things we remember … JUST START THERE …. Remember that you can come back any time and fill in the blanks ….. and you will memember more as you write ….. and if you can talk you can write! .. These are your stories told in your words ….. unless you are writing to sell your memoirs, you can be as wordy or terse as you wish …. IF you are writing to sell your stories, then you will need to consider what will interest your intended audience. I have 30+ stories about my time as a runner in high school and college, living on the farm, fishing and crabbing, and college stories. Currently working on a series I call SHORT SHORTS, short subjucts that might grow into longer stories. Email me at j_garten@msn.com for a list and copies of my stories. I collectively call them “Humorous Tales of a Mis-Spent Youth … and Beyond”.

It’s truly inspiring to hear about your memoir journey and your vibrant life at 90! 🌟 It sounds like you’re tackling profound themes, spanning significant life stages and cities, from Boston to D.C. and Chicago.

It’s completely normal to feel satisfied with some chapters and less so with others—that’s a universal part of the writing and revision process. Your dedication to editing, discarding “boring excess,” and always “reaching for something better” is a testament to your commitment to the craft.

It’s also wonderful to hear how your passions—recital piano, portrait painting, and writing—keep your mind so sharp. Your tribute to your late husband and the “chasms” you navigated together is very touching. What an incredible testament to a life fully lived, and still being actively lived! Keep up the amazing work! ✍️🎨🎹

I came across your website looking for “photographic memoirs”. I’m at the beginning of trying to figure this out — how to get started? Can I do it? What do I write about (theme)? Who am I writing for? Do I have the necessary passion to keep it going? People have suggested I need to write this, so I am encouraged to do so.

I was born a “missionary kid” in DR Congo and I grew up there until the age of 14. My first two children were also born in Congo where I was a missionary building school buildings, installing water and solar systems and doing maintenance. I worked 7 years in Uganda mostly as an administrator of a small NGO where we were heavily focused on supporting an interfaith initiative working towards bringing about an end to the conflict with the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army). I worked in Nigeria for 7 years where I was involved with communities building small dams and addressing water issues in the north of the country. In 1994 I was compelled to respond to the Rwanda genocide, relating to people affected by the atrocities. And most recently I spent parts of 2 years learning a completely different people in a different part of the world — Bangladesh.

I have been blessed with a huge range of experiences and exposure to people with a range of faiths, cultures, languages, stories and world views. I have learned so much.

The focus of my life, I believe, has been to make a positive difference in the lives of those who don’t have the same advantages I have as a white male from Canada. This is the story I believed and told myself when I first moved to Congo with my young wife (7 months pregnant). I have embraced this story as the motivation for life decisions over the past decades. But I’m wondering if, by writing this memoir, I can learn other things about myself and what it is that makes me tick.

As a young adult I took up photography so I have thousands of slides organized chronologically into a shelf of binders. As the digital age of photography came into being, I embraced the technology so have thousands of digital images as well. Years ago I scanned in some 1,500 slides left by my parents. All that to say that I have a huge bank of images I can use to illustrate my life.

Just writing this out has been helpful in giving me a push to start figuring this out. If anyone has any advice or responses, they are most welcome!

Hello Kimbley

I just came across your post… a year on so I hope you’ve been able to start writing. Small family traumas are hard to write about so I have no idea how one can describe the kind of suffering you’ve been through.