Welcome to this intensive 10-day memoir writing course. Each day, you’ll complete structured exercises designed to uncover memories, emotions, and themes from your life. By the end, you’ll have a collection of raw material ready for expansion into a memoir.
Day 1: Perspective and Memory
Exercise 1: Just the Facts
Write a short description of your life as it is now, sticking to factual statements. Then rewrite it with a pessimistic tone, and finally, with an optimistic tone. This will help you see how perspective shapes narrative.
Exercise 2: Enter a Room
Pick a memorable room from your past. Describe every detail, using all five senses. What does the room reveal about you or the people in it?
Day 2: Objects and Language
Exercise 3: Rosebud
Choose a childhood object that holds strong emotional significance. Describe its physical details and explore the memories, people, and emotions connected to it.
Exercise 4: Say What?
List words, phrases, or expressions unique to your family or community. How many do you still use? How do they shape your voice?
Day 3: Place and Belonging
Exercise 5: Tour of the Town
Give a virtual tour of your childhood hometown, starting from your front door. Include weather, sounds, and significant landmarks.
Exercise 6: Going Home
What does “home” mean to you? Describe the place and the feelings it evokes, both good and bad.
Day 4: Self-Perception
Exercise 7: Jolly Johnny
Write down the words people used to describe you as a child. How did those labels shape you?
Exercise 8: Blind Men and an Elephant
Describe yourself from different perspectives: a supermarket cashier, a boss, a child. How do they see you?
Day 5: Secrets and Lies
Exercise 9: Worth Telling?
Write about an event from your life that seems insignificant. Then, explore whether it hints at a larger truth that could be compelling to readers.
Exercise 10: Liar, Liar
Make a list of lies you’ve told, from harmless to serious. What patterns emerge?
Exercise 11: Tell Me a Secret
Write a list of secrets you’ve kept, betrayed, or wish to reveal. What do they say about your life?
Day 6: Patterns and Sensory Memory
Exercise 12: Over and Over Again
Think of an event that happened repeatedly in your life. Write everything you remember and everything you don’t.
Exercise 13: Your Family as Characters
Choose a family member and describe them as if writing a novel. Include their backstory, motivations, and struggles.
Exercise 14: Happy Things
List small, unexpected things that make you happy. Be specific.
Day 7: Food, Rituals, and Celebrations
Exercise 15: Candy
Write about a candy-related memory. Where were you? What did it taste like?
Exercise 16: Fireworks on Hot Summer Nights
Describe a summer carnival or celebration. Identify its deeper themes (loss, fear, joy) and revise accordingly.
Day 8: Conflict and Emotion
Exercise 17: A Said, B Said
Write about a past conflict from one person’s perspective, then rewrite it from another’s. Make both viewpoints compelling.
Exercise 18: Pivotal Events
List key events from a specific year. Organize them chronologically, circle the most important, and highlight the ones that evoke the strongest emotions.
Day 9: Memory and Perspective
Exercise 19: Self, Meet Self
Take an upsetting event from your past and write a conversation between your younger self and an imaginary therapist (also you).
Exercise 20: Shame on Me
List things you are ashamed of that also define you—a lie, a broken promise, an avoided truth.
Day 10: Reflection and Closure
Exercise 21: The Body Knows
Describe a memory through physical sensation—heat, cold, pressure, movement—without stating the emotion.
Exercise 22: While It’s Hot (and Cold)
Write about an incident that just happened, then write about one from six months ago. Compare the differences in tone and clarity.
Exercise 23: Don’t Judge
Describe the worst thing you’ve ever done in a neutral, factual way, without justifying or condemning yourself.
What’s Next?
By completing these exercises, you now have a solid foundation of raw material for your memoir. Read through your work and highlight themes, key moments, and potential narrative arcs. Start piecing them together into longer stories or reflections.
Memoir writing is about making meaning from memory. Keep writing, keep questioning, and keep refining your voice.