Memoir Foundations
Who we are
Get Ready To Write Your Memoir Or Hybrid Memoir
What is Memoir Foundations?
Your story is how you make sense of your world and how you connect emotionally with others. It is very much about how you create a living legacy and inspire others to know what is possible for them.
This programme is an invitation to find your story, the right story, find the courage to go on and write and publish it and make a difference in your world.
It is not crazy to want to change the world (however that looks to you) and make an impact. Imagine if you could inspire one other person to grow. How would that be? Start now and commit to this journey. Who knows who you will be one year from now?
Memoir Foundations is over eight live workshop sessions and two ask me anything sessions.
You’ll be in a Zoom room with other people feeling the same way that you do – a mix of yikes, am I going to do this and a pinch of what the hell am I doing?
It All Starts With A Plan
If you have ever wondered how to write your story and memoir, this programme is for you. If you have been writing your book for a while and it is now a mess, this is also for you. It will help you get back to basics, untangle what you have already written and put you on the right track.
Start Anyway
So many people don’t write books because of ‘stuff’ in their heads, and if they took the time to plan it, most of the stuff would be dealt with. You will be provided you with some tools and a process to do that. It all becomes so much easier when it is planned and you tackle it in chunks. Think of a chunk like a square of chocolate and savour each one before taking another.
What’s Inside Memoir School?
Week 1: Why This Book, The Memoir Fork & Safety Considerations
What we are doing: We dig beneath your current explanation to find the real heart driving your book. We run the Energy Test to make a firm initial call on whether you are writing a pure memoir (pure story) or a hybrid memoir (story plus teaching). Finally, we build your practical safety protocol to keep you grounded whenever you handle heavy memories.
What you leave with: The real reason you are writing this book now, a working decision on pure memoir vs. hybrid, and a tested emotional safety protocol.
Week 2: Memory Mapping & The Timeline
What we are doing: We review how your safety protocol held up. Then, we map your life onto paper; we’ll use the timeline and turning points exercise to uncover the story and what is beneath the story before translating that map into a straightforward chronological timeline of the story you want to tell. We focus entirely on breadth over depth – looking for known and potentially hidden stories.
What you leave with: A broad visual map of your life and a structured story list containing 30 to 100+ raw entries.
Week 3: The Story Audit
What we are doing: We take your raw story list and audit it. We look at what’s actually on the page: what surprised you, where the blank gaps are, and which entries make your body light up or say “no thanks”. We trim away the dead weight and isolate the “gems”.
What you leave with: A clean, curated list of key moments – stripped of fluff – ready to evaluate for audience and theme.
Week 4: Story, Teaching & Your Reader
What we are doing: Working from your curated list, we explore your core theme and distinguish between your pure story and any teaching you are reaching to include. We define who this book is for, where they are in their life when they pick it up, and what you want the book to do for them.
What you leave with: A clear understanding of your ideal reader, your core theme, and a firm, evidence-backed choice on your book’s direction.
Week 5: Who Were You? (The Arc)
What we are doing: Before shaping the narrative, we examine your past self – the protagonist who lived the story. We identify the false belief they held and the gap between who they were then and who you are now.
What you leave with: A clear understanding of your book’s transformation arc, rooted in who you were before the story changed you.
Week 6: Recognising The Shape
What we are doing: Rather than forcing your life into an artificial template, we identify the natural pattern your narrative already forms (such as a Man in Hole, Quest, or Rebirth).
What you leave with: A recognised structural shape for your narrative that feels like a discovery rather than an invention.
Week 7: Building the Chapter Plan
What we are doing: We reorder your story list according to your narrative shape rather than strict calendar order. We build a physical skeleton of the book that shows where every piece fits.
What you leave with: A working, chapter-by-chapter outline with a realistic estimate of word count and timeline.
Week 8: Defending the Plan
What we are doing: We stress-test your outline chapter by chapter to ensure every scene earns its place. We formally end the planning phase so you can step across the line into drafting.
What you leave with: A brilliant chapter plan, absolute clarity on your next steps, and permission to stop planning and start writing.
What Else?
Ask Me Anything
What It Says On The Tin
These are two final sessions where you can come and ask me anything.
Things You’ll Need To Know
Going in without going under.
When you write about any kind of experience, your body will often sound alarms – you will possibly feel sick, your throat might be stuck, your tummy bloats – name your special bodily reaction. Then your good old mind will tell you other stories – of course it will. So the first thing you learn is how to step into a hard memory, take out the piece of truth you came for, and step back out – before it pulls you down. Small doses with a way back. You’ll build your own way of doing this before you ever write the difficult scene alone.
The secret keepers.
Every family has its rules about what’s not said, and you learned yours a long time ago. Writing your life means facing the fear of being seen, judged, or of breaking those rules – of what your sister will think, of what the dead might say or the plates they may throw at you. We look at the difference between telling the emotional truth and reciting the literal facts, and at how to be faithful to what happened without lighting a fire you can’t put out.
The dump and the book are not the same thing.
There’s writing that empties you out – the 3am spill into your journal that heals something just by being written and giving your body some reason to exhale. And there’s writing that reaches another human being. You need both, and they’re not the same thing. Foundations is where you learn to tell which one you’re doing, so the healing happens, and a reader can find their way in.
You won’t leave with a finished memoir. Nobody can give you that in ten weeks, and anyone who says otherwise is selling you something unreal. What you’ll have is a plan you can actually write from.
Is This For You?
If you love live workshops and bouncing ideas around with others – then that’s one hurdle jumped.
If you have a story, many stories or any kind of desire to find the story you want to share – then yes.
Memoir and the process I share takes you on a reflective journey, which aims to help you feel confident about the story you want to write. You will not just be going through the mechanics of designing an ordinary book. Instead, you are coming with me on a magical carpet ride through your life to find the one slice of life to share.
When you hold the physical book in your hands, you are no longer the one the story happened to – you are the author of it.
