Map Your Memoir
Clarify Your Vision
Why create a vision for your memoir?
A memoir, at its most basic, is comprised of scenes that convey a perennial human truth. This is where most writers spend most of their time early on their memoir journey. Of course! They are, after all, writing a story.
But a memoir is comprised of many behind-the-scenes components that are hard to see, much less define, while you’re steeped in the writing process.
By defining these components now, you cultivate a clear vision for your memoir that will deepen your relationship with your story and save you time on your memoir journey.
How will you create your vision?
We’ll use Jennie Nash’s Blueprint for a Memoir to cultivate your vision. Blueprint for a Memoir includes 14 blueprint steps that help you envision the whole of your memoir from different angles and see how all of its pieces fit together into a multifaceted whole.
Once you complete your blueprint, we’ll dig deep, define, and refine each of the components until you come away with a crystal clear vision for your memoir.
The bulk of this digging and crystallizing and refining will happen during a daylong deep-dive clarity intensive, which is explained in more detail below.
Your vision becomes a roadmap that guides you on your memoir journey.
Daylong Deep-Dive Clarity Intensive
Because the Blueprint is composed of many parts that together create a holistic vision for your book, it can be truly magical to devote a day to honing, refining, and crystallizing your vision.
This stretch of focused time enables us to tease out the underlying connections between the different elements of your book. Our insights from one section inevitably deliver ahas about another section. Insights from that section then answer a question we had about yet another section. And so on.
By staying with your blueprint over the course of the day, we’re able to give your vision our undivided attention and hold space for it to deepen and emerge.
This deep-dive intensive is 5 hours long. It is organized into 5 separate zoom calls with breaks scheduled in between. Each call addresses a topic from my high-level feedback on your blueprint. At the end of the day we’ll establish the revisions you’ll make to your blueprint, and we’ll set a date for you to send them to me.
This intensive is about clarity: you will come away seeing your book from a whole new level of depth and breadth.
So, what’s the process? How do we work together?
1. Kick-off Call
We begin with a call in which I review the Map Your Memoir program. If you decide to move forward, I provide you with a link to Blueprint for a Memoir and a copy of the Blueprint Memoir Answer Sheet.
2. Your Deliverables
You complete your Blueprint Answer Sheet and send it to me.
3. My Feedback
I review your blueprint and send it back to you with comments directly on your answer sheet along with a separate high-level summary of my feedback. This high-level summary will guide the structure of our daylong call.
4. Our Daylong Deep-Dive Clarity Intensive
We roll up our sleeves and meet for a daylong deep-dive clarity intensive to talk about your Blueprint and hone your vision. This 5-hour schedule enables us to dive deep into each of the issues your Blueprint raises, address them one by one, make connections, embrace “ahas,” and hone your vision every step of the way.
5. Your Deliverables
You send me your revised blueprint.
6. My Feedback
I review your revised blueprint and send it back to you with comments and a high-level summary.
7. 45-min Coaching Call
We meet for a follow-up call to review your revisions and create a Next Steps plan for you to write your memoir forward.
8. Write Your Memoir Forward!
You take a twirl, breathe in your beautiful vision, and and use your completed blueprint to write your memoir forward with clarity and confidence.
Payment Options
1 Payment
$2500
2 Payments
$1295
Interested in Map Your Memoir? Let’s chat!
Before working with Marilyn, my memoir consisted of pages of files on my computer and even more pages of handwritten entries in my journals. After completing Map Your Memoir, I now see the larger point of my story and know which moments (scenes) from my life work together to make this point. My story is now organized and I have a clear vision to write it forward. I recommend Map Your Memoir with Marilyn very highly!
Fierce in her devotion to my work, Marilyn asks incredible questions to get to the heart of every scene, and she helps me bring my narrator’s emotional truth to the page. In less than a year, I finished the first draft of my memoir. I know how my story begins and where it ends. I understand my protagonist’s inner desires, her obstacles, fears, and her arc of transformation. I will continue to work with Marilyn on my first full-length memoir revision.
Writing alone wasn’t working. Not writing was worse. Finally, I contacted Marilyn. She’s held my shaking hand across the Web, and her gentle nudges have freed the locked up voice inside me. Marilyn is gifted in leading women toward healing and their true self. I’m writing my memoir now. It’s safe. My fear is falling off and my shame dissipating. I believe all women can benefit from working with Marilyn. She will meet you where you’re at and, like a gentle Sherpa, lead you on an expedition that I guarantee will change your life.
Questions you may have…
How will I access materials?
A a Map Your Memoir client, you will have your own personal online classroom where you’ll find a link to Blueprint for a Book, a Blueprint Answer Sheet, your day-long schedule, recordings of our calls, and any other resources I share with you.
Can I write my memoir forward with you after I complete my blueprint?
Yes! I offer an ongoing 1:1 monthly coaching for you to write your memoir forward.
Is there an alternative to the daylong deep-dive?
Yes. Writers at the very beginning of their memoir-journey, writers who have limited time, and writers who like to process and revisit revisions over time can complete their blueprint over the course of 4 deliverable dates.
What's your refund policy?
I do not offer refunds for 1:1 coaching programs.