Many of the questions you had to consider when deciding whether or not to write a personal essay are even more applicable when contemplating whether to write a memoir.

It's one thing to ask someone to read several pages in a journal, tabloid, or magazine in which your personal essay has been published but quite another to ask a person to spend twenty or thirty dollars to buy your book and take the time to read it. Therefore, you must give sober and objective consideration to the question, “Who will be interested enough to read my memoir?”

Naturally, if you have attained a degree of prominence and have significant name recognition, you will likely have an audience eager to purchase your memoir and you'll learn how important this can be. But do not despair if you are not a celebrity, because there still may be a memoir in you.

For one thing, you may have a compelling story to share that can inspire others. Or perhaps you can offer an inside look into an event that you were involved in that captured the national spotlight. Another possibility might be that you have a relationship with someone who is well known and you can write about that.

Benefits to You

Aside from the actual writing process, which can be rewarding and stimulating, there are other factors that make memoir writing a unique experience. It affords you an opportunity of recollecting your past — sometimes the recent past and sometimes a past spanning decades. You'll have the opportunity to recall people and events and the way you felt about them no matter how pleasurable or painful that might be.

Memoir writing can offer a healing experience and you might re-establish relationships that had drifted apart. And of even greater significance, looking back can afford an opportunity to gain insight and wisdom, enabling you to proceed in the future in a new direction.