Nancy is a reader who has long wanted to write a memoir. She is somewhat inspired by her elderly father’s effort to leave a record of his life for her and her siblings in the form of an annotated photo album.

“I don’t know where to start? I have all this in my mind like my brain is going to pop. When I talk about it I get to rambling. How could someone that rambles write a book? How do you organize it? How do I get started? What’s the first thing I need to do? I really want to do this, especially for my father."

I can only answer from my own experience as a writer, each of the questions that Nancy asked concerning her frustration with beginning a book.

Many writers, myself included, write largely because we have a hard time articulating our thoughts verbally. An inability to verbally explain yourself or express your thoughts to your satisfaction may actually be an indication that you are a likely author. Few have been the people who are both good writers and good speakers, George Will being one.

One of the reasons first time authors suffer from ‘writer’s block’ is their impression that they should work from a comprehensive outline. I’ve written over 30 books and only used a comprehensive outline for the history books, and my first book, all four of which were like pulling teeth to write. In fact my one outline changed 27 times!

The most important thing is to start writing, not organizing. That is one reason why the truism that a writer should write ‘what they know’ is so accurate.

To get started begin with the aspect of your subject [your life, your impression of your father] that is eating at you the most, right now. Do not let this scene, event, impression, expand. Keep it small. Perhaps you recall eating hotdogs with your father one particular day. Write that scene keeping in mind that this recounting of your childhood experience is really about Dad.

When you are done writing that scene read it. After reading the scene select a line, a word, a name, whatever brief passage best evokes the essence of the scene in your mind. Extract that passage and write it as the header above your first scene.

Now you have started; from the end, the middle or the beginning. As you write such scenes and title them you will build content by the chapter, to be organized and arranged according to how you come to believe the story should be told. Most professionally written memoirs of combat soldiers begin with the scene that leads into the apex experience of the soldier, then goes back to the beginning and walks the reader forward to that defining moment in the protagonist’s life.

Write the first scene of your story, not caring if it should be the first or last chapter of the book. The act of writing itself will begin to inform your vision of the book.

Just write about something you care about remembering, as if you know that you might wake up tomorrow with memory loss, and writing it now is your only hope of not forgetting.