Marriage Memoir by Ron and Crystal Meinstein

As a writer, in December, I always take a look at my progress during the year.  Many writers get depressed in December, especially at the end of the month, if they did not get published or accomplish very much during the year.  I am not an exception to this problem.

This year I did send out some of my short stories and they were rejected.  I still want to send them to other publications, but haven’t done it yet.  Possibly, I will send some of my writing out this month.  We did put together a proposal of more than 30 pages, together with a cover letter and sample chapters, and send it to a publisher that we like.  Hopefully, we will be moving forward with this publisher. If not, I will be sending it out next year to agents and other small publishers.  I consider putting the proposal together to be a major accomplishment which took months to do.  Actually, I have been working toward writing a proposal for our memoir for more than a year. I have learned a great deal from books, webinars, magazine articles, and online articles.  I give credit to Brooke Warner’s book about Selling your Memoir and the National Association of Memoir Writers.  I have learned so much from this wonderful organization and am still learning from them.  They are very supportive of writers with their webinars and articles. The organization is helpful to writers of essays, articles, short stories and novels as well.

Many memoir writers write other types of writing.  The publishing industry is so complicated.  There are more opportunities to get published – like this blog that we write every so many weeks or so.  I also give credit to Shewrites.com., Writers Digest Magazine and website, and Poets and Writers Magazine and website  I have learned a lot from Shewrites.com and when we get a contract, I will be able to put some of our memoir on their website.  Over 22,000 writers from all 50 states and many countries are members of Shewrites.com.  It is amazing.  I am connecting with some of the other writers on that site.

I belong to the Write-on Writers organization that meets in the basement of the Coshocton Public Library.  We had a wonderful workshop in October and the speakers were all members of our group.  It was a very informative and successful workshop.  We are having one next year in October.  I gave a talk about publishing today.  I made posters to go along with my presentation and also brought some books with me that have been published.  This presentation may become a class that I could teach at libraries and for writing groups.

This year I also read and am reading many memoirs, novels, articles, etc.  Reading memoirs and biographies helps you to grow in your own life.  It is so personal and yet the themes in these books are universal.  I am really glad that memoirs are being written today.  It is a very popular genre.  Our memoir covers our childhoods, our courtship and our wedding.  I could write several more books about the 36 years that we have been married.  I am considering writing about the ten years we lived in Indiana.  Many significant events happened in those years. There were many hard times and some very good times.  God helped us get through them

So if you are a writer, don’t be too hard on yourself if you haven’t been published or accomplished your goals this year.  We can be our own worse critics.

I am disappointed that my writing did not get published this year, but I have hope and determination which I will use next year.  I did write several blogs this year.  I hope you have enjoyed them. I enjoyed writing them.  Maybe we will be compiling some of our blogs and putting them into book form next year.  There are many possibilities. “Tomorrow is another day.” (Scarlett O’Hara said this over and over again in Gone with the Wind.)

My wife and co-author chilling after one of our walks.