How to Kick-Start Your Memoir and Find Your Voice by Jennifer Cramer-Miller

How to Kick-Start Your Memoir and Find Your Voice

Jennifer Cramer-Miller

When I started writing my memoir, Incurable Optimist: Living with Illness and Chronic Hope, my story felt like a mountain of clay. How would I carve it into a meaningful sculpture? A daunting task. 

I knew where the story began. Decades earlier, I had lived in a Seattle apartment with my best friend, Lisa. We were both age twenty-two, recent college graduates with new jobs, full of promise, and ready to launch. 

One rainy Saturday morning, I woke up with flat energy and puffy eyes. The following week, a doctor’s visit, and a diagnosis: kidney damage. On the insistence of my worried parents, I returned home to Minneapolis for a biopsy, faced the word “incurable,” and soaked a hospital pillow with tears. Six months later, my kidneys failed, and dialysis treatments kept me alive. 

It was not the outcome I’d hoped for, and I never returned to the apartment Lisa and I shared in Seattle. 

Lisa remained fifteen hundred miles away in the Pacific Northwest, while I clung to survival in the Midwest middle. All the while, I journaled about the medical tornado that spiraled around me. And I longed to lounge on the couch with her, face to face, and tell her all about it. 

Four kidney transplants and two and a half decades later, older, wiser, with a husband and a daughter, I wanted to spill my story on paper so my daughter would know that her existence is a miracle. Plus, I wanted to create a hopeful companion for others that live with illness, uncertainty, and chronic hope. But how would I mold that mountain of clay?

I opened a new file on my computer and stared at a blank page. I yanked old journals from the shelf and rewound through the years. Transported to twenty-two again through scribbles on lined pages, I remembered when I had so much to tell my best friend, Lisa.

Two small words set my course. Dear Lisa. When I started writing a letter to my friend, that mountain of clay dissolved into an easy conversation on the page. 

I didn’t fuss over words or style. When I “spoke” to Lisa, I cleared the hurdles of word paralysis, over-thinking, and premature editing. My words were conversational and authentic. Although I didn’t know I was looking, I found something. My voice.

Voice is to memoir what fashion is to clothing. Consider shirts. It could be a well-worn plaid flannel, a silk blouse with gold buttons, or a frayed edge black Nirvana T-shirt. Each selection communicates differently, right? Take this a step further and tailor your shirt of choice just for you. That’s your voice—a signature style, a custom fit.

Focusing on Lisa, my memoir’s voice became friendly, conspiratorial, confessional, and casual. It navigated me like a GPS to guide my writing journey. This kick-started what became the finished product—85,000 words prompted by a “conversation” with the best friend from whom illness tore me away. 

Sure, there have been edits, cuts, pastes, edits, cuts, pastes, book coaches, editors, cover designers, publisher input, loads of other elements along the way. But despite all the finessing following my deep dive into the story, my voice remained constant. I’m so glad it propelled me across the finish line, because now, Incurable Optimist: Living with Illness and Chronic Hope will appear on bookstore shelves in mid-August.

If you’re staring at a blank page as you kick-start your memoir, ask yourself this, “Who am I talking to?” If your person is a serious professor, a young adult, your mother, an ex, a colleague—whoever it may be—focus on that individual as you spill your words on the page. Because once you determine who you’re talking to, you’ll find the way to say it. 

Let the writing begin.

—

JENNIFER CRAMER-MILLER is a writer, speaker, wellness mentor, and gratitude advocate. Her work is featured in Brevity Blog, The Sunlight Press, Grown & Flown, Mamalode, The Erma Bombeck Blog, The Kindness Blog, The Star Tribune, and Minnesota Physician. She is the 2023-2026 Board Chair for the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) Serving Minnesota, and a contributing writer for the NKF Kidney Stories newsletter. She works as a wellness facilitator (named Joy Scouter) to help others manage uncertainty, move forward with hope, and find some joy. She lives in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her witty, lover-of-golf husband and her waggy, lover-of-treats pup. Learn more at

Website: jennifercramermiller.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifercramermiller/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jennifercramermiller

Incurable Optimist: Living with Illness and Chronic Hope

At twenty-two, Jennifer Cramer-Miller was thrilled with her new job, charming boyfriend, and Seattle apartment. Then she received a devastating autoimmune diagnosis—and suddenly, rather than planning for a bright future, she found herself soaking a hospital pillow with tears and grappling with words like “progressive” and “incurable.”

That day, Cramer-Miller unwillingly crossed over from wellness to chronic illness—from thriving to kidney failure. Her chances of survival hinged upon on the expertise of doctors, the generosity of strangers, and the benevolence of loved ones. But what kind of life would that be?

Spanning two-plus decades, this family love story explores loss and acceptance, moving forward with uncertainty, and forging a path to joy. Four kidney transplants later, Cramer-Miller is here to shine a bright light on people helping people in difficult times with a story that will make you want to hug the humans you love. Because sometimes it’s the sorrows that threaten to pull us apart that ultimately unite us in hope.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing