To write a book about your life you need three things: raw material (memories, photos, old journals), a structure to hang it all on, and a writing routine that gets words down before self-doubt turns up. That's the whole recipe. The rest of this guide is about doing those three things in the right order, because most people who stall don't fail at writing. They fail at starting.

We've spent over a decade at StoryTerrace helping people turn their lives into books, some written by them, most written with a ghostwriter. The steps below are the ones that survive contact with real projects.

In short: gather your material first, decide what the book is really about before you outline, write a messy first draft without editing as you go, then rewrite. Feedback comes near the end, not the start. And if the writing itself is the obstacle, you can hire someone to do that part while the story stays yours.

Why write a book about your life?

Because nobody else can. That sounds like a greeting card, but it's also a practical fact: the details of your life exist in exactly one place, and memory is not a stable archive. Every family has a story that died with someone because nobody wrote it down.

There's also what the writing does to the writer. The novelist Jenni Fagan said of her memoir Ootlin, "this book kept me alive." Not every project carries that weight, but almost everyone we've worked with says some version of the same thing: seeing your life laid out in order changes how you understand it.

And no, you don't need to be famous. Readers took to memoirs by teachers, nurses and shopkeepers precisely because they're not celebrity stories. Ordinary lives, told honestly, are the genre.

Step 1: gather your raw material

Start collecting before you start writing. Photo albums are the best memory trigger we know. Old letters, diaries, school reports, even receipts do the same job. Pamela Anderson said rereading her old journals for her memoir was painful, and that pain is usually a sign you've found the real material.

Talk to people too. Your siblings remember a different childhood than you do. That's not a problem to resolve, it's texture. Interview them the way a journalist would: ask what they remember, then shut up and listen.

One warning from experience: gathering can become a way of not writing. Give it two or three weeks, then stop.

Step 2: decide what the book is actually about

"My whole life" is not a book. It's a filing cabinet.

The books that work are about something: surviving a particular decade, building a business from a market stall, the thread of stubbornness that runs from your grandmother to your daughter. When we start a project, our writers spend the first interview hunting for this thread, because it decides what goes in and, more painfully, what stays out.

A useful test. Finish this sentence in one line: "This is a book about ___." If you need three sentences, you have three books. Pick one.

Step 3: build a loose structure

Chronological order works, and there's no shame in it. Born, grew, struggled, changed, arrived. Readers like time.

But you don't have to start at birth. Some of the best openings drop the reader into the moment everything changed, then circle back. Nelson Mandela opens Long Walk to Freedom with the meaning of his name, which tells you about his family, his village and his fate in a single page.

Keep the outline loose. A list of 20 to 30 scenes on index cards (or a spreadsheet, if that's your temperament) is enough. You will rearrange them later, and that's fine. The outline is scaffolding, not architecture.

Step 4: write the messy first draft

Here's the step where most books die, so let's be blunt about how to survive it.

Write badly on purpose. The first draft's only job is to exist. Fix nothing as you go. If you can't remember a name, type NAME and move on. Momentum beats polish at this stage, every time.

Write in scenes, not summaries. "My father was a difficult man" is a summary. Your father silently returning a gift to the shop, still in its wrapping, is a scene. Scenes are what readers remember. Put yourself back in the room: what could you smell, who said what, what were you wearing. Dialogue helps, and it should sound the way people in your family actually talk, accents and all.

Include the failures. A book with no shortcomings in it isn't a life story, it's a LinkedIn profile. The embarrassing parts are usually where readers lean in, because that's where they recognise themselves.

A steady 500 words a day gets you a full draft in about four months. Slower is fine. Stopping is the only real failure mode.

Step 5: rewrite, because this is where the book gets good

Nobody writes a good first draft. Not you, not professional ghostwriters, nobody. The difference between a manuscript and a book is the rewrite.

Let the draft sit for two weeks before you touch it. Then read the whole thing before changing anything, taking notes as a reader rather than a writer. You're looking for repetition, scenes that go nowhere, chapters that start slow, and facts to check (dates and place names drift more than you'd think).

Then rewrite, and expect to cut. Ten to twenty percent usually goes. It hurts less if you keep a "cuttings" file, and about once per book something from that file earns its way back in.

Step 6: get feedback from people who will tell you the truth

Your spouse will say it's wonderful. Ask them anyway, then also ask the friend who has opinions about everything. Two or three readers is plenty.

Ask them specific questions: where were you bored, what confused you, what did you want more of. "Did you like it?" gets you nothing.

One thing we tell every storyteller: feedback on the writing is not a verdict on the life. Keep those separate and the process stops feeling like judgement.

Step 7: publish it, print it, or both

Decide who the book is for, because that decides everything else.

If it's for family, a short print run of beautifully bound copies is the whole job. Ten books at Christmas will outlast any heirloom you could buy.

If you want the public to read it, self-publishing on Amazon gets you a paperback and ebook worldwide, and you keep control. Traditional publishing is possible for memoirs but slow and selective, and for a first-time author over 50 (most of our storytellers), self-publishing is usually the honest recommendation. Choose photos before you finalise the layout either way; a life story without photographs leaves value on the table.

What if you want the book but not the writing?

Then don't write it. Have it written.

That's not defeat. Most of the memoirs on the bestseller lists were written with professional ghostwriters, and the reason is simple: telling your story out loud to a skilled interviewer is easier, faster and often more honest than facing a blank page alone for a year.

The way it works with us: we match you with a writer whose background fits your story, they interview you over a few sessions, and they turn the recordings into a book in your voice. You approve every chapter. The story stays yours; only the typing changes hands. If you're curious what that costs, we've published our prices, which is rarer in this industry than it should be.

Frequently asked questions

How do I start writing a book about my life?

Don't start with chapter one. Start by collecting material (photos, journals, conversations with family) for a couple of weeks, then write the single scene you remember most vividly. Starting with a scene you can see beats starting with "I was born in..."

Can I write a book about my life if I'm not famous?

Yes, and the market agrees. Memoirs by ordinary people sell because readers want recognition, not celebrity. Fame gets a book attention; honesty is what gets it finished and read.

How long does it take to write a book about your life?

Writing it yourself at 500 words a day, expect 9 to 12 months including rewrites. With a ghostwriter doing the writing, a finished printed book typically takes a few months from first interview, since your time commitment drops to the interviews and review.

What's the difference between a memoir and an autobiography?

An autobiography covers the whole life in order. A memoir zooms in on a theme or period. If you finished the sentence in step 2 with something specific, you're probably writing a memoir, and that's usually the more readable choice.

How do I write a book about my life and get it published?

Finish the manuscript first; publishers and platforms both need a complete book. Then either self-publish (fast, you keep control) or query agents with a proposal (slow, selective). For family legacy books, skip both and go straight to a quality print run.

Want the story without the year of writing? See how it works, or start with a Book Taster to test the water.