1. Remember that your life is really not all that interesting. It's your take on it that’s compelling.


2. The more specific you can be, the more universal your writing becomes.


3. Don't make your memoir about you, make it about us.


4. Sharpen your focus on a series of events that are interconnected and go back and weed out the things that don't fit. Don't throw the weeds away, however. Save them as fodder for your next book.

Stephen M. Vest, editor of Kentucky Monthly, is author of the memoir Unexpected Inheritance (Butler Books 2014).