I've been a ghostwriter since 2008 and have written 26 books for clients, and I've coached dozens of people how to structure, write, publish, and market their books.

All that said, a memoir is VERY different from fiction or non-fiction (informational NF, anyway).

How I've taught (and was taught) memoirs is:

1. Choose your themes. What really matters most to communicate to your reader? (In this case, your son.) What do you want him to walk away with and remember?

• do you want to focus on a pivotal experience in your life?

• do you want it to be more autobiographical where you write about your whole life?

There are no wrong answers.

(For example, if I were writing a memoir, I might want to highlight overcoming addiction or being a single parent or creating on my own terms. Those actually link together pretty well, though, but let's pretend they're wildly unconnected.)

1. Brain dump stories about whatever you chose (or make a timeline of your life if autobiographical).

You can use Notion and it'd be really easy, but I've always used Scrivener since I like the software and had been using it since it came out.

Either way, make sure you have a system to document and keep track of things.

1. Decide how you want to tell the stories.

Chronological order? Past and future?

1. Organize the stories however you chose.

I'm weird and like to buy a huge stack of index cards, write out a story description on one side and notes on the other (what happened, what I learned, what changed, etc.). Then I like to reorder the index cards til I'm happy. It's really visual and easy to move things around.

1. Write.

There are lots of little things I didn't include because it'd be way too long (it always is), but don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions :)