It seems like right now almost everybody has a story to tell. This is like the Age of Memoirs.

My theory is that post-Watergate we realized that we can't trust the government. Post-911 we feel like we can't really trust the media to know (or tell us) what's really going on either. So who can you trust? Only the personal testimony of credible individuals.

To me that explains the rise of the written memoir, the continued popularity of This American Life, the spread of alternative comedy including Un-Cabaret, live storytelling shows and personal essay reading nights like Say the Word, The Moth, Sit 'n' Spin, Afterbirth, Mortified and others across the country, plus wider trends like blogs, user reviews, tweets and the surge of subjective news like Jon Stewart.

So what about your memoir? If you're interested, I've worked with an number of first-time writers to plan, write and re-write their stories and have developed a simple 5-step plan (which I also think would work for any book project). Here it is:

You have a draft! Woohoo! Maybe you don't hate it. Maybe, even worse, you kind of like it. Because now the problem is: IT'S TOO LONG.

I know. It's painful to cut. You gave birth to your babies and nurtured them. But sometimes some of them have to be sacrificed for the greater good. Some of them have to go or the whole project can't become airborne. Remember, it's not an encyclopedia (unless you are writing an encyclopedia, then disregard this blog.)

In the commentary of Aliens (in this bloggers opinion the release version is one of the best movies ever made), James Cameron tells how they had to lose 20 minutes from his directors cut or the studio couldn't release it.