Problem: Article: In your memoir, your narrator is you. You will use the first person, “I”, to lead the reader through your story. But it’s important to focus your memoir on specific need or desire. Your want will drive the food forward and make your story worth reading. Think about your desire line, or what motivates your narrator to tell her story. Your narrator will then struggle to achieve her desire line through telling her story and reaching a realization about a pivotal moment in her story.  Try to sum up what your narrator wants in one sentence. For example: I wanted to understand my mother’s decision to move our family to America. Or, I wanted to become healthier after a brief brush with death. Or, I wanted to explore my experiences as an air force pilot in World War II. Be specific in your desire line and avoid vague statements. Your desire line may change as you write your memoir. But its good to have a clear desire in mind before you start writing. Once you have a sense of what desire or want you want to explore in your memoir, you can identify the actions and obstacles your narrator must overcome to achieve the desire line. Obstacles or challenges will give the story stakes and motivate your reader to keep turning the pages of your memoir. You are the driver of the action in your story and a story isn’t very exciting if it doesn’t have any driving action.  Try to write your actions and obstacles in short sentences: To get my desire line, I did this action. But then an obstacle got in my way. So, I did this action to overcome this obstacle. For example: To understand why my mother moved my family to the United States, I tried to track down my mother’s family in Poland. But then I couldn’t locate my mother’s family due to poor records and missing relatives. So I went on a trip to Poland to better understand my mother and her family. Often, writers have a difficult time to determining how to start a story. A memoir can be even more challenging as you might feel you have so many details and scenes you could start with or that feel important. One way to start is to identify the inciting incident in your story and the ending incident. You will need to dramatize your inciting incident and your ending incident in your book.  The inciting incident is the pivotal moment in your story, where you realized your desire line. It could be a seemingly small moment, such as a brief fight with your mother, that becomes a major moment or inciting incident in your story. For example, your brief fight with your mother could be the last time you speak to her before she passes away and leaves you letters about her life in Poland. Think of the ah ha moment in your story when you realized what you wanted in your life, or where you realized you were wrong about your assumptions about a specific moment or event. The ending incident is the moment when you achieve your desire line or want. It will also help you develop an ending for your book. It could be when you discover your mother’s reason for leaving her homeland, for example. Though you are writing a memoir, following the principles of fiction, such as a plot outline, can help give your book form and shape. It can also make it easier for you to organize your research materials in a way that is engaging and interesting for your reader. A story’s plot is what happens in the story and the order it happens in. For there to be a story, something has to move or change. Something or someone goes from point A to point B due to a physical event, a decision, a change in a relationship, or a change in a character or person. Your plot outline should include:  A story goal: The plot of any story is a sequence of events that revolve around an attempt to solve a problem or attain a goal. The story goal is what your narrator wants to achieve or the problem she wants to resolve, or her desire line. The consequence(s): Ask yourself, What disaster will happen if the goal is not achieved? What is my protagonist afraid will happen if she doesn’t achieve the goal or solve the problem? The consequence is the negative situation or event that will result if the goal is not achieved. The combination of goal and consequence creates the main dramatic tension in your plot. It’s what makes the plot meaningful. The requirements: These are what must be accomplished to achieve the goal. Think of it as a checklist of one or more events. As the requirements are met in the course of the novel, the reader will feel the narrator is getting closer to attaining the goal. Requirements create a sense of anticipation in the reader’s mind, as he looks forward to the narrator’s success. Depending on your story, you may feel you need to do in-depth research on a certain subject, like air force pilots in WWII or life in a refugee camp in Poland. However, resist doing too much research before you start your first draft. You may get overwhelmed by the amount of information you come across during your research and start to forget your personal take on the facts. Remember that your memoir should focus on your memory of the event, rather than be purely factual or completely accurate.  You can conduct online research and use libraries, archives and record offices, newspapers, and microfilm.  You may also interview “witnesses to events”. This means individuals who can share first person accounts of an event. You will then need to follow up on leads, interview people, transcribe interviews, and read a lot of material.
Summary: Identify your narrator’s desire line. Determine the key actions and obstacles in your story. Outline the inciting incident and the ending incident. Create a plot outline. Conduct basic research.

In one sentence, describe what the following article is about: Squirrels can jump directly from the branches to your roof. Cut back branches that hang over your roof, along with any that come within 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 m) of your house to help keep them away.  Just trim off enough of the branch that the squirrel can't make the jump anymore. Use a hand saw or pruning shears. Always play it safe when climbing a ladder. Make sure the ladder is sturdy and sitting on a stable surface. If you can, ask someone to hold the ladder while you climb it. If the trim limbs are near power lines, call the power company or a professional to deal with them. Typically, you fit the square metal mesh bottom over the top of your chimney with the cage coming down the sides. Then, you can screw in the 4 screws onto the sides, which will go directly into the tile or stone of your flue. The cap on top and metal mesh on the sides will keep squirrels out.  Squirrels can come in through your fireplace. Pick a cover made of stainless steel mesh. It'll keep the squirrels and other animals out, but you can still use your chimney.  You can find these at home improvement stores. Some require that you screw the metal mesh down into the stone from above. Squirrels can burrow their way into your house through small areas. Go up during the day so you can see sunlight shining through. Fill the holes with metal mesh to block their entry. You can nail or staple the edges into place on the inside or outside of the hole. Be sure to look outside, too. Check under the eaves to see if you can find any holes. Once you cover the areas, add an extra layer of protection by using a repellent. Try one that has capsaicin in it, for instance. This chemical is the one that makes peppers hot, and squirrels don't like it! You can also use predator urine as a deterrent in your yard and around your home. However, this can smell pretty bad, so typically, you'd only use it in your garden, not around your house. You can buy it at home improvement stores.
Summary:
Trim branches that hang close to your roof and chimney. Install a chimney cap if you have a fireplace. Go over your attic space to look for entry points. Spray a repellent around any holes you find.