Last year in preparing to write my memoir about adopting three kids from Poland, I checked out five books from the library. They were all on how to write nonfiction. I’d written and published a few short memoir pieces before, but I was unsure how to approach a full-length memoir. Unfortunately, these books didn’t teach me what I was looking for. They had lots of good advice on technique and how valid my story was. But I wasn’t looking for that. I was looking for how not to be overwhelmed.