I was preparing 700 stuffed cherry tomatoes for a catering job one night when a publisher phoned asking if I would consider authoring a book about my cooking school, which had just been written up in USA Today. Of course I said yes — who wouldn't?

I didn't tell the publisher I knew nothing about organizing a book manuscript.

That was the early 1980s, when authors worked under the careful counsel and coaching of editors at publishing houses.

Standard practice changed in the 1990s, houses shrank their staffs, and I was still authoring books.

I suddenly found myself completely at sea: my first contract for a memoir in hand, and no help with how to structure it.

Read the entire article at A View from the Loft.

Mary Carroll Moore is the author of 13 published books in three genres, including the PEN/Faulkner Award–nominated novel "Qualities of Light" and the 2011 release "Your Book Starts Here: How to Create, Craft, and Sell Your First Novel, Memoir, or Nonfiction Book."