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The Book of Irwin Gould is a memoir of survival, faith, and Hollywood success, offering an intimate look at a life built on big dreams and bigger challenges.
The power of this story doesn’t just come from what happened, but from how it is told. The author understands a crucial secret: taking time or holding your horses is key. He does not rush and lets each moment breathe. This careful speed, or pacing, is what transforms a list of events into a story that touches hearts and changes minds.
Writing your life story is not a race. Life is not a race. Life is a journey. Thus, good pacing means knowing when to slow down for the important scenes and when to move quickly past less important times.
Mastery, therefore, requires patience and self-restraint.
For anyone wanting to share their story, learning this skill is the key to making it powerful.
What is Pacing, and Why Does It Feel Hard?
Pacing is the speed of your story: how long you linger on a scene and how much you let the words simmer.
In a memoir, a quicker pace moves the reader too swiftly through time. In his memoirs, Irwin Gould writes about years passing in just a few sentences: an example, “I kept working hard and the time just flew by.”
This is useful for covering long periods without getting stuck.
Slow pacing helps cover the moments, especially the big ones, taking time to describe a place, a feeling, or a conversation in detail.
When Irwin describes almost dying in Hurricane Hugo, he slows way down, so we feel the wind, hear the glass break, and share his fear as the roof lifts off.
The hard part is managing impulses. When you write your story, you have the urge to include everything, rushing in to get to the “good parts” or to skip over painful memories.
Good pacing means fighting that urge and having the self-restraint to spend five pages on one life-changing afternoon and only one paragraph on five quiet years.
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Learning to Wait for the Payoff
Hollywood loves a “big break” story. In a poorly paced memoir, the author might jump straight to the success. But Irwin’s story shows the value of learning to wait in his own path and in his writing.
His path to the Bad Boys II set was not straight. He shows us the years of getting “no” while in New York. We feel the rejection as much as he did.
“I left the audition feeling hopeful, but still unsure… Would I experience the same rejection I experienced in New York?”
When he finally books that brownie commercial, the joy is real because we waited for it with him. We saw the work that led to it. He then uses that success to fuel the next step, buying professional headshots. This shows a progression, not a sudden leap.
This is the heart of good pacing, showing the fight and building desire in the reader.
When his big chance finally comes—when Michael Bay himself asks him to audition—it feels earned.
“I can only attribute this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity… to being in the right place at the right time,” he writes.
But the reader knows he was in the right place because of years of holding his horses to try, fail, and try again.
Managing Impulses in the Telling
A memoir is more than just the past. It is also about the person looking back. A great writer manages impulses by not letting the “now” voice overwhelm the “then” story. Irwin does this masterfully.
He shares lessons, but he lets the stories teach them first.
For instance, he doesn’t just tell us, “My strict upbringing had value.” Instead, he first gives us the detailed, painful scenes of discipline. Then, much later, he reflects: “I must admit this publicly for the first time… I have lived to see the value of my strict upbringing. I have never been arrested and have always worked hard…” The lesson lands because we experienced the journey that led him to that conclusion.
He also practices delay when talking about faith. His belief in God is a constant thread, but he doesn’t preach. He shows us his grandmother’s faithful life. He shows us himself praying for guidance. He shows us moments he calls miracles. The faith is woven into the action. He lets the reader connect the dots. This restraint makes his spiritual message stronger and more accessible to all readers.
Slowing Down to See the Signs
In his second book, Bubbles and Sudz, Plus, Irwin talks a lot about “signs,” finding meaning even in money on the ground, in watching hawks, and in conversations with clients.
Writing about these moments requires a special kind of slowing down, where the author has to stop and say, “This small thing mattered.”
“I put the items on the counter… In doing that, I saw money on the floor… it was one hundred dollars! Was this a miracle? Had I gotten a sign?”
By pausing on this small, strange event, he does two things. He shows us how his mind works—always looking for guidance. And he invites us to look for small wonders in our own lives as well.
This technique adds a rich layer to a memoir, giving it the texture of daily life, and taking time to include these “small miracles” makes the story feel more true and deeply human.
It shows a life being lived with awareness, not just rushed through.
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Holding Your Horses for the Story
If you are writing your own story, remember to hold your horses. Your painful moments deserve a pause. Your small joys deserve a mention. Your long struggles deserve to be shown. Learning to wait as you write will help your reader wait with you, breathless for what comes next. Managing impulses to skip or gloss over will create a story that feels honest and complete.
Holding your horses is not a waste of time. It is the very thing that gives your memories their power. As Irwin learned on his long path, the journey itself—with all its stops, delays, and slow, scenic routes—is where the true story is found.
Ready to experience a perfectly paced journey of resilience and triumph?
