Writing Your Life Story

I have noticed something about human nature. We tend to not get started on a project because in our mind, the project is way too huge.

"I'm not keeping a record of my life for future generations I am writing my autobiography. Who has time for that?!?" we hear ourselves thinking.

Unless you plan to have your work published, RELAX!

Some of us have very interesting stories to tell, and we should actually write a book about them. All of us probably have at least one story about our lives, that at the very least, could be made into a short story. But becoming a published author is a whole other aspect of writing your life story. Just recording your thoughts about your day each evening before you go to bed will be a valuable keepsake for your children and their children and . . .

Just so you will know, though, here are the definitions of the words memoir, autobiography, and journal.

• Memoir--a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation



• Autobiography--a history of a person's life written or told by that person



• Journal--a daily record, as of occurrences, experiences, or observations

So, as you can see, all it really takes to write your life story is to pay attention to what happens to you and to write it down!

You have time for that.

Honestly, 75 years from now, when your great-great grandchild is researching her family tree she will be thrilled to find any information on you.

Finding actual stories of your day to day life will be like uncovering a gold mine!

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

• Write about your favorite things


• Write about what your daily, weekly, and monthly schedule looks like


• Write about special family celebrations


• Write about what your home looks like

Write about the ordinary things, the extraordinary things, and the unusual things that happen to you everyday.

All of these writings put together will sparkle like diamonds to your descendants.

When many young girls start keeping a journal of some kind they often begin with the words, "Dear Diary . . ." Some people may write in the from of letters to their spouse or to their children. One easy way to write is to JUST write!

"Friday, July 8, 2007
I had forgotten what fun it is to get out of town for the day just to play! K, A, H, L and I went north to play in a river. We got dirty and muddy and then we got rained on! It was very refreshing!

Oh, and the next time I go on a picnic I MUST remember to pack a can opener!"

Not great writing, not even a lot of detail, but a year or two or ten or fifty years from now that little snippet will give someone a small glimpse of my life.

You don't need to address your writing to anyone in particular. Don't get so caught up in the details that you don't begin. Just start writing--the rest, will someday be history.

When I was in grade school the only subject that kept me from getting straight "A's" was Penmanship! I am left handed and somehow correctly formed letters and I just don't mesh.

However, although I can use a word proccessing program to keep my journal, and it will be readable to future generations that way, there are a few caveats to consider:

• Be sure to periodically print out the pages of your writings onto acid free paper and store them in an acid free folder or notebook. The computers in the 22nd Century may not have the ability to read a file created in Microsoft Word 2000, but a well-preserved hard copy will still be readable in any century.


• Be sure to back up your files! It would be very sad to lose all your writings to a computer crash.


• If you consistently mispell certain words, consider leaving them mispelled in your writing. While a spell check program can make your writing error free and grammatically correct it doesn't tell future readers about those little quirks we all seem to have.


• If you can't bear to leave your mistakes uncorrected you may want to write a journal entry entitled "Words I Frequently Misspell."


• Your handwriting tells a lot about you. Occasionally add a handwritten page to your journal so that future readers will be able to see that side of you.


• Every year, maybe on your birthday or New Year's Day, sign your signature in your journal. The painstaking formation of letters you practiced as a third grader will have drastically changed by the time you are fifty. Having a record of those changes will be fun.

Include dialogue in your journal entries!

You may not remember every conversation word for word, but you can get the general idea of what was said.

Especially when recording conversations involving children you may want to write them down as soon as possible. Kids sometimes say the cutest, funniest, most thought-provoking things and remembering them exactly as they were said adds so much to your writing.

Carry a small notebook with you in a pocket or a purse or use a digital voice recorder to capture those thoughts before they get away.

We all have people in our lives that we aren't proud of. Maybe we even try to hide from them! So should we include them in our life story?

I say, if they are a part of your life, they should at least be mentioned in your writings.

You don't have to go on and on about them. You don't have to paint a rosy picture of them. Just be honest.

BUT be careful. Yes, they may have their faults, but they are still people. If yu wouldn't want something written about you for future generations to see (even it it were true) perhaps you shouldn't write the same about them.

Sometime in the future one of your great, great . . . grandchildren will want to research their family's roots. They will be looking for birth records, death records, gravesites, medical records, and all the other facts and figures that give a family history bones (no pun intended. :-)

While it is possible to find much of this information and the advent of the Internet has made it even easier, wouldn't it be wonderful if they came across your record of Just the Facts.

Adding stories to your life story is important. Your descendants will want to know who you were. But they will need to know where you fit into the family tree also.

Include of section in your journal to record births, deaths, and marriages. But make this record personal.

Instead of JUST writing:

Jocelyn Grace Smith
March 12, 1992
Chicago, Illnois

and then moving on to the next fact, try writing something like this:

Jocelyn Grace Smith
March 12, 1992; 4:43 a.m.
Chicago, Illnois, Memorial Hospital
7 lbs 5 oz; 19 1/2 in.
black hair, blue eyes
She has her mom's eyes, her dad's nose, and sucks her thumb.
It was raining the day she was born.
Mom labored for only 3 hours and 45 minutes. There were no complications. Mom and baby were home and resting comfortably the next afternoon.