Ancestry Magazine

Five practical principles to help you stay organized and focused while writing the story of your life.

"Grandma, what was life like when you were a little girl?"

When I was a child, I asked that question of my grandmother on more than one occasion and each time her answers astounded me. I could not imagine a place or time that children lived and worked on farms and often did not go to school. I could not fathom the strength and courage my grandmother had to leave her family and friends to come to America, alone, at the age of 15. She merely viewed those events as part of her life, things she did, hardly worth mentioning; but I never would have known about them if I had not asked—she left no other record.

I learned from her that the best stories are about real people who laugh and cry and succeed and fail. Like her life, the story of your life has the power to amaze, to teach, and to inspire future generations. What will you tell your grandchildren about your life? How will you tell them what was important to you?

Audio or videotapes may work, but in years to come, other new technology may make them obsolete. The true answer lies within the pages of a book. The printed word will endure, no matter how far science and technology take us.

In helping others record their life experiences, I have learned some basics that everyone can use as a guide. I have detailed these ideas in my book, From Memories to Manuscript: The Five-Step Method of Writing your Life Story, but in the space allotted here, I will only share some fundamentals and tips to lead you along your path.

Begin by making a true commitment to write your autobiography—your own unique legacy. Schedule time for your project every day, even if only for fifteen or twenty minutes. Writing on a daily basis will help you establish the habit and keep your enthusiasm at a high level—a necessity for a quality product. If you think about your book and work on it every day, you will find you won’t only maintain your creativity, but it will grow. If you are excited about your book, that energy will come through in your writing, and your book will be extraordinary. You may love writing your story so much that you will go on to write other things.

Writing your life story is a big project, but I urge you not to think about it in terms of the whole. You may find it so overwhelming that you will want to give up before you begin. Instead, think of your book in smaller pieces that you can control and hold in your hands. The process I have outlined below will help you do just that.

The actual method of writing your autobiography consists of five steps: Research, Organization, Writing, Editing, and Publishing. If you take each step one at a time, you will amaze yourself at how much you can accomplish.

Research
Let’s begin with research. Perhaps a better word would be "remember." Think back on all the things you have done, places you have gone, people you have known. The memories will come to you in bits and pieces and very much out of sequence, but you will be surprised at how one memory will trigger another and then another. As each memory comes to mind, record it on an index card with a phrase or short sentence. If you can remember a date, add that to the card as well. You will find index cards very convenient because of their portability. You can wrap them with a rubber band so they don’t get lost or separated, and you can rearrange them at will.

Remember that you haven’t lived your life in a vacuum. You have interacted with many people and established some lasting relationships. Some people have influenced you more than others, and you may still maintain some of these friendships while you can’t remember the names of others. Add a card for each person who has influenced your life.

Major historical events have also influenced your life by presenting opportunities or obstacles. They may have been local issues or more significant incidents such as the Great Depression of which very few escaped. Discuss your memories of those times, how you and the people around you reacted, and what you did to survive. Don’t be afraid to record the bad times along with the good—they are all part of life. Your memories may lend a whole new perspective to historians in the future.

Organization
Since you recorded your memories at random, your cards will be in no particular order. Your job at this point is to organize them in some sequence that makes sense. Chronological order is the easiest and most popular way of organizing your cards and if they have dates on them, that will make your job easier.

You can organize by stacking them according to decade or period of your life. Then take each pile and put them in a logical sequence. When you have arranged your cards in the order you want, you’re ready to take your third step—to write.

Writing
Take the top card, typically your first memory, and write about it. Think about the writing style of your favorite author and imitate it. Since we are blessed with five senses—sight, sound, taste, touch and smell—take advantage of each of them by painting a picture through words. Describe the wonderful aroma of bread baking in your mother’s kitchen. Make the reader feel the grease on your hands when you fixed the engine in your car. Give life to the spectacle of the Grand Canyon when you describe your vacation to that magnificent place. Perhaps a particular piece of music had significance for you at a certain time of your life, like your wedding. Write about it and make your reader hear it.

In short, relive your memories as you put them all on paper. Pour your heart out. Let the emotions flow. You will laugh out loud and sometimes you’ll cry, but your reader will laugh and cry with you. When they do, you will have accomplished your goal of taking your reader by the hand and showing them your life.

When you have written about each card, you have completed the first draft of your book. Now, put it away for a week or two—don’t think about it or look at it. Divorce yourself from it emotionally, because in the next step, you’re going to have to view it as objectively as possible.

Editing
At step four, you are ready to edit. Writers always find self-editing to be a problem because we tend to fall in love with our words. After all, if we didn’t like what we wrote, we wouldn’t have written it. You will find mistakes in your first draft that you will want to correct, probably more typographical errors than anything else.

Look for grammatical errors like awkward phrases and boring sentences. Be sure everything flows smoothly from one event to another and from one sentence to another. When you have edited your manuscript, give yourself a pat on the back because you’re on the home stretch. The final step is to publish.

Publishing
Of course I am not suggesting that you submit your book to a publisher. Let’s face it, most of us haven’t led lives that are the stuff of bestsellers. For the most part we aren’t spies and we haven’t led lives of adventure. On the whole, even though we may have had wonderful lives, we are normal, ordinary people. The result of sending our manuscript to a publisher would probably garner a polite, "thank you, but no thank you."

Instead, take your manuscript to your favorite copy shop and make copies. They can help you bind your book in a variety of ways, from simple three-ring binders to perfect-bound books that look like paperbacks. They can even refer you to a bindery that will make one or two leather-bound copies for special gifts. Make copies for your posterity and for the people you love.

Granted, the process will take time and effort, but in the end, you will be able to hold in your hands an incomparable legacy. You will have accomplished something that many dream of, but very few ever achieve. No one can write your story the way you can; no one can give the insight into people and events that you can. And you must, because one day your grandchildren will ask, "What was the world like when you were a child?"

And in answer, you can reach for your book and say, "Let me tell you a story."

Joan R. Neubauer is a freelance writer and the author of From Memories to Manuscript and Dear Diary: The Art and Craft of Writing a Creative Journal. She teaches numerous classes on how to write your life story.