I just finished a university-level Autobiography Writing course. Tough stuff. At the end of the course, I ended up with 70 pages of recorded personal history. But every single one of those pages was a struggle. And I couldn’t have done it with out prompts from my professor.
Why would it be a struggle?
Every time [...]
Write For Heaven’s Sake!
I have just finished writing three articles on helps for writing an autobiography: Getting Started, Autobiography Characteristics, and the importance of writing your autobiography.
I failed to mention the most important thing: to write.
Just start writing. That’s the most important thing.
Don’t get caught up on the mechanics. Those will come as [...]
All right. So, it looks like you’re serious about how to make an autobiography. Fantastic.
The truth is that there are a lot of websites on how to start an autobiography. Many of them are great. Some are not so great. One really cool thing about trying to figure out how you want to present your [...]
Autobiography Characteristics can be a little difficult to nail down. The best way to think about autobiography characteristics is to figure out what gives your story character.
The number of ways of constructing an autobiography are about as diverse as the number of people who write them. However, there are some simple items that you can [...]
Earlier this year, my family and I traveled Philadelphia to visit the
birthplace of the Constitution. Naturally, the visit inspired us. We
witnessed the long conveyor belts of newly minted coins at the U.S.
Mint; we saw the Liberty Bell’s crack (which, incidentally, was
caused when trying to fix a larger crack); and we walked the
footsteps of the Founding [...]
I thought that a good list to start with would be a list of all of the lists I want to make.
Brilliant, I know.
I brainstormed the following list:
Major events
Life changing events
Perspective changing events
Places lived
Parents
Siblings
Ancestors
School names
Friends
People I’ve known
People who’ve made an impact on me.
Teachers
Teachers comments about me
Stories from school
Kisses
Pets
Songs
Music listened to
Music memories
Vacations
Jobs
Hobbies
Cousins
Musical instruments played
Girlfriends
Crushes
Sports
Clubs
Plays I was [...]
About a year ago, I visited a site (the name escapes me now) that said a good way to start my story was through memory lists.
Memory lists?
Memory lists.
Basically, you think of a category of something that happened in your life: events, high school, friends, family, etc. and make lists.
For example,
Schools I Attended:
Juan de Anza [...]
