Why would it be a struggle?

Every time I sat down at the computer, I perspired. What I have anything of value to write? Would what I wrote have any lasting value to anyone? How could I convey what was in my memory in a convincing way?

I wish my professor had provided me with an easy fill-in-the-blank/true-false/multiple-choice book for my autobiography. At the least, it would have been a great memory stimulator. And at the most, it would have provided me with a pretty complete personal history.

K.I.S.S. or Keep It Simple Stupid

If you’re like me, I’m sure you make things more difficult than they should be. Keeping it simple is especially true when trying to sort through the events of your life. Anything you can do to simplify this difficult autobiography-writing process will greatly increase the chances of finishing your work and leaving behind a worthwhile legacy.

Memorygrabber

Memorygrabber is the ideal tool to ease to writing pain.

Michael Boyter, a family history buff, created Memorygrabber as an improvement on other tools he had encountered over the years. All too often, the tools contained a question followed by pages of blank space for you to write your answer.

I can see why he would want to improve these tools; I would quickly grow bored and frustrated.

So here’s what I like about using Mr. Boyter’s Memorygrabber:

1. He uses many different methods to draw the memories out:
   • Complete the Sentence Exercises
   • Fill In The Blank Methodology
   • Mental “Walk-Throughs” – revisit places from your past: the home you grew up, your high school, your first home, your grandparents home.
   • A Quick-Response Questionnaire – A snapshot of your life right now.
   • Life Timeline Construction
   • A Daily Journal Template – get daily journal ideas and save time.
   • Self-Interview Formatted Questions
   • Online Resources Directory
   • List Creation Drills – favorite ways to relax, first experiences, etc.
2. He suggests different ways to capture your memories:
   • Journal
   • Photo albums
   • Software
   • Video and audio recording
3. He dispels all common excuses for getting started:
   • “I don’t know where to start!”
   • “I’m not a good writer!”
   • “I have nothing interesting to say!”
   • “I’m just a regular Joe. Autobiographies are for celebrities!”
4. Memorygrabber works great for yourself or for others: parents, grandparents, siblings, friends.

Have you ever just sat around the living room reliving memories with your family. I often find myself remembering things I had long since forgotten. Memorygrabber recreates the living room family discussion.

Experience has shown that it works great with parents, yourself, and even children. Even school age kids will enjoy recreating recent memories they have had in school. What a treasure it would be to have these memories stored safely away to be given to them at some time in the future.

Or can you imagine your kids asking what grandma and grandpa were like. Now you can pull out grandma and grandpa’s own memories and recollections.

Life is short. We never know when it’ll be our time. You’ve got interesting stories that your family for generations to come would like to hear or read about. Write your autobiography with Memorygrabber.

Here are some screenshots of some of the pages from Memorygrabber (click on them to enlarge):

Other ideas to get you started:

• How to Start an Autobiography
  
• Autobiography Characteristics
• Benjamin Franklin Autobiography: 7 Reasons He Wrote His Story – This article is especially helpful in determining your own reasons for writing your autobiography.
• If You Don’t Write Your Autobiography, Nobody Will!
• My List of Lists – For me, writing Life Lists has been a powerful memory stimulator.

]]> http://autobiographyworkshop.com/2008/04/04/memorygrabber-fill-in-the-blank-autobiography/feed/ 0 http://autobiographyworkshop.com/2007/07/24/write-for-heavens-sake/ http://autobiographyworkshop.com/2007/07/24/write-for-heavens-sake/#comments Tue, 24 Jul 2007 19:52:41 +0000 Bob Brady http://autobiographyworkshop.com/?p=18 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 you write.

Write.

But what should you write about?

Write about anything:

• The time you forgot your lines just before your cue in your theatrical debut.
• Your first boyfriend or girlfriend.
• Your favorite high school teacher.
• Your best friend.
• Your favorite ice cream flavor.
• The number of times you’ve been in the hospital.
• About your kids.
• Why you prefer Best Foods Mayonnaise to Kraft Mayonnaise.
• How you met your husband.
• What you do for a living.
• Your family vacations

Just start writing. Things will fall into place.

The prospect of writing, unfortunately, paralyzes most people. The way they teach writing in school, with a focus on rules, stifles creativity.

Of course, you have to have rules. Otherwise, all writing would be incoherent. But rules are meant to be broken. The truth is that most writers break rules consistently in their works.

Write as you speak. People often tell me that I write like I speak. This is a good thing because my personality can shine through.

Don’t worry about spelling things correctly. If you’re writing on the computer, the spelling checker will pick up most of your mistakes. If you’re writing in a journal or a piece of paper, just keep writing. If you’re writing ideas that you will transfer to an autobiography later, don’t fret over misspellings. You can catch them later.

At first, you’re just writing for you. Don’t pretend like someone is reading over your shoulder. You will feel inhibited and insecure. Don’t do it.

Writer after writer will tell you that you have to be willing to write a poor first draft. It’s true. The words will flow more freely. You can change things later.

If you’re planning on writing only one draft, who cares. Be you. Put yourself into it. Readers will forgive spelling and grammatical mistakes if they can sense honesty and personality in the writing. This is especially true in an autobiography or other personal writing.

If you go blank, make a list. (I touch more on this in a subsequent article.) Lists are magical.

Lists will give you ideas. Even as you start lists, thoughts will cascade like a waterfall. You won’t struggle for ideas.

Get started. Write now. You can do it.

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 is that there are many different ways to do it – many ways that I hadn’t even though of.

Here’s a list of some of the more exciting ones:

• Tape record your autobiography
• Organize your photo albums
• Keep a personal journal.
• Answer questions online and have your answers compiled into a nicely bound, hardcover book that can be passed on from generation to generation.
• Writing letters to family and friends to collect stories.
• Making a family tree.

Remember, It’s Your Story
The biggest thing to remember when starting your autobiography is that it’s your story. So the way you convey your story should reflect who you are. Be honest. Be honest in describing the experience. Be honest in describing how you felt about what happened.

The Easiest Way to Get Started
My absolute favorite way of autobiography starting is making lists.

That’s right making lists: memory lists, people lists, event lists, etc. This has got to be the simplest and least intimidating way to get started. As you start to make lists, you will notice that the ideas for what to write will come to your mind very quickly.

Your autobiography will come together as you in ways you couldn’t imagine as you build and expand lists.

Sample Autobiographies
And as far as an example of an autobiography…there are tons of these too. If you visit Wikipedia (a great online resource, by the way) you will find an over abundance of sample autobiographies for you to look at.

Take Your Time
Sometimes we think that we should be able to summarize our lives in quick half hour session. Once you know how to start an autobiography, you should allow your autobiography to develop over time. By slowing down, you’ll accomplish a number of things, including:

• Remembering more stories.
• Allowing others to contribute their stories of you.
• Making the whole task less intimidating as you take it one step at a time.
• Allowing for life’s lesson to reveal themselves to you.
• Ensuring that the autobiography you record reflects, accurately, the life that you’ve lived.

Starting an autobiography can be one of the most gratifying experiences. Writing an autobiography gives you a chance to reflect on your life. It gives you an opportunity to change the course of your life, if necessary.

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 include in your autobiography that will make it both personal and meaningful to others.

1. Be Honest
Before you start writing, you need to decide to be honest. This sounds simple, but it’s amazing how easy it is to either embellish the description of events or inaccurately describe your feelings about a given event. Even leaving some things out can be a form of dishonesty. This means that you may have to address things in your autobiography that are painful or awkward for you to address.

2. Find Your Voice
This is a tough one. When I write, I sometimes choose vocabulary that doesn’t sound like me at all. It sounds overly stuffy or cold. It’s tempting to try and sound like someone else. Someone more educated. Or someone funnier. Or less funny. Or…Or…Or…

Don’t fall into the trap of wanting to sound like someone else. Just be yourself!

3. Your Why
You should have a why for writing your autobiography. In his famous autobiography, Benjamin Franklin included, as an introduction, a letter to his son. In the letter Mr. Franklin explains his Why for writing his story.

In his letter, he identified at least 11 reasons:
1. He enjoyed collecting stories about his ancestors. In fact, he sometimes traveled to find the stories he wanted.
2. He thinks that his son (and others) will enjoy reading his autobiography.
3. He wants to tell his rags-to-riches story.
4. He wants to explain how he succeeded and found happiness.
5. He wants to reflect on his life and decide on what he would change.
6. Next to reliving one’s life, recollecting one’s life is the best thing.
7. Make the autobiography “durable.” He wants it to persist.
8. He wants to indulge himself.
9. He wants to satisfy his vanity.
10. He wants to acknowledge the hand of God in his life.
11. He wants to explain that his success can be reversed.

Perhaps one of Benjamin Frankin’s reasons struck a nerve with you. If one did, use it. If not, be sure to find your Why. This is one of the most important of the autobiography characteristics. You’ll need it to work through the slow times.

4. Know Your Audience
While writing an autobiography can be a very personal experience, it’s important to know that unless you destroy your work, someone will probably read it someday. Know this. Think about what you want that person to know. For Benjamin Franklin, he addressed his son. But beyond his son, Benjamin Franklin looked to a much wider audience. And he succeeded. His autobiography is one of the most read autobiographies in the world.

Of course, your autobiography probably won’t be read by millions. But who will read it? Your children? Your grandchildren? Their children? Think about that.

5. Choose a Direction
How have the events in your life led you to where you are in life? Maybe your autobiography will demonstrate how your life was shaped. Or maybe you want your autobiography to just be a collection of stories. There are many directions to choose from – choose one!

Autobiography Characteristics Summarized:

1. Be Honest
2. Find Your Voice
3. Find Your Why
4. Know Your Audience
5. Choose a Direction

If you include these Autobiography Characteristics, you will write a successful autobiography, no matter what final form it takes.

But the museum that left the most lasting impression on me was an
unassuming place called the Independence Living History Center.
Inside the main part of the museum, artifacts unearthed at National
Constitution were arranged on numerous tables for scientists to sift
through. These artifacts represented small clues into the lives of
everyday folks who lived during this great time in American history.

When I asked the guide what they were doing with all of these
relics, he said, “History books are written about people like
Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson. Nobody’s going to write a
book about us. So, we’re left to piece together the histories of
people like us.”

History reconstructed from garbage?

Do you know where a lot of these artifacts were found? They were
found in the colonists’ version of the trash. I don’t know about you,
but I’m sure that I don’t want my history to be reconstructed from
trash.

The truth…

Probably nobody will write a book about me…probably not about
you, either. I don’t like to think that two hundred years from now,
some historian will try to recreate a generalized concept of how I
lived based on a few dirty garbage items recovered at the local
landfill. Do you?

You and I Have a Story Worth Telling

If you’ve lived a life, you’ve created a story. A worthwhile story. A
story worth preserving. A story worth passing on.

Even with a story, the task of recording it frightens even the most
dedicated writer. It’s especially hard trying to do it on your own.

Don’t Be Frightened

Just start writing.

Ideas will come to you.

Believe me – the story you tell will be much more interesting than
the story conveyed by your garbage!

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 in
• Foods I like/dislike
• Children
• Near death experiences
• Churches/Wards attended
• Temple experiences
• TV shows
• Movies
• Internet sites
• School classes
• Wife
• Turning points
• Enemies
• Heroes
• Radio stations
  • Radio personalities
• Hospital visits
• Surgeries
• Broken bones
• Stitches
• Holidays
• Lessons learned in life
  • Marital
  • Family
  • School
  • Business
• Accomplishments
• Changes I’ve noticed in my lifetime
• Hairstyles
• Cars
• Toys
• Beliefs
• Values
• Dating
• Places
• Favorites
  • Food
  • Music
  • Movies
  • Etc.
• Hangout places
• Weekend activities
• Traditions

________________________

Added: (Thanks alejna!)

• childhood fantasies
• other abandoned dreams
• dreams
• nightmares
• fears

________________________

Of course this list is not all inclusive. I’m sure that there are plenty of things I missed. Please comment with ideas or what you think of this list.

Want to learn more:

• How to Start an Autobiography
  
• Autobiography Characteristics
• Benjamin Franklin Autobiography: 7 Reasons He Wrote His Story – This article is especially helpful in determining your own reasons for writing your autobiography.
• If You Don’t Write Your Autobiography, Nobody Will!
• Fill-in-the-blank autobiography – A fantastic tool for getting started.

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 Elementary School
Dana Junior High
Longs Peak Middle School
Hawthorne High School
El Camino College
Brigham Young University

It’s that easy.

But I can even expand those lists so that I would make a list of events, friends, or places associated with any of those schools.

For example:
People from Anza
T.C.
S.A.
P.R.
J.T.
M. and C. T.
K. and S.N.
Ms. H.
Ms. T
Mrs. L.

Just creating the list starts to produce a constant flow of memories.

Ms. T was my second grade teacher. I was the best speller in her class. In fact I was the best speller K-2. I never missed a spelling word. I always won the spelling bees. This was all true until one fateful spelling test.

The whole list consisted of contractions: can’t, don’t, I’m, etc. Number 8 was o’clock. For the first time in my young spelling career, my mind went blank. Finally, I came up with a’clock.

I don’t know if my teacher even looked at my paper. Maybe she just assumed that everything would be spelled correctly. When she returned my test to me, the customary 100% and smiley face appeared at the top. I thought nothing of it, except that I was proud that I had guessed correctly.

My mom always check my work. Proudly I showed her the test. She smiled but it only took a second longer for her to find my mistake.

“You must tell your teacher,” she said.

The tears and chest heaving commenced immediately.

“Do I have to?

“Of course you do.”

At the beginning of the next school day, with my eyes still red and puffy, I walked up to Ms. T to show her her mistake, er, my mistake. I couldn’t even get the first word out before the tears choked off any means of communication.

I managed to squeek out, “I” sniffle, sniffle “made” sniffle, sniffle “a mistake.” Nose wipe, sniffle. I gained a little composure. “I shouldn’t get 100%.” Sniffle. I handed her my test. “I misspelled o’clock.”

This in the time when a teacher could still place a comforting hand on a shoulder. And so Ms. T placed her hand on my shoulder and got down on my level.

“Oh sweetie, you should get a hundred percent for telling me.”

One last sniffle and a smile.

She didn’t give me a hundred percent of course. I learned an important lesson about honesty.

I hadn’t thought about that incident for quite some time. But you can see the power of lists.

Now…
Lists, an autobiography do not make. But they are the best way of starting that I know. The number of lists that you make are limited only by your imagination.

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