Life Story Tips: Make Time to Write
I would like to write about my life, but I am so busy; how do I find the time?
Do you like coffee, tea or soda? Sit down with a favorite drink for ten minutes, and you will be surprised at how much you can write.
On your first day, spend your ten minutes making a list of possible subjects, themes or stories. Here are some ideas: how I met my spouse, my wedding, my favorite subjects in school or how I learned to drive.
On succeeding days, just choose a topic from your list. If you want to, just close your eyes and point to something on the list. Any subject is fine.
Pick up your pen or put your fingers on the keyboard and let the words flow. Forget about composing, or topic sentences or any of the other stuff you had to do in school. Keep your hand moving. If you wander off the topic, just go where memory takes you. This is a great way to unearth some wonderful details.
Ten minutes a day, and your story will unfold.
Do I have to give up everything else if I want to write my life story? Do I have to give up my painting and golf?
Not at all. In fact, those activities add to the richness of your writing because you can create contrasts, comparisons, and metaphors from your other activities. Just as you don't give up everything else in your life to play golf or to paint, you don't have to give up anything at all to write about your life. You are adding to—not taking away from.
I usually tell people they easily can create a written body of work by writing for a minimum of ten minutes a day. And that is true. It works. I have your letters and e-mails telling me it works. However, you can adapt the method you use for playing golf. You might play a four-hour round of golf once a week. In between, you might go to the driving range or practice your putting. Likewise, you could set aside an afternoon a week to write. Or, if you do your art an hour every day, you could set aside an hour for your writing.
Yes, I can hear you. "But I don't have an extra hour," you say. Or, "I can sit around writing all afternoon."
Our writing friend, Betty Swisher, said it well. "If you are going to write your life story, you have to get serious about it."
That doesn't mean the writing isn't fun or that you don't enjoy it. It just means you "get serious" about it in the same way you get serious about your golf, painting, antiquing, or piano playing.
Get serious! Have fun!
I want to write about my mother, but I only see her once a month when I visit her out-of-town retirement community. There isnt time, and she doesnt have the energy, for lengthy interviews. How can I gather the information?
Think small. A gentleman in a recent class had a wonderful solution to just this problem. He had chosen the theme of their ethnic family food. Each month he talked to his mother about one aspect of the meals she made when he was growing up. After their visit, he wrote a story about their conversation. At years end, he had twelve stories. This year he is focusing on family holidays and birthdays. He will have a chapter about Easter, Fourth of July, and all the other celebrations of the year. He also includes just a few, perhaps only one or two, photos.
The book he creates is given to his mother as a Christmas gift. Not only is it a gift the two of them created together, it is a memory aid for her and conversation piece when she has visitors. By making the stories tightly focused, the writing task fits easily into his busy schedule, and the stories are interesting to all readers.
At years end, you will have twelve stories written. That is much better than a grand plan of writing an entire life that is so overwhelming not a word gets written. Think small. Reap large satisfaction.
Summer is flying by and my plan to write my life story is evaporating faster than the water in my birdbath. How can I still accomplish something this summer?
Here is a great answer from Betty. She wrote this in an email, and it is a perfect solution. Ill let Betty explain it:
In the AARP Magazine I read an excellent article titled "Thinking About Memoir," by Abigal Thomas. She teaches memoir-writing seminars nation wide. She has inspired me. One of her writing exercises has the student "take any ten years of your life and reduce them to two pages. Every sentence has to be three words long--not two, not four, but three words long."
If you did this twice a week for the month of September, you could cover 80 years of a life. Three words at a time. Try it now. (Those are my three words on the subject.) And thank you Betty.