Jackie Sherman - Writing Your Autobiography

Jackie Sherman

Emerald Publishing
www.emeraldpublishing.co.uk

Emerald Publishing
Brighton BN7 2SH

Jackie Sherman First Edition 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holders.

ISBN 9781847162823

Printed by GN Digital Books Essex

Cover design by Steve Swingler Design, Hove East Sussex

Typesetting by wordzworth.com

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained within this book is correct at the time of going to press, the author and publisher can take no responsibility for the errors or omissions contained within.

Chapter 1

Getting Started

Introduction

An autobiography is about sharing: sharing your experiences, sharing your thoughts, opinions, feelings and emotions and sharing lessons from the past. Your memories are important and certainly worth writing down, but they will only be of lasting value if you write them in such a way that you encourage other people to read them. This book has been written for anyone who feels they have a story to tell but who needs help remembering the details, writing in an engaging fashion or organising and structuring their material. Who knows: if you produce a well written body of work, it may even motivate other people to follow your example and write about their own lives as well.

Having decided to take the plunge and start putting your life down on paper, it can be quite a daunting prospect. If you were in your 20s and had a good memory, you would have 20 x 365 days worth of material to work with. So where does that leave anyone who is well over 50?

Fortunately, an autobiography can only be a snapshot of the most interesting, unusual or important parts of your life. This book will help you decide what to include and help you achieve your aims by looking at your reasons for writing, your likely audience and what you can do to make the whole process manageable and enjoyable.

Remembering

One reason people give for not writing their autobiography is that they feel their memory isnt good enough. Memories are so elusive; you may have already decided that most of the important details of your past life are lost forever in the mists of time. I am glad to tell you that there are techniques available to overcome this problem if it is your main concern. I will introduce you to a wide range of different approaches that will help jog your memory, and you should end up with more than enough material to work on.

Research

A later chapter looks at various methods for carrying out research, but it is worth noting here that it would be sad if you saw autobiography in terms of simply a description of events interspersed with facts and figures. Together with the facts themselves, it is your chance to convey your feelings, views, opinions and emotions as events unfolded, as well as how these have changed over time. Your readers will often be far more excited by the personality of the writer and how life has affected them than by any dates and times.

On the other hand, inaccuracies and incorrect information can be annoying and misleading. So you will learn where you can go to check up on details if these will improve and inform your writing.

Activities

Throughout each chapter, you will be asked to carry out a number of activities. To get the most out of this book and ultimately achieve your goal, it is important that you complete them at the appropriate time. They are there to build on the ideas presented earlier and will help you clarify your thoughts as well as practise the skills required to produce good quality autobiographical writing.

Book structure

This book will:

Help you identify your real reasons for writing an autobiography

Introduce a wide variety of techniques that you can use in order to remember details from your past

Help you start writing your memories down

Demonstrate methods for improving your writing so that it comes to life

Guide you through the various sources of further information

Suggest different methods for structuring your finished work

Point out the pitfalls when it comes to editing your material

Identify ways to publish all or parts of your life story

Each chapter follows a similar pattern:

An introduction to the main themes and ideas for tackling them in your own work

Activities for you to carry out that will get you remembering and writing

One piece of work to complete at the end of the chapter where you can apply the various skills or ideas that have been introduced.

Expectations

No assumptions are made in this book about what you want to achieve or what type of writer you are. You may prefer to work towards a full autobiography that will one day be published, or you may decide to use the ideas I introduce to help you fill in gaps or organise material you already have. You may like the idea of writing up a limited number of memories or your aim may simply be to get over writers block or practise your writing skills using ready-made material. Whatever you want to do, this book will be able to help you.

Some examples of shorter pieces of writing based on your life story that may appeal to you include:

Character sketches of people you knew

Descriptions of past times

Essays on your views about particular aspects of life

Short stories based around real events

Poems

Articles for magazines and journals

Step-by-step instructions

Tips and tricks based on past experience

If you are determined to produce a book, short pieces such as those listed above that are organised in a coherent way could still end up being bound. Just think of all the diaries and journals that fill todays bookshelves.

Whatever material you produce, you need to prepare yourself for three things:

1 Honesty: Without hurting anyones feelings unnecessarily, most people would agree that it is important for future generations that any non-fiction autobiographical writing is as accurate and truthful as you can make it.

2 Uncovering the bad as well as the good: When you delve into the past, feelings are likely to emerge that were deeply buried and that may be painful or disturbing.

3 Rewriting: The quicker you can put your memories down on paper the better, so when you first start you can ignore style, grammar or spelling and just write it all down. However, for other people to enjoy reading your work you are going to have to cut out some things or move them around, edit carefully and spend time producing finished work of a high enough standard.

Reasons for writing

A CTIVITY 1

Write down your main reason for writing about your life.

For a complex task like writing an autobiography, motivation is a key factor. There are a number of reasons why you might want to write your life story, all of which are positive ones that should carry you through to your ultimate goal.

These include:

Wanting to communicate and/or be a writer

Aspiring novelists are always being told to write about what you know, so autobiography must be one of the best ways to start out on a writing career.

Therapy, or for personal development

There is nothing like exploring the past to clarify your thoughts, develop self-knowledge and throw up a fresh view of yourself. It can also lead to closure on a difficult episode in your life.

To collate material you have already gathered

Perhaps you have a trunk full of letters, diaries, photos and other memorabilia that you would love to get into some sort of order.