Some time ago, after I published my book of memoirs, I was asked to give a talk to people who were interested in writing their life stories. This is an outline of the talk plus a few thoughts that occur to me as I write today.
What this session is about
It's not about how to get your novel published.
It's not even about how to get your autobiography published - but we'll touch on it because it's something we have to deal with.
It's about writing your life story. How to set down in words the story of your life. How to do better than keeping a pile of old photos in a shoe box in the attic. How to paint a self-portrait.
Writing your story is important. You have to start with this belief. It's important to you and it's important to those you leave behind when you die. It puts you on the record. It makes you a piece of history. Don't you wish you knew more about your parents? And their parents? That's how people will feel about you - they'll want to know about you.
Some people think that they are not important enough. That their lives are of no account. (did you ever read Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith? Mr Pooter, the ‘author’ of this piece of fiction prefaces his book with "Why should I not publish my diary? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never heard of, and I fail to see - because I d not happen to be a 'Somebody' - why my diary should not be interesting".
We are all important enough. Everyone is important enough. The trick is to listen to Mr Pooter and make sure that your story is interesting. His story was sufficiently interesting all right – but not for the reasons this fictional character believed it was. Remember it is not only incidents that make for interesting reading, it is also your reaction to them and the reasons why you reacted as you did.
But why bother?
Writing is such a drag - and then who is going to publish it?
If you are going to do it then first you do it for yourself - for the sheer pleasure of recalling your childhood and how you got to be where you are today (or, if you follow my example, as in Not Heavy Enough To Win A Prize?, how you got to some fixed time in the past). This process is in itself justification for starting to write this story.
And it is not a drag. Approach it in the right way and you will enjoy it. As you discover yourself you will sometimes feel sad but you will often feel very happy. You will be surprised at what you learn about yourself. You'll find yourself reading over the pages you have written, correcting here and there, and you will enjoy it - it's a good read. You'll want to read bits out loud to people.
Some words of warning
Tell the truth but not all of it. Be respectful of other people’s feelings. In my own life history I tried to respect this rule but once or twice I mentioned people by name and later wished I hadn’t – nothing too serious but enough to make me feel uncomfortable and perhaps to cause some slight embarrassment to the people should they ever read it. So, for example, spare your family (probably your only readership) the details of your sex life and don’t write about your shoplifting tendencies or drug taking.
Question accounts that have become family anecdotes. An anecdote is a story that is told, usually to entertain. This means it needs a good ending that makes people laugh or show amazement. Usually the good ending is a fiction. When writing your true account of your life keep it true and don’t necessarily repeat everything you say when you tell that story. It is ultimately more satisfying this way. (My story of the exploding marine toilet, told in my book of memoirs, is precisely correct – it didn’t need enhancement).
In my quest for truth for my book, and not knowing enough then of my family history, I took a trip to see a cousin who was quite a few years older than me. He was a writer; he knew my Father from his own childhood and claimed to know quite a lot about our family history. He spun me a tale about my Grandmother being a cotton heiress who was whisked away by our rascally Grandfather who frittered away her fortune and then left her high and dry. Into my book it went. Later when I did more research I found that the cotton heiress and fortune story was a myth. Later I mentioned to my cousin that his story was not true. His reply was along the lines of, ‘I’m a writer. I make up things. It was a good story wasn’t it?'.
But who is going to publish it?
Forget about publication. It is not crucial to the process. You have to ask yourself, 'Who are you writing this for?' Almost certainly not for a wider public than immediate family. One copy may be enough. If you use a computer then it's easy to produce several copies but don’t rule out hand writing plus photocopying. Binding? Not necessary - find a stout shirt box. My Father handwrote a couple of books that were very thinly disguised autobiographies. He had one wife and one child. One copy of each was sufficient and I inherited them. (Thanks, Dad).
Unless you really believe that loads of people are going to be interested in you and your story I'd stick with no more than a very few copies for your family and friends. If suddenly there is an interest because what you have said strikes a chord with a wider world you can always submit one of your copies to a publisher and say 'What do you think of this?'
And there’s Blogging
If you are going to set down your life story as a blog then, if you do it episode by episode, day by day or week by week, in chronological order, it is going to appear backwards with the end as the most recent posting. I’ve never done this but, I guess, the best way to do it is to write it on, say, Microsoft Word and then cut and paste, chapter by chapter, onto your blog posting the last chapter first. There is the question of longevity of course. Not your longevity (and I wish you well in that respect) but that of your blog. Will a blog last a hundred years? Will it start to cost lots of money to keep it floating in the aether? On the basis that if something can go wrong it probably will I would regard the blog as a adjunct to the process of recording your life for posterity – so write it, print out a copy or two or three, circulate or store as appropriate, and then post it on the blog to which you may direct any publisher who shows the faintest interest in you. Don’t hold your breath.
No comments:
Post a Comment