Ten Tips for Writing Your Life Story

1. Recall your memories. Use photographs, mementos, old magazines or calendars, record albums or sheet music, newspaper clippings, even family recipes to help.
2. Divide your life into periods. Early childhood, teen years, young adult years, middle age, and retirement years.
3. Create life lists by periods. Try to list seven to ten significant events in each period.
4. Discover the turning points in your life. Recall specific before-and-after moments when your life changed.
5. Focus: Select one period or your entire life. If you choose the latter, write about the ten most significant events during that period.
6. Establish a time and place to write. Even if you only have five or ten minutes a day to write, write regularly and enjoy yourself. No one is censoring or reviewing your work, so allow yourself to have fun.
7. Write the important stories first. Don’t worry about order, just write.
8. Add the details, and be as specific as possible. Incorporate character, setting, action, dialogue, tone, point of view and turning points into your stories.
9. Start a life writing group with friends to help continue the process. Once the class has ended, consider meeting informally at someone’s home to continue writing your stories.
10. Read, read, read, or listen to books on tape. Reading and listening to books on tape will make you a better writer. You’ll learn techniques by osmosis. Just don’t compare yourself with other writers. You are the person that makes your stories unique. These are the stories your family will treasure.

Please visit our friend Libby at her site: Choose Your Words