Writing Your History
One day a stirring lesson in Relief Society challenges you to finally settle down and write your personal or family history. The trouble is that the stirring inspiration lasts only as long as it takes to sit down at your computer or sharpen a few pencils. Faced with a blank piece of paper or a blank computer screen, the job just feels too overwhelming. Where do you begin? How are you supposed to remember stuff that happened thirty years ago when you can’t remember what shoes you’re wearing right now? Whose dumb idea was this commandment anyway? Oh yeah, it was God’s. Okay, so it isn’t a dumb idea after all--sorry about that. But still, there’s that blank screen and you don’t know where to start. Now what?
Faced with writing up an entire life, the task is certainly overwhelming. However, the commandment doesn’t insist you do it all today. In fact, and pay close attention here: it doesn’t even require you to do it in order. You can write up your life any old way it occurs to you and organize it later. When I gather information from my mother about her relatives, I don’t ask her to start at the beginning. We chat about whatever comes to mind and one of my children, sitting in the back seat of the car unnoticed, writes it all down for me to transcribe later. This is a more natural way for her to describe her family and her life and it showed me that this was the best way to cope with writing up my own life.
You might want to consider simply writing a brief summary of where you are right now in your life--your family, your home, your career, your hobbies and so on. This is the starting point. The next time you sit down to write, close your eyes and think back over the memorable experiences in your life. If you set aside an hour every Sunday to work on it, you will find your mind will soon start to generate memories through the week. On Sunday, you need only pick one out. Write about that event in your life. Don’t worry about getting things written in order. If you write about an event that feels vivid or meaningful that day, you will do a better job of it. When you write on paper by hand, simply use a new piece of paper for each event. Place each event into a loose-leaf notebook, simply inserting the new event into the correct chronological order. You can make this task easier by writing at the top of each entry the approximate date of the event and the event you are describing. If you use more than one sheet of paper, number them by topic, knowing that you can put in a book number later when you feel you have completed your story. If you are working on the computer, you can either start a new, dated file for each topic or simply insert the event into the correct place in the chronology.
You don’t have to be a great writer to create a fascinating personal history. Remember that you have an audience that has come prepared to love you. What they will want from this history is a sense not only of what you did, but of who you are. Try to use as many details as possible when writing your history. Think about the five senses and use them in setting the scene. Tell them how people and things looked, how something smelled, what type of voice a person had, and most importantly, how you felt about the event you are describing. Tell about the people in your story. When I look at the name of a great-grandparent, I long to know what sort of person he was: Feisty? Shy? Silly? I’m looking to see how I became who I am, and for that I need to know something about the people who shaped my family and therefore, myself.
When you finish writing about an event, consider asking a friend to read it. You should choose someone who loves you, so that she doesn’t hurt you and destroy your confidence. On the other hand, she should be a curious sort of person. Ask her to feed you the questions that come to mind as she reads, to notice the unanswered questions. Can she picture the people and places in your story? Does she feel something of what you felt? Is there anything she is wondering that you have not answered?
Remember that you can come back to the story many times in the coming years to add details. It doesn’t have to be perfect the very first time. For now, the important thing is to get started. It’s time to get caught up with your fascinating life.
-by Terrie Lynn Bittner