How to Write Your Life Story - Your Hemingway Moment

The day might arrive when you think of recounting your life story, but the thought of looking at a blank page is like thinking of washing the car during a pouring rainstorm. You don't think that you could get anywhere. But think of it another way. This is your Hemingway moment. You can do this.

First though, it's important to acknowledge the process of writing in general, of writing our life stories or those of our families. In various conversations I have heard people say, "who would be interested in my life story?" As my friend Jay Speyerer of Legacy Road Communications said, "you are interesting now, but you will be fascinating 50 years from now!"

How To Write A Sonnet

Someone whose writing has inspired me is Anne Lamott who became famous with her New York Times best selling book Operating Instructions: The Diary of My Son's First Year. I took writing classes from Annie Lamott before she became so famous and now you can hardly get into them. She is irreverent and hilarious. She also is very truthful and that's what makes her so funny. She also wrote a book called Bird by Bird. The title came from a time when her brother, who was 10 was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. He was at the kitchen table and he had binder paper and pens and pencils and unopened books on birds around him and he was immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead and nearly in tears. Their father, a writer, sat down beside him and put his arm around her brother's shoulder. He said, "Bird by bird buddy, just take it bird by bird." And that's how we need to take our life story writing, bird by bird.

How to Write Your Life Story - Your Hemingway Moment

Annie Lamott says that writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. And her students will say to her, but I don't know where to start? Well, she tells them, you might start by writing down every single thing that you can remember from your first few years in school starting with kindergarten. Move on to first grade and don't worry if what you write down is no good because no one will see it.

Turn your mind to holidays, Christmas, Easter, Seder or whatever, and every relative that was there. Write about what people ate and what they wore and how your uncles used to hold up their dress socks with garters.

Describe a gift you received at Christmas and how it made you feel inside. Remember that you own what happened to you.

Try to sit down at the same time every day. Clear a space and squint at an image that is taking shape in your mind. You will hear voices of anxiety and judgment, doom and guilt, also severe hypochondria. There may be a Nurse Ratched-like listing of things that must be done right at this moment. Foods must come out of the freezer, appointments must be canceled, dishes must be done, laundry must be folded. But just keep writing.

This is all great advice from Annie. Her book Bird by Bird can inspire you with humor and keep you going when you think you might be crazy.

Just keep on going, bird by bird.

How to Write Your Life Story - Your Hemingway Moment How to write a Sonnet Video Clips. Duration : 6.87 Mins.

This is how to write an English or Shakespearian Sonnet

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