Ever written a book?

[arpoet]

When I started to sort out my mums things, a few years after her death (dad refused to do owt for years) I came across a box full of photos from our summers spent in Ireland and the memories came flooding back. I offered the photo and few of my memories to a local history site in Ireland and it all started.
I set up a website to publish it on and started writing, adding a few photos on the way.
I'm not saying its perfect, but it worked and I had lots of emails from people all over the world.
Have a look and then get cracking.
Balbriggan

[Dorothy rouse]

I'm intending to write ' something' can't call it a book, more of a recollection of early life for my children, I moved around a lot as a child, thought it might be useful for them to know exactly what happened, and this will be alongside my 'family history' research, which is complicated to say the least.

[arpoet]

I'm intending to write ' something' can't call it a book, more of a recollection of early life for my children, I moved around a lot as a child, thought it might be useful for them to know exactly what happened, and this will be alongside my 'family history' research, which is complicated to say the least.

Why not get an Mp3 recorder and talk about your memories? I have several hours my conversations with my dad about his memories growing up just after WW1. Once they are in digital format you can edit them at your leisure, and put them onto a flash drive with your family history for future generations to listen to.

[Bren In Pots]

I started scrapbooking a few years ago mostly to put names and memories to the faces in my photos, started with the newest ones and I'm slowly working my way back.

One thing that started me of was I couldn't remember some of the names of my old work mates that were stood next to me on our wedding photos.

I set up a website to publish it on and started writing, adding a few photos on the way.
I'm not saying its perfect, but it worked and I had lots of emails from people all over the world.
Have a look and then get cracking.
Balbriggan

Arpoet I've had a quick look and bookmarked your site for later

[bussinspain]

I have written a book - though not published as yet. From the day we first arrived here in Spain I kept a typed daily diary complete with photos of our new life here. I did for 2 years, every day. The diary was emailed weekly to my family and my friends who were interested in how our new life was panning out. If I was late in sending out the email I got emails asking where it was!!!! My daughter who is in the Media and PR business is working on it for me. That was 3 years ago! She is a very busy lady and Mum. Hey ho, one day I might get the thing published LOL!

[alldigging]

I have written a book - though not published as yet. From the day we first arrived here in Spain I kept a typed daily diary complete with photos of our new life here. I did for 2 years, every day. The diary was emailed weekly to my family and my friends who were interested in how our new life was panning out. If I was late in sending out the email I got emails asking where it was!!!! My daughter who is in the Media and PR business is working on it for me. That was 3 years ago! She is a very busy lady and Mum. Hey ho, one day I might get the thing published LOL!

Did you do it in word?
It's really easy to get it onto kindle if so. Fairly easy if in another word processor program.

[Noosner]

Gosh, I'm really impressed that so many of us have written books, or started them. It isn't an easy thing to do. But then, in a way I'm not surprised because the skills needed, of patience, commitment, good humour and noting details are very similar to the skills needed to be a gardener...

[BertieFox]

I've been thinking about doing the same thing, having been corresponding by email to several old friends from 50 or 60 years ago. We keep coming up with our memories and various occurrences, so I would think the best thing to do is write down specific memories as and when they occur to you. You can subsequently arrange them into the probable order and fill in the details with the events of the time.

Try reading something like 'Oleander, Jacaranda' by Penelope Lively, which is her childhood memories, as that gives a good idea over the type of style you can use, and how these fragments of memory can be sometimes true and sometimes false or inaccurate.

Good luck with your writing. Well worth doing for others to read in future times.

[VolesAteMyPeas]

What a wonderful idea Greenleaves. I can't offer much in the way of advice as I've only ever co-authored two books on CV writing and Interview Techniques but what a fantastic piece of history it would be.

Having spent some time researching my family tree, something like that written by any of my ancestors would have been amazing. I have things like my greatgrandad's war records ( he dies in Ypres before my gran was born), and my gran dad's log books as a flight engineer on Lancaster Bombers but something written personally would be so much more.

I was amazed that my mum doesn't even know the names of two of her grandparents! Even more amazing is how little my gran knew about her dad, who she sadly never met. I used to live near Kew Archives so spent a weekend finding all I could about him on their WW1 microfiche collection etc and making copies of it. I gave it all to her in a scrapbook for Christmas a few years ago (something I'm so glad of as she died a few months later). She was obviously sad reading it but delighted to know a little more about him after nearly 90 years.

I wish now I'd written down some of the stories my gran and grandad used to tell me as a child that I have now forgotten most of. We still have some of their cine film footage though so it's lovely being able to watch my family in their younger days.

Best of luck to you.

[skeggijon]

I wrote an engineering textbook many years ago - not sure any of the techniques would apply to a life story though.

[bussinspain]

yes, it was done on Word, complete with photos. My daughter is in her element with this task. I reminded her yesterday about it.

[GrowJohn]

maybe some of you get motivated to keep on writing with this one^^

• Wealthiest authors worldwide 2014 | Statistic

in case homegrown does not work out for you

[BigV]

Do write your memoirs or just memories! When she was in her late eighties my mother put her memories onto tape.
It is a wonderful record of her life,especially as it jumps from time to time. Now I am nearly the age she was when she taped these memories I feel I should do the same.Will my children be interested? I don't know,but my mother left me a wonderful gift,especially as I hear her speaking.


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[Snow]

I've written a book, it's a fantasy/sci-fi that I recently finished, it took a long time to write and even longer to edit and rework. I want to be a writer and it's ready to go off to find an agent. But it is hard because I am very sick so it takes a long time and even now I have finished one, I can't really send it off because if an agent and then a publisher wanted it, I can't promote it, I'm too ill. It is very good, and would sell, but not as well as I would need it to. So I am now writting another book which is better placed comercially to potentially sell very well. It will probably take me the next 3 or 4 years unfortunately. I am in the same boat as Laura Hillenbrand (Seabiscuit, Unbroken) I can't churn out a book every year so what I do produce has to be the best if I'm going to make a living out of it. But I guess the thing I'm getting at is whatever your reason for writing it, it doesn't matter how long it takes, just that you get on and do it.

If I was writing a book for my descendents to read then I would probably approach things differently. I am quite into genealogy and wish I had more details from my ancestors on their lives, how different they were, and how they felt about things that happened to them. It is very hard to see your grandparent for instance and imagine them young and less experienced and less sure of themselves. I think it is a very valuable thing to do and a lovely thing to remember someone by, and would suggest that however you write it, you write it openly, and say how you felt as you describe your life. Thats the sort of thing I would hope to recieve, so that I could know that person better.

[Kristen]

I tried to get both my parents to write a mémoire, sadly they never did. My memory of grandparents (only one of whom I ever met), and stories of great grandparents is sketchy to say the least. My parents had interesting lives, wartime experiences, and it saddens me that they never put pen to paper.

Back then I found a "template" on the internet (5 minutes in Google didn't find anything particularly helpful just now) for them to use as a starting point; the one I found had a long list of cribs for things to include - many obvious, many cringeful (to me) but also many where I slapped my forehead and said "I wouldn't have thought to include that"

I have also used Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records at Ancestry.co.uk to build as much of my family tree as I know of, plus a fair amount more that Ancestry's database of Census data and birth/marriage/death registers etc. was able to fill in.