Writing My Personal History

I'm spending some wonderful vacation time in
West Palm Beach. Is there anything more inspiring
than a sunrise over the ocean? 

I woke up yesterday morning with an idea. My writing energy these days is going towards writing my own personal history. I joined a writing group. I took a class on writing narrative history with a deadline assignment of 40 pages. My history is progressing, but I have neglected this blog. So what if I put some personal history writing here? Why? Why do I want to publish? I believe the desire is within each of us to be understood, to be heard, to be listened to. And when I read other people's history it sparks thoughts for me. I hope the same is true for you.
(PS "Gentle" feedback is helpful.)

Coping with Abundance
My life story is about the abundance of gifts that I have been given. At so many times in my life, I have cried out, “Too much! I can’t handle all this.” Whether the “too much” consists of apples or grapes from my yard, children in my house, laundry that floods my laundry room and kitchen floor, ideas for a family reunion, heartache, death, pets, ephemera from the past, or bananas, my problem is always about how to handle it.

Solutions for me seem to come in three categories:

1. Live one day at a time.
2. Let go and trust God.
3. Focus on gratitude

.As I ponder how to make a record of my abundant life, I’m faced with the same old problem. There has been too much of it. I’m always reluctant to throw anything away or to ignore any part of something. It may have value. The truth is that it all does have value, but I can cope with it more easily by taking one piece at a time, by trusting that God is guiding me and can make up my deficiencies, and by focusing on my gratitude for everything I have experienced.

The first part of my life—those growing-up years, my teen years and first years of marriage—I survived by taking just one hour or one day at a time. Those years involved my determination to persevere in following my dreams, to keep believing that things would turn out well. I was determined to make my life work by trying as hard as I could. And I could try really hard. And work really hard. And I did. I was given an abundance of personal gifts and an abundance of personal trials. Determination and setting high goals carried the day.  This part of my life began in 1947 with my birth. I married twenty years later, in 1967. Our early married life still carried this theme. A convenient cut-off date for this first section is 1975 when we moved from one Orem house to the other. Thus the first twenty-seven year period of my life I will call Part 1 (to be titled when inspiration hits).

The middle part of my life is the years from 1975 to 2000. We lived at 448 East 100 South in Orem during these years. They were busy years of raising a family, still being involved with my family of origin and working in my Church. Because we called the house we lived in during that time, “The Stubbs Family Residence,” that is my title for this section for now. During those years, the abundance of blessings I received included much adversity. The trials of those years also brought back some of the things I had ignored during Part 1, childhood trauma, living with an imperfect marriage partner and dealing with my son Andy’s life and death, as well as the death of my mother. I could no longer escape or ignore the reality of death, addiction and the overwhelming nature of my chosen vocation of mother and homemaker. I had to learn to let go of my need to be in control. I had to learn to trust God.

The third part of my life is where I am today, from the year 2000 to the present. My abundant life has continued to be abundant in both blessings and trials. I experienced the death of another daughter. I have come to terms with my eating addiction. The lessons continue. Today I see that my focus must be gratitude. My experiences have taught me that I can endure anything one day at a time, that I can trust God to take care of the myriad things that I have no control over, and that I am grateful for my life and my life lessons. Education has been a major thread running through each part of my life and today I can see that my best educational opportunities are those afforded me by the life I have lived and am living today. One day at a time, I’m learning to trust God and be grateful.

RootTech 2013

Loved, loved, loved RootsTech 2013 in Salt Lake City. My sisters and I took advantage of being there to also do some research at the Family History Library in Salt Lake. But what I loved most about the sessions was the emphasis on family and personal stories. What a feast in the area I am most passionate about. Here are some links for you to peruse.

rootstech.org

The RootsTech people have a great website linking us to many of the presentations (all of the keynotes) from RootsTech 2013 and you can also download the complete syllabus at http://rootstech.org/downloads. This contains a wealth of ideas from many presenters.

http://www.appo.org

Association of person photo organizers. Sign up for free tips by email.

http://www.thearmchairgenealogist.com

Lynn Palermo conducts the Family History writing challenge each February, but her site has much more. She has a beginnner’s page and a step by step tutorial about how to write family history, a forum about writing history, a section on Irish history, and one about conferences. You name it, you search for it and chances are you will find it here.

http://rgzoond.herokuapp.com/create_a_video

Check out the Reel Genie site for some exciting ways to create a family video.

http://dancurtis.ca/

Dan Curtis from Canada also has a very valuable website and will send also emails with suggestions on how to be a personal historian. He has a rich library of resources and also sends out a list of personal history links every Monday. 

Remembering Rachel

Rachel Stubbs in Adelaide Australia

My niece did a guest post for my blog about my daughter Rachel's mission. She did a beautiful job. Here is the link to read her little piece of family history. http://rememberingrachel.blogspot.com/ Thanks so much Jeni for a wonderful post!

I am excited to go to RootsTech next week. They are streaming many sessions live and will also put them on the web to view later as well. I heard one of the featured speakers in a preview last Saturday. Wow! Hold onto your hats! We are going forward! The exhibit hall is free as are some of the Saturday classes. There is an phone app especially for the conference. I hope to see you there.

How to Print Your Book

My favorite printer is BYU's Print and Mail. They have been consistently kind, helpful and professional to me, and their prices are better than anyone else I've seen. Our family history committee has used their services for 5 different projects. As a result I've had the opportunity to work with Carol Holland over a number of years. She's given me loads of advice and help. That's why I'm so excited about their new video of Carol giving some basic printing advice. Click here to watch it. Her presentation applies to any printer, not just the one at Brigham Young University, although they do accept long distance electronic submissions. As I watched, I understood the whys behind what we have discovered works the best.

Some hints that I thought helpful are listed below.
1 - For a pleasing effect don't use more than about 3 different fonts. And make sure that you have the rights to any fonts you use so they will come across in the PDF file you create as your finished product.

2 - Microsoft Word can be used to lay out your book, but keep the files as small as you can to avoid having the illustrations jump around. We have used Quark Xpress and InDesign where it is not so important because these more expensive programs do not embed the illustrations into the file until the final pdf. Carol makes the point that it is good to use a program that you feel comfortable with.

3 - For printing, use 300 dpi for photos or 600 dpi for detailed fine line work. Carol recommends png though I use tif.

4 - If you think a photo may be used as a full page, such as a family group, scan as an 8x10 photo so you won't lose quality if you need to make it large.

5 - Try out a photo in gray scale if you think that's how you may use it. Changing from color to gray scale may not look the best if it lacks contrast.

6 - Proofread, proofread, proofread. Try reading the text back to front or out loud. Have more than one person read it. Be sure to look at your pdf file. You will need to okay a final proof from the printer before you order the books. Try just a few pages if you have questions.

7 - Don't turn in your application file for printing (Word, etc. where you have put the book together). It will not be the same on another computer or printer.

8 - Keep your application file for possible corrections but export as a printer file (pdf) to take to the printer. A printer file is much more stable. The printer can usually put together small files to make a longer book.

If you are planning to publish your book, don't wait until you are ready to print. Watch Carol's video now and save yourself some grief as you prepare your files.

Take time or time out

I have a little reminder that pops up on my computer to relax my eyes by looking away for a minute. For me it is also to remind me to stand up and let my back take a break. News flash for the determined can't-take-a-break me. It doesn't help me if I ignore it. Too often that's what I do.

Time out in Florida--I
jumped in the pool
in my pajamas. 

So how do I get myself to take those needed breaks? In my example above, it's a break from working at the computer. I also need a reminder to take a break from my "other life" and let my writerly self sit down to the computer and put my hands on the keys. I want to write my life story, memoir, autobiography, whichever it turns out to be, but I have to remind myself to do it. Then do it. Usually when I start, I get interested (and ignore the "eyes relax" and stand up reminder). The other day my writing mentor challenged me to sit down and open the file. Only that. After FaceBook and Gmail each got a share of my attention, I did it. I opened it. And yes, it whetted my appetite.

The last week in January I took a week's worth of time out to devote to writing about my life. It was a writing retreat. I wrote. I wrote and I processed my writing with my mentor and I revised and wrote some more. We read chapters from our writing books. We read from our own life writing. It was healing (writing always seems to be) and it was motivating. The Family History Writing Challenge Forum (http://familyhistorywritingchallenge.lefora.com) is a way for us to encourage each other and to find motivation. I have joined a class that is really a writing group for amateurs to share stories and encouragement with one another. A Wednesday afternoon time writing time is now on my schedule (plus the time it takes to prepare to share).

But sometimes I need to just jump in without scheduling. Just do it. Surprise myself. Write because it's fun and because I want to. That's usually how I write a post for this blog. I just jump right in and write. Like I jumped into the swimming pool in January still wearing my pajamas. Today I am still wearing my pajamas while writing this post. That works too.

If we are serious about family history writing, we will schedule a time-out for writing, whether it lasts a week, an hour or 10 minutes. Then we jump in and write whenever we can. Let me get personal here. I just need to get going. I don't have to be overwhelmed. There is power in just doing a little bit. Today I will.

Keep a Research Log

Every family and personal historian has wished for better documentation--a journal, a diary or even a log book of past events. Writing would be so easy, we sigh, if my [grandfather, gg-grandmother, or even I] had just written something down about his/her/my life just as it happened.

Example of a research log. Use links to download
your own or make up one with your word-processing
software that suits your own needs.

So why do we sometimes feel that it is a waste of time to write down a daily log of our research into that person's life? As I write, I often remember just the right detail to put into my story, or I stop to look up some fact or detail that I need to understand it better. I find occasion to re-read something I have a vague remembrance of and lo and behold, there is a detail I missed before.

There are numerous articles, forms and instructions, video or written, for using research logs found on the Family Search website. I've included some links in the previous sentence that may be helpful. Click here for a convenient form or make up your own. My sister uses a log in her Microsoft OneNote to easily copy and paste internet excerpts and document links to her log. The free software program Evernote could work in much the same way.

All of the information I have gathered, past and present, can be at my fingertips if I just take a few moments to enter it on my log. If I have a question, I enter it. An idea of where to look may come later. If I have an idea of somewhere to search, I enter it. When I look something up, I finish the entry. It is so easy today to link the resulting webpage or document to the log, using a weblink or even a link to my own documents on my computer. To speed up my family history writing or memoir, to improve my readability, to establish my credibility, I resolve to use my log more regularly and completely.

The Family History Writing Challenge and Other Great Posts

We have so much help for our writing on the internet these days. The following links are just a sample of some current articles and blogs available to help us write our family history.

• Charles R. Hale in his Artists Without Walls tells us “How to Construct an Ancestral Story: Breathing of an Ancestor’s Space and Time.” He details step by step how he built his perception of an important day in the life of his grandfather. http://storiesconnectloveheals.com/2013/01/04/how-to-construct-an-ancestral-story-breathing-of-an-ancestors-space-and-time/

• Biff and Nancy Barnes have given us many fine blog articles about family history writing in their Stories to Tell. On January 18, they also explore the idea of putting our ancestor’s lives in a place and time in our world in an article called "Write a Family History Book: Put People's Lives in Context. Here are their great “how-to’s.” http://www.storiestotellbooks.com/blog/write-a-family-history-book-put-peoples-lives-in-context.html.

• Nina Amir’s blog, Write Nonfiction Now, encourages and teaches us to develop our writing and marketing skills. I found her December 28th post, part of a 3 part series on setting and achieving writing goals, particularly useful. You will find it here: http://writenonfictionnow.com/how-to-prepare-to-meet-your-2013-writing-goals-setting-goals/.

• On the subject of setting goals, Lynn Palermo, The Armchair Genealogist, has invited us to take “The Family History Writing Challenge” in February. She asks:

1. Have you been writing sporadically never finishing a story?  
2. Have you procrastinated writing your stories for too long? 
3. Do you need that nudge to finish your stories and finally publish?

Can you see me raising my hand? I’m taking the challenge and will receive lots of great hints and help from Lynn along the way. 
Check it out here http://www.thearmchairgenealogist.com/2013/01/the-family-history-writing-challenge.html and at her forum http://familyhistorywritingchallenge.lefora.com/, then set your own goal and LET’S WRITE SOME FAMILY HISTORY!