OnlineBookClub.org

Hey, everybody!

I'm thinking about taking on a project. It wasn't my idea. My grandmother told one of my parents, who then told me, that she wants me to write about her life. It was a flattering offer because I have thirty or more cousins, and ten aunts and uncles. I think she got the idea when I listened to her life stories with interest, because they're amazing! She gave me her deceased sister's "black book." Ssshhhh! My aunt simply can NOT find out. The story of how she had to raise ten kids by herself when Grandpa died in '67 (whom I've never met consequently), while going back to school and working, would be amazing on paper.

I was an English major for a while, and I've held onto my writing skills for the most part (which admittedly is little to boast). Now I'm a philosophy major and most of the writing I do anymore is limited to papers for classes and e-mails that I write to my long-distance friend.

How does this work?? Aaahhh! I want to do it so badly. But with a full-time summer job that I want, volunteering, school, etc. I don't know whether there is a lot of time to write an entire memoir.

What should I do?

HA HA HA HA!
Hey, I'm not telling. I know nothing.

It does sound as though you have a full plate already. Here's what I'd suggest: keep gathering as much info as you can, while you can. And then catalogue it somewhere both in a physical sense and digitally. That's the part you gotta do now while your family members are still alive. (I hope they live another fifty years, but you never know.) Keep it all written down, not in your head, so you don't forget.

Then put the "writing" part on the back-burner until your schedule opens up.

Good luck! And hold onto that black book!!

Be careful that you don't get trapped in a fruitless project. We're each of us close to our families (or should be hopefully) and therefore might lose a more distant perspective when considering whether someone's life story is worth writing about. A beleaguered woman rearing a bunch of kids may be heroic but it happens all the time.

This is what I term an "Aunt Edna" book. "Oh, my dear dear Aunt Edna. She was such a joy and inspiration to us kids, EVERYONE would love to read her life story!" When if fact, nobody would pay 20 cents for the book. Sorry, but that's showbiz.

Now if you wish to take on this project out of familial love and responsibility, go for it. Just don't expect it to be purchased or published (unless you pay for it). Write it out, edit it carefully, then simply run off copies and give them to family, stapled. And don't step on any toes in the process -- if there are family secrets you discover, leave them lie fallow. Trust me on this.