Are You Writing A Book Based on Your Life? Tips from an Author

As a contributing author to several books, I wanted to share some insights I gained from the writing process for those of you with writing projects of your own.  Even if your writing is simply personal journalling at this time, you may find this helpful as my chapters all have drawn on personal experiences and are largely autobiographical in nature.  What follows are insights from the most personal of my contributions which appears in Become Your Own Great and Powerful and is reprinted here for you beginning with this post) Writing an account of one's life experience raises some interesting questions. It's one thing to give examples, another entirely to BE an example!

Here are the decision points I enountered along the way.

First decision: What is my story?

When you reflect on your life in earnest, it is amazing how many threads you will find in your personal tapestry. There are career threads, relationship threads, family history, medical history...childhood threads, adult threads. My task was to look over my life and find that which would best express what I have come to believe about personal power. I speak with people about such concepts all the time but the process of tracing the lineage of one's own world view is quite remarkable. For this project I asked myself what I understood or believed about power during each decade of my life. If you look back at issues such as power, trust, faith, leadership, self esteem, success or failure and trace your history with that concept it's amazing to see what emerges. I highly recommend it.

Who is telling this story?

If you are like most folks, you have many versions of your life story. We each possess a private and a public self and within each of those selves are a myriad of micro-selves. For every vignette deemed relevant to my story, I was aware that several versions of me were competing to tell the tale. I might relate a story one way if the audience were my husband and another if it were my sister, or a client, my husband's boss, or a neighbor. Details would be altered and the emotions I would reveal would hinge upon the nature of my relationship with the audience and my comfort in the revelation. For me, reflecting on the issue of personal power, I knew my private self would have to be revealed.

Third decision: Egads! Am I really willing to tell you that story?

Having picked up my thread, and clear in my voice, I began to craft my story. With wonderful feedback and encouragement from my support team I immersed myself in my writing. "I can't wait to read the next part!" was the consistent response. Then it happened. Have you ever been in the middle of telling someone a story when you realize you are heading smack in to a detail or six that you really don't want to share but are already committed to telling? Well, there I was, rolling merrily along and suddenly I realized that gaining personal power in the long run is also about all those times you lost it, or gave it away, or simply made a bad move. I was kind of hoping to tell you the version about the hip coach who always had her act together and has been a paragon of strength and wisdom since birth. Sad fact is, I had a few missteps along the way and if I only told you the highpoints I'd have some mighty big gaps in my story. It's the same problem you face if you have long gaps on a resume. You can try to spin it in an interview, but part of you knows you were eating Doritos on the couch and watching Jerry Springer at least some of the time you were licking your 'right-sized' wounds. I took the plunge and continued to write.

The Ultimate Question: Can I stand with my own humanity?

Am I willing to do that even if I am not sure who will stand alongside me? YES! Embracing my own journey means embracing all of it and not shying away from the parts I'd rather forget. It means accepting myself even through times of confusion, bad decisions, and... embarrassing haircuts. It's easy to have self-esteem when you are winning the game. It's much harder to love oneself through the dark times and yet it is worth every effort.

Other book chapters reprinted at this blog:

Finding Your Life Purpose from A Guide to Getting It: Purpose and Passion

Let's Get Naked: Getting in Touch with Your Inner Clive Barker from A Guide to Getting It: Creative Intelligence

Looking for an editor? I highly recommend Peter Stern of Springboard Editorial Services

Laura Young / Wellspring Coaching.

Comments

[Kate]

What great stuff this is. Well done.

I'll just be wandering a bit as I catch up. Just wanted to let you know that you are leaving beautiful trails as you go.

[Laura Young]

Oh sweetheart, I feel SO unbeautiful right now. I was just whining over at Ant Watcher. So nice to see you here.
Thanks for your kind words.
I'm so tapped.
Going back to yoga tomorrow though so I'll be back in fine shape before long...