If your current writing project includes a family history or stories from your life, you might feel overwhelmed sometimes. It may feel like you have so many stories to share and so little time to write. Here’s something that may help: Give yourself permission just to tell the story.
I recognized this while working on my family history/life story blog. The purpose of that blog is for younger family members and future generations to have access to stories about their ancestors. Some blog posts are my reflections and memories of family members I grew up with, or ancestors I’ve learned about through research. Others are stories about my own life and experiences.
I write these stories because I wish I could read similar stories from my ancestors. Now that technology makes it easier to record and publish life stories and family history, I want to make those stories available for future generations.
By thinking about what I wish I could read from my ancestors, I’ve realized the writing doesn’t have to be fancy or formal. I just want to hear their stories. I want to learn more about my ancestors. I want to know about their everyday experiences. Those stories don’t have to be prize-winning writing. I just want to hear the story: from their perspective, in their voice.
That realization has helped me not feel so overwhelmed in trying to get so many stories written. I don’t have to do multiple rounds of editing and carefully choose every word. Yes, I want to be sure the stories I write can be understood and are honoring of a reader’s time. I do put some thought into each story and make sure to go back and edit for basic readability. But I don’t have to spend days or weeks in massive rounds of editing as I would normally do when shaping a piece for publication. I can simply tell the story.
For some stories, I do spend more time, either because the topic calls for it or, more often, because I have extra time that week. But for other stories, I just want to share what happened from my point of view and then offer some reflections about it. Those reflections benefit me too. How often do we take time to look back on an event and reflect how it might have shaped our lives or contributed in some way to who we are today? That’s a gift for us, as writers of life stories and family history.
If you’re like me, thinking about the many stories and experiences you want to share with future generations, and wondering how you will find the time to write them all, maybe it will help for you to remember this: Just tell the story. You’re not trying to win a prize. You’re simply communicating across the generations, sharing part of your life and family history with those who will read your stories in the future.
Just tell the story. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Go back and add a little polish to be sure it is readable and makes sense. Add more details if they come to you. (Often when we start writing about a memory, we will remember more as we go along.) And then call it done and move on to tell the next story.
By taking that approach, you may feel less overwhelmed by your writing project. You’ll likely have time to share more pieces of life with future generations, which is really what they want. I would rather read 10 straightforward stories from my ancestors–to learn about many moments in their life from different angles–than to have just one very formal and super-polished piece that only tells me about one moment of life.
I’ll leave you with this example of a recent post on my life story/family history blog: The Pizza Girl. It was a simple story that will show future generations a moment in my life when I acted out of character. The story also shows them something about my mom because she is mentioned in it. I didn’t try to shape it into something profound. I simply told the story. Now it’s there for future generations to learn something about my mom and me.
