Legacy : A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History
by Linda Spence
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Book Summary Information
Author: Linda SpenceEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-11-01
ISBN: 080401003X
Number of pages: 178
Publisher: Swallow Press
Book Reviews of Legacy : A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History
Book Review: Gets You Started
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a step-by-step guide to writing your life's stories as a legacy for other family members. The author has worked with seniors for many years, gathering their stories and helping them document their life histories. In this book, she presents a simple methodology that anyone can follow to help them get over the hardest step in the process-getting started. In the introduction, she urges the reader to set aside some time and space for writing, in a notebook, on an audio cassette, on a typewriter, or on a computer, whichever is most comfortable and convenient. Then she provides lists of reflective questions to get the juices flowing. The questions are organized by topic, including earliest memories, school life, young adulthood, marriage, children, grandchildren, and later adult years. Interspersed with these questions are quotations from unknown as well as famous published memoirists whose writing illustrates the topic at hand.
Everybody has had life experiences which are fascinating, amazing, or potentially edifying for others. The trouble is, so few of these stories ever get passed on because it's so hard to actually sit down and write them. With this book, Spence makes the task seem easy. Writers can sit down with the book, open to a page at random, and begin writing responses to her prompts. Or they can begin with the first question and work methodically through the book. Each question can easily require an entire essay to answer in full. Once the individual essays start collecting, the raw material is ready to edit into a book. Or, the answers can simply be left as drafts in the writer's notebook to be passed on to others as a legacy. It should be noted that Spence's goal is to help readers to document their life histories in a positive way so as to create a product that can be passed on to other family members, rather than to explore negative memories as a means of self-growth. The book is not about style, grammar, or esthetic qualities of writing. Spence finds it more important for writers to use their own voices naturally rather than to adopt formal stylistic attributes. The book would make an excellent gift for older family members who have stories to tell but just haven't gotten around to writing them down yet.
Summary of Legacy : A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History
In this practical guide to capturing those memories that have been stored away, Linda Spence provides the questions that are the keys to unlocking the memories that make up a life. Beyond the vital statistics are the personal stories that tell what it was like, what we did, and why we did it, how we feel about our choices, and what our circumstances were. Through encouraging coaching, shared memories, and open-ended questions, the process of producing a personal history becomes intriguing and engaging. With Legacy the possibilities expand: a personal record is preserved—with its myths, traditions, joys, pains, gains, and losses; a family opens a potential dialogue that will last for generations; the writer has an opportunity for insight and resolution; the culture of a time and place is noted; the tradition of personal story is revitalized, and our present and future find nourishment and knowledge in the past. Either as a gift that can act as a shared experience as the memories are recounted or as a personal way to take account of one?s experiences, often long since forgotten, Legacy is indeed a way to get one?s story down. Linda Spence writes and collects Legacy stories in Mill Valley, California, where she lives and works as a consultant.Linda Spence's Legacy proves to be just that: the creation of a family heirloom that money couldn't buy. Through a series of thought-provoking questions about each phase in human life, Spence helps readers record their personal history, think back to feelings that any number of snapshots could never capture, and reflect upon their lives. What events occurred during your childhood? What did you like most about school? What do you wish your parents had done for you? The text includes sample essays by the author and quotations by other writers to encourage your muse.
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