Archive for the Category ◊ Collaboration ◊

10 May 2010 Building Kids Interest in Family History
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A number of people we meet tell us, “My kids don’t care about family history.”

That’s not surprising. Interest in genealogy is like any other interest kids have, it has to be developed. As kids learn what genealogy is all about their interest grows. If you want your kids or grandkids to be interested in family history, you have to help them learn about the basics.

Both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts offer Genealogy Merit Badge Programs. These can be a good introduction.

The Young Genealogist Association founded in 2009 offers ideas tools and support kids can use in getting started. Click here to visit their site.

With summer approaching you may want to look into a couple of activities for children. The Southern California Genealogical Association will offer its second annual Kids Camp at the Burbank Marriott on June 11th. Click here for details. If Burbank is too far away, consider working with your local genealogy organization to sponsor a similar event in your community.

The LDS Family History Library offers a Summer of Sleuthing offers a variety of activities for both kids and adults. Click her to see the details from Family Search.

But most importantly, whatever activities you may use to let your children or grandchildren see how interesting Family History can be, the best way to nurture that interest is to work with them yourself. If they can collaborate with you in your own genealogy work they will feel the excitement of being included in a serious adult activity. They will also see that it is an activity that they can continue throughout their lifetime. And you’ll enjoy the opportunity to share their budding interest with them.

28 Apr 2010 Making Memories into Literature
Author: admin |  Category: Collaboration, Memory Work: Recall, Reflect, and Relive  | Leave a Comment

“One of the markers of a life well lived must surely be the stories, experiences and memories that are told, retold, remembered and re-experienced throughout the life span,” said Kathleen Adams of the Center for Journal Therapy in Denver which conducts life story writing programs for seniors.

The Grub Street Memoir Project in Boston has recently published its second anthology My Legacy is Simple. The first is titled Born Before Plastic. Alexis Rizzuto, the Memoir Project manager and senior writing coach, says that two striking features of both books are the ability of the seniors to make their stories “come alive” and the “profound sense of place” their stories of Boston contain.

But helping seniors to access and record their memories can be difficult. Adams recalled a woman named Goggie who, at age 86 at the urging of her granddaughter, began a memoir of growing up on a homestead in the Wild West. “By the time Goggie reached her 90s, dementia had stolen her ability to write or even tell her own stories,” said Adams. Any senior embarking on a project like Goggie’s can expect to experience some memory issues even if they are less severe than hers.

Seniors may find that despite their best efforts there are stories that they can remember only partially – or not at all. Psychoanalyst Helene Deutsch said that when she wrote her memoir Confrontations With Myself: An Epilogue, “Sometimes only the emotional atmosphere has been retained and the actual situation had to be reconstructed.” Rather than allowing yourself to be blocked by what you can’t remember, write your story about the parts you can recall.

The help of families of seniors undertaking life story projects is essential. When Goggie’s memory began to fail, “Her daughters and grandchildren filled in the gaps, writing and telling those stories most familiar and beloved from their own experiences, and scribing Goggie’s faltering reminiscences,” said Adams. The result was a “family heirloom” a hand-made treasure of a book that was passed on to the 13 great-grandchildren.

One of the most important results of life writing for seniors says Anne Flaxman, who teaches writing in Fairfield, Connecticut, “is the way these people begin to see their lives as jewels that have been polished through time and experience and living. They begin to see the beauty and uniqueness that their life has represented.

Eighty-six year old Joseph Raba of Pinhurst, North Carolina, who collaborated with his brothers and sisters on a tribute to their parents expressed this feeling about the result. “To me, this book is worth its weight in gold. Every time I open it, more memories come back to me.”

27 Mar 2010 Writing is Lonely and Difficult, or So They Say
Author: admin |  Category: Collaboration, The Author’s Craft  | Leave a Comment

We’ve all seen the cliché in books and movies. The lonely writer, alone at his desk, stares in tormented despair at a blank page. He types a few lines, muttering, then shakes his head and deletes what he’s written, because it isn’t brilliant enough. The story we all learn is that an author must struggle mightily, and that writing is a slow arduous process.

Another inherent lesson we learn is that an author must go it alone. That’s because writing is represented as a high art, rather than craft. If you’re reaching into the poetry of your soul, it’s true, no one can help you with that. But most of us writers know that writing is 99% perspiration, and just 1% inspiration. If you reimagine writing a book as a craft project, rather than a work of art, then all sorts of new tools come to hand.

I often liken creating a book to cooking, my other favorite mix of art and craft. All of us have pragmatically cooked to simply get dinner on the table. When you’re going to entertain friends, you prepare a better meal, with better quality ingredients and some flourishes, but you still get that meal on the table, using the same processes.

What processes? For one, using a recipe. A step-by-step process that plans it out beforehand ensures success. Having your ingredients lined up and ready to go is a given, and it should be in authoring a book, too.

But the biggest insight in this analogy is that writing can be very social and collaborative if you are willing to consult and include others. Just as I look on recipe sites for clever recipe ideas, there are excellent resources online and in books to guide your writing. Experts and professionals have a lot of good advice to offer. And then there are friends and family. They may not be expert writers, but they know and care about your story. Invite them into the kitchen!

Friends and family can help with:

what to include or exclude

the order of your outline

“how to say it” in particular stories

and even a draft manuscript reading

And of course, once they have helped to prepare the dish, they will relish it even more when you serve it up. These are the people who will be most excited to read your book when it is published.

19 Mar 2010 Aids to Senior Recall for a Memoir or Family History
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A senior who begins to work on a memoir or family history is often concerned about the limits of her memory. She is afraid that she will be unable to recall the name of a person or the details of an event. You can help her remember!

Begin by relaxing! Anxiety blocks memory. Advise her to breathe deeply and relax. A lost memory may appear out of thin air.

Preceding sessions when you will work on your project with exercise can have a very positive effect on her ability to recall details of stories.

More active steps involve using cues of various sorts to trigger elusive memories.

  • Look at old photographs, documents, letters, diaries or family memorabilia.
  • Listen to music from the approximate time of the memory.
  • Use visualization: Picturing the scene of an event in as much detail as possible and recalling people who were present may help fill in gaps in memories of a story.
  • Create a timeline of what was going on at the time she is trying to recall.
  • Recall speech patterns or favorite expressions of a person involved in an event and unlock details of the story.
  • Recalling a smell is often enough to call up details of time, place and events.
  • Encourage her to talk with a friend or another relative who might also know the people or events she is trying to recall to get her thinking about a time in the past which lets the memories come back naturally.

Whatever you do, be patient. Cues may not produce immediate results. The unconscious mind may take time to process. The desired memory may slip back into consciousness at a later time for no obvious reason.

11 Mar 2010 Tools for Memoir and Family History Book Discussion Groups
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We always enjoy talking with people who are interested in memoirs and family histories. We often learn that we have a love of reading in common. The conversation naturally turns to books we’ve read and enjoyed. If you’re working on a memoir or family history, reading similar books is not only interesting, it is instructive.

Wouldn’t it be great to model a memoir after the style of Angela’s Ashes, or Russell Baker’s Growing Up?

If you are a member of a book discussion group or a writers’ group you’re probably always on the lookout for new titles for the group to read. Memoir and family history can make for a lively discussion.

If your group is looking for more than titles you may want to check out ReadingGroupGuides.com. The site offers a synopsis and discussion questions for over 180 memoirs and family sagas. There are guides for 29 other genres as well. You will also find lists of the Most Requested, Ongoing Favorites, New Favorites, and even a guide on “What to do when there’s no guide available?”

The Public Library in Madison, Wisconsin offers questions for book discussion groups on 26 memoir titles. The questions are available free on the libraries website www.madisonpubliclibrary.org. Just look under book groups.

BestSellers.about.com provides discussion questions for hundreds of titles including several memoirs and family histories.

02 Mar 2010 Read Across America
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As a former English teacher encouraging kids to read is dear to my heart. So I encourage you to participate in Read Across America Day by reading to a kid.

March 2nd is the National Education Association’s Read Across America Day. As the NEA explains it, “In May 1997, a small reading task force at NEA came up with a big idea. “Let’s create a day to celebrate reading,” the group decided. “We hold pep rallies to get kids excited about football. We assemble to remember that Character Counts. Why don’t we do something to get kids excited about reading? We’ll call it ‘NEA’s Read Across America’ and we’ll celebrate it on Dr. Seuss’s birthday.”

Click here to go to the NEA website to find out how you can participate in Read Across America.

28 Jan 2010 Consider Forming a Memoir or Family History Writing Group
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We completed a workshop for memoirists and family historians at the Sun City Community in Lincoln Hills, California. It was a great group who made the sessions very lively and interesting for us (and we hope for themselves).
We were excited when the participants told us that they planned to continue meeting as they worked on their respective projects.
Creating a memoir or family history can be much easier – and more fun – if you share it with other people trying to create books of their own. Here are some tips on how to organize a writing group.
• Decide on ground rules. Most people prefer a support group not a critique group.
• Find a place to meet
• Determine how often you’ll meet
• Decide on the size group you want.
• Invite people to join.
• Decide on a meeting format – For example:
15 minutes for members to raise questions / problems
15 minutes to discuss a topic like organization, photographs or interviewing
60 minutes for members to read from what they’re working on
• Decide whether member reading will be voluntary or scheduled
A writing group can give you the kind of support you need to help you to create the memoir or family history you’re dreaming of.

03 Jan 2009 Bring Your Family Together with Holiday Memories
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Did your family consider, this holiday season, beginning the new year by working together to create a memoir, tribute book or family history? It’s a great idea that keeps a family close all year long. Before you jump into creating your book, think about how your family’s collaboration will work. For one thing, each of the participants in the project will bring a different perspective to it. This simple exercise can help you be aware of those perspectives as you begin.

Exercise: Have each collaborator recall and tell the group about the same event from the holiday season – this year, or a past event all can remember. Have each person tell the story exactly the way they recall it: what happened, who was present, when it happened, as many sensory details – sounds, smells, etc., and as much of the exact dialogue as they can. Other family members should listen carefully for the different details or interpretations that each person gives to the story.

Why do this exercise? To successfully collaborate on a book project, the group needs to plan for the different points of view this exercise will reveal.
Discuss these questions together:
• Will you weave them together into a single account?
• Will you present each person’s recollections separately?
• How will you finally decide what goes into your book and what doesn’t?

One piece of advice we give our Stories To Tell authors is that it generally works best for one person to be in charge of the project. By doing this exercise, you can choose your leader, formulate a game plan, and agree, right at the beginning of the project, what to include when you have so many stories to tell.