Feeling Challenged

We are in the final leg of the family history writing challenge. It officially ends on the 29th, but I hope that the forum will remain open so that we can keep in touch. It has been fun getting to know the other family historians. I am pretty pleased with where I am in the process. My biggest hurdle will be making the information sound interesting. Several people in the forum have suggested books that might help in that regard. There was a list of family histories of all shapes and sizes. I purchased Oh Beautiful by John Paul Godges upon the recommendation of several people in the group. It is a compelling read so far, and hopefully will give me some ideas on the way I want to approach my story.

Class-less in St. Louis?

Thursday I contacted the woman in charge of continuing education at the community college regarding a question I have about my class. The course description indicates that the students receive a workbook as part of their registration fee. In fact over the years the workbook has evolved into an actual paperback book on writing, publishing and promoting a non-fiction book. In the past the author of the book has simply invoiced the college $10 per book, and the instructor passed the books out.

However the author has a new edition of the book out, and it retails for $20. She can no longer afford to sell the books to the college at $10 per book. But the college didn't know this when the course catalog went to press. In fact I didn't know this until a couple of weeks ago. The woman from the college is going to contact the author to see if they can come to an arrangement. If they cannot, I am not sure what will happen. The course follows that book exactly, so it would be hard to teach without it. And I certainly cannot come up with my own workbook in two weeks. But it may all be a moot point. The class so far only has three people registered, and the college requires six in order to hold the class. I will call the woman back on the 24th to see what the registration looks like. At this point if I don't have a book available, I hope there are not enough registrants so I can re-group before the fall semester.

One Week into the Challenge

We are one week into the Family History Writing Challenge. Except for one day I have managed to meet or exceed my daily writing goal. Like others in the challenge, I am finding it hard not to get distracted by research once I am writing. I have a tendency to think, oh let me check that fact...and before I know it I am looking up something online or in my files. My solution to that is to keep a pad of paper and a pen by my mouse so I can jot down notes to myself. I also make some notes in red within my writing so that I can refer back to those later. The main idea is to not be distracted from the actual writing. Once you stop it is really hard to get back to it.

Through the writing process I can definitely see the holes in my research. I am making a list of questions that I want to discuss with my aunts as well as places and periods of history that I want to research a bit more. At my uncle's funeral I met an older woman in our family who actually lived with my great-grandparents. Oh, how I want to sit down and talk with her! I will be in Cincinnati in May for a conference, so I definitely will make time to go and see her.

I actually think the biggest challenge in writing a family history is to make it interesting. No one wants to just read a bunch of facts and figures. And since none of my ancestors were kind enough to keep diaries, I really don't know what their lives were like. I can see that there will be a lot of historical reading in my future.