How do I approach writing an autobiography?

Well, chronological is always a useful way of telling this sort of story, but it might not be the most engaging. As strange as it sounds, even a biography has to have a story. Sometimes the best way to do this is start it at a singular event, then go back to see how you came to that point. The idea is to show how your life molded you into the person that you are. This also starts to dance into a memoir, but that isn't a huge issue.

Of course, since his is a biography the order you write the events isn't going to change the events themselves, so I would just simply start writing things as they come to you. Make sure to date when they happened so you can organize them later, also talking about one event may help jog you memory of another even, so writing it non-linear might help keep events fresh in your mind.

As for how to pace yourself and keep interest in the project, well that's a challenge every writer faces. Going old traditional might be the best choice: writing some every day, having a fix time to write with little distractions and daily goals. Even so that is a larger question to deal with.

Lastly, using digital features to try and keep things organized. Believe it or not, blogging software might be the best choice in this case. Using software like that you can tag and link pretty much every post you make, allowing you to navigate things easier. You can also host in in the 'cloud' so you can access in anywhere (and you can keep them private, so no one can read them without your permission). In the end though, don't let worry about how to use it stop you from starting the project. Really the very first step is going to be to start writing it, before that everything else is really just academic.

posted about 12 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

Fox Cutter‭

80 reputation 0 4 16 0

Unless you are near (what you think is) the end of your life, you don't have enough data yet to know what will ultimately be the best organization. So don't try to create an outline; just start writing pieces.

Chronological seems logical but might not be very engaging. Is reading a day-by-day (or week-by-week) diary where not a lot happens at once interesting? Not usually. But the slices of life that you get through journaling can add up to interesting collections, re-arranged.

I think you will get the best results by doing this digitally. Specifically, use a blog so you can cross-link and tag entries. This does not mean you have to publish your blog to the world; blogging sites like Dreamwidth, Livejournal, and others allow you to set access control for individual entries or entire journals. I started an online journal more than ten years ago and it's still surprising what entries I return to -- ones I didn't know at the time would be significant -- and which ones that I thought important turned out not to be.

Tagging allows you to index on the fly. Over time you can organize existing entries into groups, via linking, based on whatever criteria make sense -- time, broad themes, ties to specific people, or whatever.

posted about 12 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Monica Cellio‭ staff

2514 reputation 51 268 361 110