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Have you lived enough of a life to write a book about? and if you have, would you? If you wrote it, would you conceal some truth with lies or ommissions or would it be blood and guts?
How far would you go?

I ask as I am beginning my own.

Savage 7 Aug 12
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26 comments

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3

I did write a book about the women in my Mom's family. I had my mom record stories about her childhood, and her family. I wanted it for my daughter, so she would know the long line of strong, brave women that she came from. I am now writing short essays about my childhood and life for her. The book needs to be rewritten. I have old pictures of my grandma, great grandma, and great great grandma, that I want to put in the book. There is no blood, but lots of gutsy women.

3

I have begun one at the urging of many of my friends. I will be completely open and honest.

3

Blood and guts, all the way. There's no point in doing anything else.
Good luck with your writing.

2

Blood and guts. And I already have a working title: "One Lucky Bitch."

2

If I wrote a book about my life, it would be about my journey through mental illness and how it's possible to turn it around. I've started writing about it in bits and pieces -- I don't know if I would ever get the whole thing together, but that's okay.

I have a neighbor whose daughter and her partner moved into a separate rental bldg. She has Bi-polar and is open about it and even has a blog. She recently gave a well attended discussion about a new book she has written. I was very impressed. [gofundme.com]

2

I definitely have , and am thinking about a book. No holds barred, t'would be !

2

I have been told repeatedly that I should write an autobiography. Will I? Probably not. Why not? I don't really know specifically. I think it is possibly because I'm not interested enough to do it. I have written and published all sorts of stuff from novels to technical treatises, but all of it was driven by an interest and a need to do it for various reasons. A book about my life is not high on my list of things I need to do.

That in no way says one should not write their biography. I you feel driven or even slightly motivated to write it, by all means, go ahead and do it.

2

Many thanks for the show of support. And I think I will let you peeps see some snippets as I write. I promise it will have sleaze, deceit and pained betrayal. A deal with the devil (figuratively speaking) and a dance with death. It has it all.

2

I can't think of anyone whose life couldn't be made into a book -- whether a cautionary tale, a rags to riches inspirational story, or just the life of a human with loves lost and found, choices made, and consequences lived. Age really isn't a factor, some people live more by the age of 30 than others will live in 70 years.
There really isn't any point in laying out an autobiography unless you are planning on honesty and transparency. Otherwise, why not just write a fiction book of the character you would like to be?

1

Truth is stranger than fiction. The blood and guts of every moment of our daily struggles is metaphor, allegory, allusion, fairy tale, philosophy etc. Etc. Ad nauseum.

Much stranger than fiction. Had a very varied and hardcore life, seeing things most never dream of being real, in places where there are no tourists. Some I know will not be believed, especially in my activist days. Investigating high tech psychoactive frequencies being used on the London underground rave scene. Even had an attempt on my life with a sound weapon that took 6 months to recover from. Strange enough, LOL

1

go for hyperboles instead of omissions.

1

Yup, been around the block..... enough crap to write amusing stories, no doubt. Perhaps I will leave it all stored in a safe place that will be released after I kick it....

1

Question should be... How Far did you Went? And then... You Take it from There.

uhh?

1

I wrote an instructional book for musicians. I don't think that counts for what you're saying, but it was still a great thing to do.

I would be as honest as possible. Failure is a great teacher, you know.

Explains why I've learnt so much

1

Yes, I'm in the process of a dating book actually. It'll have to be in a pen name because I'm still dating and I certainly wouldn't want people to think I'm dating just to get information for the book. Good luck with yours. I have a friend of mine who self-published and I hear that's the way to go but I haven't gotten that far and I would like a legitimate publisher I'm thinking.

lerlo Level 8 Aug 13, 2018

Never tried to get a publisher, I've always made my writings available free, even printing out copies myself in the days before the internet. For this book I am yet to decide. It will be free online but I may also get some printed up. Biggest problem is I also need it translating into french.

@Savage with all the new translation apps I would think that would be pretty easy to get it into French. I know I have an app on my phone that all you have to do is point the phone toward like a sign and it'll give you the translation so check into that stuff.

@lerlo Yeah but still need a fluent french reader to correct all the mistakes it makes. And though you can usually work out what is meant, for a book it needs to be a more accurate translation.

@Savage yes but probably cheaper to find an editor than a translator.

@lerlo An editor, you mean a word butcher. LOL My writing goes out raw, always has. But I'll wait til it's written before worrying about translation. And will be in and out of France so am sure I'll find someone.

@Savage sounds like an enjoyable Adventure. What part of France will you be in?

@lerlo Redon, brittany. Will be roughing it in the car when I go, no friendly faces over there, for me. At least so far. If brexit falls through I will be buying somewhere over there, though on the real cheap. Maybe even just land and park a bus.

1

Not really enough of one yet to be writing my memoirs or anything but I’ve survived a fucked up enough childhood and amount of indoctrination to write a book on that. I’ve thought about it a few times and if I do, it’ll be blood n guts. I may wait til my parents are dead though because I don’t really want to make them as sad as they made me by hashing through their failings publicly. Or I might write it under a pseudonym just so I can be completely honest with no regrets.

1

I have, but I think I had to have someone tell me so before I realized it. I had finally obtained a wonderful job as a manager of a great group of people, and one day, after about a year, one of the leads told me that she loved to hear me tell my 'stories'. I asked her what she meant, and she said that I had so many experiences, that they spilled over into my teaching and training and made it entertaining for everyone to learn how to do their job. And even when it wasn't job related, she said my stories were never dull. Little did I know. So I've started to copy some of my responses here to see if I could compile something to start a memoir with. We'll see how that goes.

1

I think I have lived an interesting life so far. I suspect that I'd omit mistakes that involved other people. There's plenty of stuff that I can talk about

1

It would be Wodehouse meets Bombeck, with a heady splash of The River Why. Horrible. Nobody wants to read that.

1

At one point in my life I had 2 goals: to get excommunicated (I have tried but no luck) and the other was to write a book. I've had enough damned experiences to write several books and my accident with all it's strange connection is just another example. I think joining agnostic.com has helped me get out some experiences. Also, through the site an posts/comments I have made a lot of connections I had previously missed.So it's the sites fault the 2nd goal has not been fulfilled!!

1

MOst of it would have to be fiction as i signed a NDA for the 20+ years I worked for the government. Yeah, fiction it would have to be, with the names changed to shield the guilty.

BillF Level 7 Aug 12, 2018

Screw NDA blow the whistle, under anon if you have too

1

I am writing a novel based on my experience of middle school and school. But to be more in keeping with your question, I wrote an autobiographical short story (20 pages), holding nothing back. I took a few creative liberties, but the story is approximately 95% accurate to history. The key to living "enough of a life to write a book about?" Fatally poor mental health. The way make that book worth reading? Write with your blood. Are you a burgeoning or experienced writer?

I've written a few novels, some short stories and lots of info leaflets. And of course the obligatory reams of poems. Yes, even pirates do poetry, LOL

@Savage I must ask; what is your favorite word (if you have one)? Mine is "autochthonous."

1

I have. I've started writing episodes of my life in my poems. I tried starting an autobiography, but it just didn't come together.

1

Almost everyone would make an interesting book, we all have stories. Like all books, not everyone would buy it, so be it. I could could write a book with several volumes of "Maybe I should have thought about that more before doing it?"

1

If I wrote about myself it’d be a humorous mishmash of impressions and memories, all out of order.

I doubt anyone would be interested in a complete factual autobiography.

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