“Heroic is a bit strong,” he says, “but I am enjoying it.”

My father has, in recent months, embarked on a writing project. Inspired in equal parts by a) the realization that he won’t live forever, b) encouragement from his wife (my saintly stepmom), and c) the work Tom and I do as life writing coaches -- he has decided to write down some of his life stories.

Have you repeatedly started a life story project, but you can't ever seem to get past the first few pages? Getting hung up near the beginning is extremely common. (Clients often bring us snippets of a life history that a parent began to write, but never completed, and now the parent has passed away and their children want to complete the history.)

There's an easier method to writing a personal history than starting with "I was born..."

Last month we posted some questions to help you know your mother better. Now it's Dad's turn. This Father's Day, after kicking around a football or watching the game, get out a tape recorder and ask your dad a few questions: 

Here is a link to a great little article by memoir writing coach Marion Roach Smith. I love her concept of "taking a slice" out of a student's timeline and admonishing them to "just go from here to there." 

I can attest from my own experience that life story writing can be a powerfully self-affirming journey. Looking at an overview of your life as a whole gives you a unique perspective. For me, I was able to make connections between seemingly disparate events that I hadn't noticed until I started to write about them. Seeing those connections, some things that had confused me for years suddenly started to make sense.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association established a link between writing about stressful experiences and improved health. The co-author of the study, Joshua M. Smyth, explains, “It actually has little to do with raw catharsis, which, I think, is what people assume.” Rather, the health benefits were a result of cognitive restructuring, or learning to see problems in a new way

Today we wanted to draw your attention to a terrific blog post from the New York Public Library by Carmen Nigro, 20 Reasons Why You Should Write Your Family History. For each reason cited, there is a link to another publication on writing family history that could be helpful.