This week I’m revealing some of my all-time favorite writing prompts to help you write some of those precious memories and preserve them for generations to come. Download your Prompts Guide
The Best Holiday Writing Prompts for Family Historians
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20 Reasons You Should Blog Your Family History Book20 Reasons You Should Blog Your Family History Book
I believe in the paper book especially when it comes to leaving a lasting legacy of our family history. Don’t get me wrong, I own an e-reader, and I love technology, but paper books remain for me the best choices to record our family history stories. Paper has proven to stand the test of time, and it remains the best option for leaving a legacy for future descendants.
Who knows where technology will lead us in the years to come. I do know that printed books have been around for thousands of years, and despite our advancements in technology they continue to hold on. You do not have to worry about whether your stories will be found in the vast world of internet or whether your information saved on your computer or CDs can be opened and accessed by your descendants. Books don’t require any special technology to read them.
However, I also believe that we need to consider today’s technology for reaching out to our living relatives. I hear it over and again. Family historians tell me how their family is not interested. But we need to consider how and where we are delivering these stories.
E-books, blogs, e-newsletters, and Facebook are just a few ways we can convey our stories to our living relatives.
To reach out to our children and grandchildren, we need to deliver our stories to their laptops, tablets, and smartphones. We need to address our family, particularly the younger generation where they live – online. We need to distribute our family history, in short, digestible stories, that fit today’s fast-paced lifestyle.
Enter blogging, an excellent tool for providing your family history stories in small, easily digestible snippets for today’s generation.
However, blogging has an added advantage. Not only can you use it as a tool to entertain and educate your living family, but you can also curate those blog posts into a paper book to leave for your descendants. Family history blogs give you the advantage of addressing today’s generation but also leaving your stories in a printed format for tomorrow’s generation. We need to focus on both so that our descendants will find our stories.
Family history blogging offers a variety of benefits for family historians and should be taken seriously as a means of bringing your family history to the online world and in a printed book.
Here are 20 benefits you can gain from blogging your family history book.
- Simplify an overwhelming project–breaking down the task of writing a book into small blog posts.
- Organization – short blog posts help you to organize your book into chapters, isolate themes, and ancestors to focus on.
- Establish a writing routine – learn to write on a regular schedule compiling a collection of narratives.
- Develop your writing skills –with each post your writing will improve. (I promise)
- Find an audience for your book – introduce yourself as a writer to not only your family but a worldwide
- It’s free – write a blog for free. Work out your stories before you invest in printing costs.
- Get feedback from readers on your stories.
- Create an email list of readers who may want to buy your future book
- Draw out distant cousins and find new leads on brick walls.
- Promote your genealogy skills and or business.
- Develop your social media skills.
- Produce material to share with your social media networks.
- Test book ideas before you invest a great deal of time in writing them.
- Build your authority as an expert in your field.
- Reach a younger generation where they live – online.
- Leave a legacy online for future generations to find.
- Increase your income.
- Attract an agent or publisher.
- Attract media to your business.
- Accountability and deadlines – hold yourself accountable to an audience to produce content in a timely and consistent manner.
Do you want to learn how to write a family history blog? Join our Family History Blog Writing Course, our first online course in The Family History Writing Studio. Learn to write and publish your family history one post at a time!
Family History Blog Writing Course
This intimate, hands-on workshop will assist you in outlining and writing content for your family history blog for the purposes of curating your stories into a family history book.
Begins Jan 3rd. 2017, Registration now open.
5 Reasons You Should Be Writing Your Family History5 Reasons You Should Be Writing Your Family History
Family historians are often contemplating what they will do with the copious amounts of research they have accumulated over the years. No question, writing stories is often the end goal. However, by the time most genealogists begin thinking about writing they are completely overwhelmed by the size of the task. Too many times I’ve heard the words…”maybe some day.”
If this sounds like you then consider joining me in The Family History Writing Challenge, we can overcome this obstacle and all the other excuses that are preventing you from beginning.
- There’s never going to be the perfect time.
There will always be obstacles. Life will get in the way and waiting for the perfect time will never happen. The Family History Writing Challenge will help you to structure writing to be a regular part of your life.
You can wait for the perfect time, when there are no distractions. But, let’s be honest that will never occur. However, by investing in as little as 15 minutes a day or by setting a daily word count, like 500 words a day you can meet your goals. Can you find 15 minutes in your schedule? I’m certain you can.
2. There is so much to learn from the journey.
Often family historians are reluctant to make the transition because they don’t consider themselves writers. No one is born a writer. Writing is a process, a learned skill that improves with practice. By diving in, you learn the habits and the environment that is conducive to helping you write, along with the necessary skills.
You learn to write family history by writing. (Tweet this!)
Often family historians are reluctant to make the transition because they don’t consider themselves writers. No one is born a writer. Writing is a process, a learned skill that improves with practice. By diving in, you learn the habits and the environment that is conducive to helping you write, along with the necessary skills.
Regardless of whether it is creative nonfiction that we cover in The Challenge or another genre you care to write about, you can’t learn, understand and perfect these skills without practicing them…that means writing.
- You can research and write at the same time.
Taking up the task of writing your family history doesn’t mean your research comes to an end. Throw out that excuse because we all know that your research will never be done, and you can’t wait until it is to start. There are many great stories waiting within your research right now. Start with one ancestor, one story, start small and simple.
Schedule your research and writing as two separate tasks. When you write a story you’ll find opportunities when perhaps a little more research is required. That’s great. Make a note and keep writing. During your designated research time, turn to your list. Don’t allow your research and writing time to cross.
- You want to write engaging stories.
The Family History Writing Challenge focuses on the tools of creative nonfiction. Turn your dry narratives into engaging stories that your family wants to read. The Daily Dose newsletter is delivered to your inbox for 28 days through the month of February. You’ll learn characterization, plotting, showing and telling, turning facts into scenes and description and detail. You’ll discover all the elements which make an entertaining nonfiction narrative.
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5. You can find growth in a short amount of time.
In the 28-days of The Challenge, you’ll find your focus. You’ll make writing a priority in your life, and the knowledge and inspiration you’ll learn during our month together will result in a growth experience in a short amount of time. We also have expert authors joining us to add their depth of knowledge. If you venture into the Writer’s Forum, you’ll also learn to give and receive critique and elevate your writing to a new level.
Start getting organized to write your stories with our Getting Ready to Write workbook. Perfect for the first time writer who just doesn’t know where to start and needs some guidance in identifying the kind of story they want to write, setting up a workflow and creating sustainable writing habits.
