New Year resolution: to write a book!
New Year, New Book
Do you still make New Year Resolutions? I stopped quite a long time ago. I don't stagger back after Christmas now and guiltily sign up for a year's gym membership which I would invariably use about three times. I don't bother with giving up the bottle — January's far too difficult a month for that. I don't vow to keep my desk tidy, for fear of unsettling the dust.
The word itself is so off-putting, isn't it? Resolution: you've almost got to frown to say it. There's never been much fun in resolutions.
But here's a thing. If you've been thinking for a while about setting down your life story, why not start making plans this January? Although I'm a ghostwriter and earn my living as such, I'm always keen to encourage people to write their own life story. The novelist Philip Roth rather sniffily said once: It's true that everyone has a book inside them, and that is exactly where it should stay.
But I disagree with the great man. My late father decided to write down his own lifestory when he was in his 70s, and I helped him to self-publish it. Not only did he really enjoy the process, remembering all kinds of funny incidents and friendships he'd forgotten about, he also gave huge pleasure to his mates and to his family. The book was mostly about his career in the Army — me and my sisters got about a page and a half towards the end, which we teased him about. But it genuinely gave him enormous pleasure.
I liken it to the way that Edwardian young ladies were encouraged to draw: it is a creative expression and the world right now needs lots of creative expressions to counter the miseries we read about in the news every day. Creativity — whether it's writing your lifestory or painting a picture or playing the tambourine — is simply good. There is nothing wrong with it and everything right about it. It's good for you, it's good for those around you, it's good for the planet.
But it's not that easy to sit down and start writing if that's not been your métier. So here's a few ideas, some of which I used in my Idler magazine online course: https://www.idler.co.uk/product/how-to-write-your-life-story-with-simon-petherick/. The thing is, don't get overwhelmed straight away. How do you eat an elephant? In bitesize chunks. So take one chunk at a time.
First, get yourself a decent-sized notebook or scrapbook and just jot down memories randomly as they occur to you. If you suddenly think about that trip to Marrakesh you made in your twenties, dig out an old photo and stick it in the album. What about that Chic song you used to play every night before you went out dancing? Find it on Spotify and play it, then start making a playlist of other songs from the time.
Tell your family and your friends that you're going to write your life story and invite them to email in any funny or sad or happy stories they can remember about you. Go up into the attic and dig out that old suitcase which has your old school reports and love letters.
Next, only when you're ready, try and work out a rough chronology. What most of us do is we get the dates and the order of the events of our lives wildly wrong the older we get. I spent my entire adult life convinced that we'd moved to a certain town in England when I was a little boy the year that Manchester United won the European Cup, and I only found out this year I was two years out. When you offer ghostwriting services, you discover this a lot: I've had clients who "forgot" the most remarkable things, but the one who "forgot" one entire marriage probably took the biscuit. Once you've got a written chronology in place — Excel sheets are good for this, if you can bear them, but notebooks are just as fine — then you can cross-reference your memories with those of your friends and family.
If you're wise, and I'm sure you are, you won't use this opportunity to settle scores. Scores are best settled with a physical arm-wrestling match or a massive argument in the car park of Sainsburys — as Prince Harry is discovering, books aren't really the best place to work them out. Endeavour to be kind to those who have annoyed you, merciful to those who have let you down; usually, even though you're convinced that right is on your side, your erstwhile foe will see it differently. Let sleeping dogs lie.
Above all, enjoy yourself. Experiment with writing dialogue — it's really not as easy as people think to write as you speak or as you hear. Have fun with words, but adhere strictly to the advice of George Orwell and never use a long word when a shorter, clearer one does the job. Never, ever, use words like "methinks" or "pray tell".
And remember that you're doing this to entertain yourself and your circle, you're doing it to flex your creative muscles and keep the old grey matter up to speed, you're doing it to make sure that people and places and times that you loved live on for ever more as a celebration. As Nat King Cole sang in Nature Boy: life is about loving and being loved in return.
Simon Petherick