Your Story Matters: Angela Robertson on Penning Your Past

Alternate titles

• One Bite at a Time: How to Start Writing Your Own Life Story
• Be Yourself, Everyone Else Is Taken: Angela Robertson on Writing Your Story

Liz welcomes back author and adult-education expert Angela Robertson to talk about her new book, Penning Your Past, a simple guide to writing your own life story. With eight books of her own and many more written alongside other people, Angela makes a warm, encouraging case that everyone’s story is worth telling. It is a practical conversation full of gentle nudges past the things that usually stop people, from doubting their own life is interesting to not knowing where to begin.

Key takeaways for members

• Your story matters, and nobody can tell it better than you. When a story goes undocumented it is simply lost, and the questions we wish we had asked our parents and grandparents become impossible to answer once they are gone. Writing it down is both a meaningful and a purposeful thing to do in later life.
• You do not need to be an expert. We tell each other stories all the time, in the street, with family, with friends. Writing your story is just that, set down on paper. All you really need to start is a notebook and a pen.
• Know the four common obstacles. Believing your story is interesting, making the commitment and the time, the naysayers (so find your tribe of like-minded people), and choosing a single topic rather than trying to cram everything into one book.
• Eat the elephant one bite at a time. Pick one angle, perhaps your early life, your migration story or your teenage years, and write that. You do not have to work in chronological order, and you can link the pieces together later.
• Use prompts to unlock memories. Letters, old aerograms, diaries, logbooks and even physical objects all spark detail and bring a younger self back into view. A simple list of topics on Post-it Notes is enough to get going.
• Be yourself, because everyone else is taken. Do not try to write like a famous novelist. Family members want to hear your voice and recognise you on the page, so write the way you speak.
• Context is everything. Facts alone read like a train timetable. What brings a story to life is the world around it: what life was like at the time, how things were done then, and how different that is from now.
• Keep the momentum going. Try short writing sprints, perhaps fifteen minutes of writing without stopping, even when you feel stuck. And stop each session mid-thread so you can pick up exactly where you left off next time, a bit like knitting.

Penning Your Past is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback. In New Zealand you can also buy it directly from Angela or from Books & Co in Ōtaki. To contact Angela directly, email her at kiaora@angelarobertson.nz.