You Don't Have To Be Famous: How to Write Your Life Story

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Overview

Write Your Life Story Today!

Would you like to record your life story for future generations? Do you want to write your life story to fulfill a personal need or desire for creativity? So why haven't you started?

Writing can be intimidating, but with the help of You Don't Have to Be Famous, you can successfully start and finish your most important story.

Noted author Steve Zousmer helps you overcome the challenges associated with writing by showing you how to think creatively about ...

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More About This Book

Overview

Write Your Life Story Today!

Would you like to record your life story for future generations? Do you want to write your life story to fulfill a personal need or desire for creativity? So why haven't you started?

Writing can be intimidating, but with the help of You Don't Have to Be Famous, you can successfully start and finish your most important story.

Noted author Steve Zousmer helps you overcome the challenges associated with writing by showing you how to think creatively about the best way to tell your story. Discover how to:

  • Create a cohesive vision to shape and guide your writing
  • Choose and correctly use a structure that complements your story
  • Develop your story so that it progresses in a natural and seamless way
  • Craft your voice so that it's authentic and engaging
  • Know which details might be better left unsaid and why

Plus, learn about your publishing options and what to expect from your readers.

You don't have to have an exotic or adventurous life to have a life worth recording. Your story is meaningful because it is uniquely yours. Writing isn't always about getting published or becoming rich and famous; sometimes it's about something even more important. Don't wait another day to start writing the story of your life!

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781582974385
  • Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
  • Publication date: 5/28/2007
  • Pages: 256
  • Sales rank: 485,109
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 8.90 (h) x 0.50 (d)

Meet the Author

Steve Zousmer is a freelance corporate speechwriter, whose clients include current and former CEOs from Amdahl, American Express, Forbes, McGraw-Hill, News Corporation, Pepsi, Philip Morris, Shell Oil Company, Starwood Hotels, and Walt Disney—among many others. Aside from writing speeches for CEOs, he also has written op-eds for them, which have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.

Table of Contents


Foreword     vii
You Don't Have To Be Famous     1
Forget About Fame and Fortune     3
Don't Think That You're Uninteresting     6
You Are Worthy     7
Advantages of Private Autobiography     11
"New Autobiography"     15
FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions     19
How Long Does It Have to Be?     19
How Long Will It Take to Write This Thing?     22
Where Am I Going to Get My Ideas?     22
Should I Share My Enthusiasm With Family and Friends?     28
Will I Embarrass Myself With Bad Punctuation?     30
The Big Question (Why?)     32
Motivation: Four Good Choices     36
Discovery     37
Posterity     43
History     45
Fulfilling Your Creative Impulse     48
You Need an Organizing Principle     52
The Chronological Model     54
Variation on Chronology: The Flashback Model     65
The Episodic Model     67
The Theme-Linked Model     68
The History-Linked Model     69
The Stream-of-Consciousness Model     70
Preparation Issues: Research, Outlining, Self-Discipline     72
Research-Keep It Limited     73
Infrastructure-Keep It Simple     74
To Outline or Not to Outline?     78
You Need a Whip-Cracking Tyrant (You)     84
Who Are You and Who Is the Audience?     87
Who Is Your Audience?     91
No Audience But Yourself     94
What Are Your Levels of Candor and Disclosure?     97
How to Find Your Writing Voice     100
Writing Is Hard     104
Understand Why Writing Is Hard     105
Balance Fear With Knowledge     107
Outsmart Writer's Block     109
"Get It Down, Then Get It Right"     111
Solitary Writing Versus Group Writing     115
Set Your Imagination Free     119
Be Audacious     120
Get Into the Magic Zone     123
The Waiver     127
Tell the Truth     130
Strategies for a Good Start     134
What Makes a Good Start Good?     135
Angles of Attack     143
Telling Stories     150
Discovering Causation in Stories     151
What Is the Meaning of "Meaning"?     154
Selection     155
Fragments      157
What Is a Story?     161
Writing Advice for the Long Haul     167
Showing Versus Telling     167
Be Specific     169
Change Pace     171
"Explainitis" and the Role of Instinct     175
What to Do When You Bog Down     176
Talking About Things We Don't Talk About     182
Maybe You See It Differently     185
The Default Position: Safe and Conservative     187
The Bold Position: Telling All, Going Deep     189
Sentiment Versus Sentimentality     195
Rewriting     200
Learn to Read Your Own Writing     201
The Joy of Deleting     205
The More You Look, the More You Find     206
Four Pages Back, Three Pages Forward     210
Think Bigger     212
When Does Rewriting End?     213
You're Finished, Now What?     216
Brace for Unpredictable Reader Reactions     217
No-Tech and Low-Tech Publishing Options     221
Print-On-Demand Self-Publishing     224
Adding Audio and Video     228
Afterword: My Not-Yet-Written Autobiography     231
Profiling Yourself on Video     234
Index      240

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3.5
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Sort by: Showing all of 3 Customer Reviews

  • Posted November 15, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    This book inspired me to at last begin what I had thought about for years.

    "You Don't Have To Be Famous" is not the first book I have read of its type, but it is the one that inspired me into action. As a genealogist who began his historcal quest in 1948 as a boy aged 16 years and who still finds the search and discovery fascinating, this book echos what I have always believed: How wonderful it would have been if even one of my ancestors had left a written account of his/her life. None of mine were particularily famous and they probably felt nobody would care to read about their lives. How wrong can one be! I would love to have found a personal account of their lives; instead, I was forced to resurect their life stories from bits and scraps of information I rescued from the dustbins of history. I avowed that in my case this would not happen. The book convinced me that my story should not be written with publication in mind; rather, it is produced for my sons, their children and so forth down the line into the future. The book convinced me that I did not have to follow the usual prosaic chronological listing of my life events from birth to as close to the end as possible. Instead I opted to make my effort a collection of anecdotes about people, friends, relatives, and events I found interesting (and sometimes funny) along with biographical information not only about myself, but about those ancestors and their collateral descendants I have uncovered in my researches. Because I am not writing for publication I do not need to conform to normal standards concerning formating, grammar, punctuation, style, and diction. This does not mean I will not pay attention to those elements, but preocupation with those details will not deter me from getting my stories down on paper. I started on September 29, 2009 and I am now through several drafts of my Introduction (the why am I doing this?) and the first five Chapters. This effort is forcing me to review and organize facts and scraps of information collected over my lifetime in order to present them in a coherent manner for incorporation. It is fun and it is also its own reward. Even if I never finish the entire work, whatever I have completed will hopefully find its way down to my remote descendants. They will know me and what I have learned about others and they will be better off for the experience; I know I would be were I in their place. They will also avoid the demanding work of uncovering and piecing together facts about me and others gleaned from public records in the archives of the future. In the end they will know in depth one of their ancestors in greater detail than can be known from any other source. If you need to be pumped-up to begin, buy and read this book.
    Sincerely,
    Don Blankman
    The Villages, Florida

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted January 15, 2009

    Zousmer Inspires

    "Amazed!" at the clarity, usefulness, and unique craftsmanship that Mr. Zousmer bestows upon his audience, yes "AMAZED" is my final judgement rendered concerning this masterpiece of resourcefullness. I must say, that the ability to relate this belief in something so great, such as, everyone's story is important no matter how "uninteresting" the average person's life may ordinarily be, is truly an honorable accomplishment for Mr. Z. The prize, the reward inherited for using Mr. Zousmer's words as a resource for the common man to share his life's story w/ whom he pleases, for whatever reason he may have, is a great fealing of inspiration that is ultimately given, and given seemingly w/ such ease and comfort by the great Mr. Z>. Inspired, yet grounded, (very important issue in this book...the most important actually) is what I feel upon completing Mr. Zousmer's book. And yet don't rush to the conclusion that this will be your only reward from reading You Don't Have to be Famous. You must be told however, that this book also provides a surprising amount of clarity in the respects to understanding how to fully organize your work, who your audience is as a cmmon man attempting an uncommon and extroidinary feat....I am now ready to tackle this extremely difficult task, thanks to Mr. Zousmer...splendid job, I must say, absolutely splendid.

    It was as if I were sitting and chatting w/ a longtime, well respected old friend, who is telling me all about how to write an autobiography....under any circumstance.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 5, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

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