Hello, I’m Jim McCarthy, and I’m here to encourage you to think about becoming a storyteller, because you have a story to tell that no one else can.
No doubt there are many people on earth who share your name. Some may even look like you and even share some of your personality traits.
But NONE of those people has lived your life: Experienced your joys, your sorrows, your achievements, your opportunities, your successes, and your failures. That makes you the unique individual you are today, and it is why you need to draft the story.
What inspired me to write this blog is a memoir I recently edited by a lady whose name in childhood was “Patsy Edelbrock,” and who has lived one of the most remarkable lives I’ve ever known. Seeing her finished manuscript caused me to reflect on many others I’ve known who never considered doing the same. The details of their lives are lost forever, and I hope yours won’t meet the same fate.
I’d like to help you with a simple, straightforward set of suggestions to get you started and to nurture your motivation to see the project through to whatever end you want to take it.
I retired from forty years in the travel business, spending more than half that time as a corporate trainer. I have authored articles and newsletters, lesson plans and manuals, and I have taught adults to do a lot of things they thought they never could, all over the USA and in Europe.
So, please don’t shy away from this challenge because you think you must be an author first, or an English major or a grammarian. None of that matters if it’s what is keeping you from getting started.
Patsy’s memoir was about 40,000 words – almost 150 pages in print, but she started it as I would encourage you to begin yours – by jotting down your recollection of a single day’s events. Your journey begins with a pencil and paper, and three or four brief paragraphs.
In this blog, I think you’ll find most of the tips and tricks you need to keep you going. I hope you’ll find encouragement from others following, as they work on their projects like you’re working on yours. I will share resources I have used when I think they will help, and you might even connect with others in this group whose progress is on pace with yours.
So, we all share at least one common interest, individually and collectively, to write the Story of “You. “