Because of a challenge in a writing group I am in, I am going to try to write an Autobiographical piece of 500 words every day in September. But as an added incentive to sort some of my older pictures and label them, I am going to try to use a picture as a writing prompt and upload them here with the tag SelfStories and if anyone else is into a bit of nostalgia and organization, you are welcome to join in.
That is a very demanding challenge Dixie! I don't know if I'd be able to do 500 words a day as September is going to start off with a visit to Michigan and family- BUT- I have been wanting to work on family photos and our family story since bringing many of the family pictures home after my father's death. So I may use this as a motivation to put them in order with little family anecdotes and get them ready to be published in book form for my sisters. A variation of your project perhaps, but more helpful to spur me on to "get 'er done"!
Some mystery person bought me an Ace membership at the start of the year and I've never used the extra albums. I might use one for this so I could still do current pictures too.
@pandorasecho I love these ideas! Since I have a 3rd album I have never used...the "SelfStories" sound like a great theme to try. I doubt, I'll write 500 words a day but , I'm going to give this a shot!
Haha I'm 13 so 30x500 words would cover like every day of my life :p But maybe I'll try for a day for two - though only in my extra album because I'll be finishing the first year next month too :)
@pandorasecho ok, clearly my reading skills need to be improved...... SelfStories sounds like a great tag. (Sorry for missing that; I actually looked and didn't see it...)
@francoise Maybe you are right, if you think people might want to keep going for other months but the Sept-self-stories seems long to type every day as a tag
@pandorasecho SelfStories is a great tag. If someone wants to start it up for another month, then they could either use the same tag or make a new tag ... like SelfStories2 or something. I'm actually looking forward to this challenge; it's been on my mind since you put up the idea.
Cool, me too. I keep thinking of how to organize it? Chronologically or thematically or random. Plus I have to hope I can find some of the old pictures I have in mind and upload frontage old print to my computer @francoise
Just bumping up as we are a week away from 9/1 and I am tending more away from the chronological order to the stories at the moment because if I unearth an older one I love later in the month I still want to be able to use it - so just older pictures from my life inspiring small autobiographical stories will be my take on September
@pandorasecho - i'm in on this! how come i never saw this before?
anyway, although i tend to ramble on with my captions, 500 words might be a tad intimidating for those who don't want to write long captions or comments on their pics. so perhaps, just write enough to give the story or background on the pic?
I am glad you are joining in, I think that the best challenges get adapted individually anyway, so yeah - I am trying the 500 words for the writing group anyway but no one else has to use my number as their goal @summerfield
@olivetreeann@hayleymolloycook@paulam@mzzhope@justaspark@annied@barneyone@francoise@summerfield Well, with me, that makes 10. I realize I have to dig a couple of old boxes out of my storage closet to see if the pictures I think are there really are. I'm thinking this timing is even more important now as my Mom has been fighting dementia and it is winning, and reminding me how easily the stories can be lost.
I'm still on board this project. I'm thinking about making it a "mini" autobiography and incorporating old photos with new. I like the idea of quoting song lyrics, too. As usual, I have a lot of ideas floating around in my head--I'm hoping it will all become clear because Sept, 1st is almost here!
@paulam I love the idea of song lyrics. In fact my husband is a music teacher and I write so music and words have always blended together in our house.
Remember the tag SelfStories As I mentioned this idea originated with a writing group challenge. There the idea is to write 500 words using these daily prompts. I may or may not use these as pictures cue my stories but I thought I'd repost them so if you want specific ideas these can give suggestions.
1. A story about your birth or very early childhood.
2. Your earliest memory.
3. Your siblings. If you don’t have siblings, very early friends.
4. Your earliest influences.
5. Your first pet.
6. Starting school.
7. One parent or parental figure.
8. One early obsession.
9. One early crush.
10. Another parent or parental figure.
11. A death and how it affected you.
12. A favorite school subject or teacher.
13. Your neighborhood.
14. A major formative event.
15. Growing up, becoming a teenager.
16. Your childhood dreams and your current dreams.
17. A family member who is important to you.
18. Something wonderful that happened.
19. Something terrible that happened.
20. A hero or idol.
21. An old chapter ending and a new beginning.
22. A health scare – yours or someone else’s.
23. Your hobbies.
24. Something you didn’t realize about your life until recently.
25. Your music and you.
26. Your history with writing.
27. A great accomplishment, something you’re proud of.
28. Your life now.
29. Your goals for the future.
30. Who are you?
@annied yeah it is what I am planning on doing actually. I think the whole month for me will be oldies. Some kind anonymous person bought me an ace membership I have never used so if I want to load new pictures I can put them in an extra album.
@paulam good and of course if they don't all fit, you are welcome to add in your own
@olivetreeann thank you. I might have to fill in a couple stories myself with the chaos of school starting and my husband and I both teaching and needing the computer time for school stuff
Ladies, I just want to say thank-you for all the stories you wrote and shared. I have so enjoyed reading (and writing) every day's installments; have read every last one of them, even when I didn't comment. Thanks for organizing this Dixie.
I think I am going to continue one more month. I meant to include more family history and I ended up going instead from my birth to Now. So in October I'm pulling out pictures from my Family but mostly from before I was ever born
@francoise@pandorasecho@paulam@olivetreeann - thank you, ladies. i am so behind with my selfstories stories, i have six days that are blank. instead of filling in the holes, i will just continue on when I'm able. i'm editing a friend's manuscript (as in giving feedback aside from copy editing) and trying to convert my manuscripts which are in Wordperfect rather than Microsoft Word.
like francoise, i have been reading your selfstories even though i haven't commented on some (read: most) of them. i do plan on re-reading them all so i can make a more sensible or intelligent feedback and comment. i enjoyed getting to know you all and now all we need is actually meet so we can exchange more stories. so many great stories, so little time to read them all.
thank you for the motivation, support and encouragement. now i have more projects formed in my head. :-)
@summerfield@pandorasecho@francoise I have so appreciated your faithful comments (short or long) on my posts this month. I both enjoyed this and dreaded it. It made me remember some wonderful things and reminded me that my parents are no longer here and my family is spread out much further than when we were growing up. I can't believe with tonight's post that I will actually have completed 30 of them! And here I thought I'd probably get only a week of them done. Thank you for organizing this theme Dixie. Like the rest of you I have enjoyed reading your memories and will work on catching up with your final installments over the next few days. Now on to October and back to a little more freedom in the second album. But I think a few nostalgia shots will pop in from time to time.
@pandorasecho@hayleymolloycook@francoise@olivetreeann@summerfield Thanks to all of you for sharing your stories and photos. I've read bits and pieces of everyone's but, have not commented much at all. I plan to go back and give each story my time and attention. Of course, I think I have several spaces to fill with photos and words and I plan to fill them! Then, my Self Stories album will probably contain more random posts. I think part of growth requires some self exploration and expression. It's a very worthwhile thing to do and takes more courage than I thought. Cheers to all of us brave ladies!
@paulam Thanks Paula for stopping by and reading some of my stories. I did enjoy digging out some of the pictures from my family's archives and then some from my own childhood. But sometimes the emotions were overwhelming! I'm glad you also had a good experience with this and I will check out some of your entries as it seems I only have enough time these days to follow up on those who leave a comment! I forget to check and see who else has stopped by. My apologies!
I was debating adding a new tag since I decided to keep with old pictures for my main album in October, but these will be pictures from older times in my family and the stories I think I know are probably part real and part twisted by the fact that they are an oral tradition in a family of storytellers, and self stories seems to keep fitting, so I'll stay here.
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sept-self-stories
as a tag.
anyway, although i tend to ramble on with my captions, 500 words might be a tad intimidating for those who don't want to write long captions or comments on their pics. so perhaps, just write enough to give the story or background on the pic?
looking forward to september!
1. A story about your birth or very early childhood.
2. Your earliest memory.
3. Your siblings. If you don’t have siblings, very early friends.
4. Your earliest influences.
5. Your first pet.
6. Starting school.
7. One parent or parental figure.
8. One early obsession.
9. One early crush.
10. Another parent or parental figure.
11. A death and how it affected you.
12. A favorite school subject or teacher.
13. Your neighborhood.
14. A major formative event.
15. Growing up, becoming a teenager.
16. Your childhood dreams and your current dreams.
17. A family member who is important to you.
18. Something wonderful that happened.
19. Something terrible that happened.
20. A hero or idol.
21. An old chapter ending and a new beginning.
22. A health scare – yours or someone else’s.
23. Your hobbies.
24. Something you didn’t realize about your life until recently.
25. Your music and you.
26. Your history with writing.
27. A great accomplishment, something you’re proud of.
28. Your life now.
29. Your goals for the future.
30. Who are you?
@paulam good and of course if they don't all fit, you are welcome to add in your own
@olivetreeann thank you. I might have to fill in a couple stories myself with the chaos of school starting and my husband and I both teaching and needing the computer time for school stuff
Ladies, I just want to say thank-you for all the stories you wrote and shared. I have so enjoyed reading (and writing) every day's installments; have read every last one of them, even when I didn't comment. Thanks for organizing this Dixie.
I think I am going to continue one more month. I meant to include more family history and I ended up going instead from my birth to Now. So in October I'm pulling out pictures from my Family but mostly from before I was ever born
like francoise, i have been reading your selfstories even though i haven't commented on some (read: most) of them. i do plan on re-reading them all so i can make a more sensible or intelligent feedback and comment. i enjoyed getting to know you all and now all we need is actually meet so we can exchange more stories. so many great stories, so little time to read them all.
thank you for the motivation, support and encouragement. now i have more projects formed in my head. :-)