Time Travelers
By
Gerry Niskern
I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything new lately on this blog. I’ve been neglecting this site because I’ve been spending a lot of time helping writers become time travelers. That’s what people who write a memoir are called: Time Traveler.
Anyone who has ever attempted to write a memoir of any kind must dig into the past, with all its pain and joy. It is usually a perilous journey to do that personal excavating and discover an abundance, beautiful and heartbreaking both, that you didn’t even suspect was lying beneath the surface.
People often ask “ Why would anyone be interested in my life?” I’ll tell you why; because everyone is unique. There is not now or ever will be a person exactly like you and your story. Your family is like no other. There are undiscovered stories in all of us. Telling those stories are how we learn our true self.
It’s your chance to set the record straight. It is your chance to tell some family history from your point of view.
As a memoirist you will be getting a better understanding of how you came to be who you are today. The people in my creative writing workshop are completing a collection of personal essays that they may use in the final version of their memoir.
I’ve worked with this small, but delightful, group of writers who have been striving to be more creative in the way they tell their stories; in ways that will hold future readers interest. I’ve written along with them on weekly projects and have discovered that I only have so many “words” to give in a week.
When and how they decide to share their stories with the world is up to them. Some will self- publish, some will have print small booklets just for the family and some will finish, put their work away to be discovered by another person some day, but they will have recorded their history that is theirs and theirs alone.
Permit me to refer to the quote I used at the beginning of my own memoir,
The word that unites all families is, “Remember!”