There are two ways to write your own history. Write a memoir – just one period of your life. Or write an autobiography – your whole life from birth up to this moment. Both are non-fiction and true. (There’s a wonderful discussion of truth in memoir, thanks to James Frey and Oprah, all over the newspapers as I write this.)

If you’ve gone through a dicey childhood, lost a job or your best friends, or the love of your life, or grew up gay in suburbia or went through rehab or went through any kind of life changing experience, you may have a memoir. And if it’s unique, yet others can relate to it, and if it’s well written, you may possibly get it published.

On the other hand, unless you’re a celebrity or a mass murderer, your autobiography will be a hard sell. Most likely you will not get a major publisher for it. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write it. You can always publish it yourself. And with on-line publishers to help you, it can be easy and fairly reasonable.

You do not want to go to a publisher who pretends to “accept” your manuscript and says glowing things about it, promises you bookstore appearances, newspaper reviews and then charges you a small fortune to publish. They will accept anything and unless your mother owns the bookstore and the newspaper, your book will sink out of sight. (Beware of scams for writers – more on this later.)

But self-publishing with companies like Xlibris, IUniverse, BookOne, etc. is strictly a business deal. You pay them x and they print x number of pages for you. If you want them to do anything else there’s a fee list. If you’re yearning to get your autobiography into print, my advice is to just get it into book form and then you can do any local marketing you think might be appropriate.

One of the best pieces of family history I’ve ever read was a series of letters written by my friend Larry Schmidt to his grandson. The first one was a letter written before Miles was born and he wove family history into it, imaging what all the family ancestors would say or teach Miles. When Larry read it aloud in class everyone was in tears.

To Do: A five minute writing exercise about events in your life that you’d like to explore on paper. Do you have just one major event, or a whole series?

“The way we tell our story is the way we begin to live our life.” Maureen Murdock