You want your life to count for something. You want your experiences to benefit somebody besides you. You want to know before you die that it makes a difference that you lived.

You need to write down some of your own story footnotes.

You need to leave a trail.

You need to write to hear yourself think.

Your problem is my problem too.

People used to write letters. Letters kept track of some of the important events in life. Letters said, “I’m thinking of you and I want you to know what’s going on in my life.”

But now, few people write letters. And few people make prints from the pictures taken with their smart phone either.

Both words and images end up in the netherworld. Inaccessible to anyone other than the person who took the picture or who lived the experience. Yet it’s the stories that make our lives meaningful.

Accessible. Writing makes thoughts, ideas and experiences accessible to the future you as well as someone else. Like a picture you can hold in your hand, so too the words you string together can reach out and touch someone. Or not.

The process of writing benefits the writer, whether or not anyone else reads what is written. Especially when writing about your life. Your feelings. Your observations.

“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”

Flannery O’Connor

Remarkable, but much of history recorded in published books came from the letters and journals of ordinary people who simply wrote about their lives, wrote down what was happening around them, and recorded too their impressions, ideas and thoughts about what was happening.

Footnotes 2 Stories was born in 2006 after I first read Frederick Buechner’s Secrets in the Dark. 

“… we are at least a footnote at the bottom of each other’s stories. In other words, all our stories are in the end one story, one vast story about being human, being together, being here ….”

“Either life is holy with meaning, or life doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

Frederick Buechner

After spending 4 years in seminary, reading and writing what other people told me to read and write, I lost my bearings.

Even as I tried to journal during that time, my words became stilted, academic, as if someone was looking over my shoulder to evaluate what I wrote. Actually, people did evaluate what I wrote and I started mirroring what I read instead of thinking for myself.

Stop and think about it.

Your story, my story, every story is somehow a footnote to God’s story.

Only time is not on our side. King Solomon said life is a vapor.

Writing is hard. Hard to squeeze into the cracks in everyday schedules.

But what if you could spend just 30–60 minutes a week writing down snippets from your life?

I did this last year. My daughter gave me a StoryWorth subscription for Christmas 2018. Each week, a new writing prompt appeared in my email. The questions varied, and if I didn’t like a particular question, I could scroll through a list for a new one. Or else answer whatever question I came up with.

The result: after a year, I submitted the corrections and an actual book, bound and with photos that I took the time to include was printed. In hindsight, I wish I had included more photos with my stories.

Writing Prompts vs. Writing with Intention

Writing prompts may get you started, the way a school assignment prompts you to write, but the story will lack structure and meaning remains illusive if you only answer the questions that someone else asks.

Answer your own questions. Explore what matters to you and what gives your life meaning.

Although I have worked on a memoir manuscript, off and on for years, by comparison this little book of random stories and memories from my life lacks cohesiveness––a story arc, i.e. a beginning, middle and end.

A story with a point. An argument. A response to real questions about life.

On the other hand, the StoryWorth book is done. No more words to add. It’s a book I can hold in my hands, leave for my family, and chuckle each time I read it. Only my writing voice sounds so self-conscious, as if I am answering test questions instead of truly caring about what I write.

The information is accurate enough, but it lacks personality.

Here’s the Table of Contents to give an idea of what sort of questions I answered––in the exact order. When I look at this list, it astonishes me. I wonder how in the world the first question dealt with getting a graduate degree and the last question related to my mother.

Bizarre.

Write in the comments section if you would like to read any of my answers to the above questions.

“Pay attention to your life.”

In his book Secrets in the Dark, Buechner repeats these words like a refrain. “Pay attention to your life.”

Making sense of your story begins by paying attention. If you don’t pay attention to your life, why should anyone else?

You can live a better story if you pay attention to your life. Your story has meaning. Or else it doesn’t.

I invite you to pay attention to your life.

Writer William Zinsser wrote the book Writing about Your Life, challenging people to write about their own history. He makes the point that you are the custodian of your memories and these memories are perishable.

He’s right, you know.

Through Footnotes2Stories I am happy to share ways for you to do just that––to write about your life so you start creating a legacy in words. To help you make sense of your life. So you can create using words to tell the story of You.

Leave a comment to express interest in your own writing journey.