: Would anyone want to read a book about my life? I got the idea to write a book about my life story from my mother. At first I thought who would want to read about my life, then I thought

Vote Up Vote Down

I think you need to examine your reasons for writing and then the personal journey that would take you on. A lot depends on your motivation.

Do you want to write about your life? Would putting down all the facts, feelings and memories into print be in any way useful to you as a person? In that case just go ahead and it doesn't matter if nobody ever reads it. I assume that you are going to do a biography rather than fiction so you have to be factually correct and careful what you say about others. That means it's not a novel where you can re-write parts or alter things.

Do you then think it would be useful to someone else? If you published and only a single person read it but it in some way helped them would that be enough for you to feel it was worthwhile? Would you need it to be 10, 20 or 100?

If you are hoping for a large income from a best selling book and movie rights then you have to be realistic and understand that probably wont happen (it might but I don't think that should be your only motivation).

What I'm trying to say is work out why you want to do it and from that you can figure out what 'success' means to you. Just using sales figures is probably the wrong approach.

EDIT:

Just to actually answer your questions:

Would you read it? Not sure, as a 50 year old male I'm probably not your target audience but I think my wife would and that means I might be persuaded if she said I should.

would my experiences be helpful to others? Only 'others' can answer that and they can't form an opinion without reading it. Also you have to define what helpful means. It might be that someone just feels like their problems are not as bad as they thought or it might be someone thinking that there is another person who understand a bit about what they are going through at the time. The word 'helpful' covers a lot of ground.

Would my experiences be worthy of a book? I don't see why not. I've read enough woefully bad fiction that has managed to see print. Why would a real life story rate lower than that?

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

My personal view is that readers prefer books about meaning in one's life (Eat, Pray, Love) and aren't too picky when it comes to content. If there is a story to tell of course do tell it...and hopefully tell it well.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

I would read your story - I like biographical narratives - isn't it always interesting to learn what other people have done with their life on earth?
- But i think my main motivation for writing is not so much about trying to be understood by others, but to better understand myself... Maybe it turns out to be reflective writing that wouldn't necessarily be a bestseller.. be that as it may, it could be the most important thing you do in life - to write it all down...

Kind of in the vein of:
“Poetry is a verdict, not an occupation.”
― Leonard Cohen

Meaning, to me, that writing is not a choice really, but a method of self-expression and the act of creatively summarizing your experiences is all the justification you need...

Not sure this can be considered an answer to your question, but I wanted to make the point that if you feel like writing.. then write!!! And see where it takes you...

Cheers!!
Guinness

(0)