Narz
keeping it real
Considering trying to write about my life. I feel like I need some sort of unifying theme, a direction. Whenever I've tried to write about my life it becomes rambling and disjointed. Maybe I should take a writers workshop.
What's the longest autobiographical thing you've written?
- Thread starter Narz
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Timsup2nothin
Deity
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Maybe your life has been rambling and disjointed. Mine certainly has.
The unifying theme is you.
As with any writing project, I recommend making an outline. It doesn't need to be set in stone at first, but it helps keep the writer organized.
If you're not under a deadline with this, I suggest that you go to a library and have a look through the section on biographies/autobiographies and see what they have in common (structurally).
Some people discuss their lives according to themes, while others start literally on the day they were born.
I own Isaac Asimov's autobiography. It took him three volumes to do it, and they are HUGE. He had a lot to say about himself, his family, his education, and his careers (both of them; before he was a writer and lecturer, he was a chemist and worked at a university). If he'd cared to put in more detail about some things and some of the years, he could easily have gone a fourth volume.
Some who are unfamiliar with Asimov might think, "THREE volumes? What a narcissist!". Well yeah, Asimov did like to talk about himself and his writing and his opinions on a lot of things. He gave a lot of lectures after becoming a writer, and could improvise a talk in very little time. There were very few things in which he was not interested, as he would do extensive research for his stories. He wrote nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics.
I've read those three volumes twice. That's a lot of reading. But it's the closest most people will ever get to meeting him. The writing style isn't stuffy; he wanted people to have the impression that he'd just had a very long conversation with them.
That's something you'll have to consider - how formal you want this to be. I've read autobiographies that read like a resume for a job, and that's boring. The ones I've enjoyed are written as though the author is having a conversation with the reader, showing more of his truest self, thoughts, feelings, opinions, and so on.
A writer's workshop might help, or you could check out what writing "how-to" books there are at your local library.
As for the OP question: I'm not sure. There were a lot of times in school when we were told to write about ourselves, but the answer is probably that the longest is in my various diaries. I've gone out of the habit of keeping a diary now, but many years ago it was a daily thing to write something, no matter how mundane it might be.
Perfection
The Great Head.
Probably this post.
Your most obvious themes would seem to be chess and women.
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
In elementary school we had to write an autobiography (6th grade?, 8th grade, can't remember for sure). There was some stupid 'minimum page limit' of 25 pages or something. I filled up 95% of the requirement just talking about my family tree since my mom was big into genealogy and had done all the work. Of course I got a 'D' on it, since obviously the teacher was more interested in what happened in my life and not my ancestors.
If it was in 6th grade, then it was the same teacher who made us do daily diaries, that the teacher would (privately) read and check over. Felt like an invasion of privacy and didn't understand the point of it, except for perhaps in some rare situations a student might reveal abuse at home or bullying at school or something that otherwise might have gone unnoticed by the teacher. I did not want that gossiper knowing anything about me (she always had more personal stories about previous students she shared with the class than any other teacher did, but I'll at least give her credit that she never revealed the names attached to those stories to us anyways, but who knows what she tells people outside the classroom)
If it was in 6th grade, then it was the same teacher who made us do daily diaries, that the teacher would (privately) read and check over. Felt like an invasion of privacy and didn't understand the point of it, except for perhaps in some rare situations a student might reveal abuse at home or bullying at school or something that otherwise might have gone unnoticed by the teacher. I did not want that gossiper knowing anything about me (she always had more personal stories about previous students she shared with the class than any other teacher did, but I'll at least give her credit that she never revealed the names attached to those stories to us anyways, but who knows what she tells people outside the classroom)
CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
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- 29,455
Writing my autobiography would remove the air of mystery about me, and no doubt bore people terribly.
Catharsis
catch u on the flip scythe
It's not ready yet, but it'll be on my gravestone, or perhaps it's more correct to say 'monolith'. I'm going to attempt to trick archaeologists into believing I was a pharaoh. Also I'm going to write it in four different languages so the linguists have to study it too.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
~10k words about one event. High school. I was lit.
Let's be real, how much of that is really about me.
Zkribbler
Deity
When I was applying to law schools, I was required to submit a 10-page autobiography. Mine was rambling and disjointed, infantile and dreary. I pity those whose job it was to read it.
Oh noes! Don't do that! I never attended one which was worth more than a bucket of warm spit. 
Also I took creative writing courses at UCLA. It took ten years to unlearn the swill they taught me. 
May I suggest instead reading Creating Character Arcs by K.M. Weiland.
Oh noes! Don't do that! I never attended one which was worth more than a bucket of warm spit. Also I took creative writing courses at UCLA. It took ten years to unlearn the swill they taught me. May I suggest instead reading Creating Character Arcs by K.M. Weiland.
Synobun
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I've had to do fairly extensive writing in the past about my health, which is autobiographical in nature.
When I fell in love with a woman, that naturally included a lot of writing about my past, which is also autobiographical in nature. With those two combined, I've likely wrote well over 150,000 words about 'me' in the past 6 years. But none of that was coherent or structured, instead offered in response to questions or in hopes of convincing a doctor to take on my case.
The only autobiographical work I've done that had structure to it would be a book on my cult upbringing. I had intentions on publishing it and taking on a more active role in helping people shrug off the effects of their own cult upbringings. I didn't enjoy how 'cult' became synonymous with 'Jehovah's Witness', especially since all the AMAs on Reddit and all the big stories about cults inevitably led to JW-centric stories. People who fell through the cracks would not be able to relate since the JW are a large world organization. Almost everyone in the West knows about them. Those who grew up in remote cults or secretive cults would be lumped in with the publicized experience, and saying "I grew up in a cult" would essentially translate into "I was a Jehovah's Witness".
This got sidetracked when my health took another dive a little over a year ago so I never went through revision. It got further complicated when I reopened communication with my family because I wanted, needed, to be able to speak to my niece again. Doing anything on the cult front now would likely be disastrous, and if there were any form of success in it I would likely sabotage it or at least not be able to meet the requirements for maintaining the success. My first draft was approximately 35,000 words.
In response to the OP, what's the motivation behind writing about your life? Is there something specific you want to tell? That would be your unifying theme, even if much of what you write is about something else.
When I fell in love with a woman, that naturally included a lot of writing about my past, which is also autobiographical in nature. With those two combined, I've likely wrote well over 150,000 words about 'me' in the past 6 years. But none of that was coherent or structured, instead offered in response to questions or in hopes of convincing a doctor to take on my case.
The only autobiographical work I've done that had structure to it would be a book on my cult upbringing. I had intentions on publishing it and taking on a more active role in helping people shrug off the effects of their own cult upbringings. I didn't enjoy how 'cult' became synonymous with 'Jehovah's Witness', especially since all the AMAs on Reddit and all the big stories about cults inevitably led to JW-centric stories. People who fell through the cracks would not be able to relate since the JW are a large world organization. Almost everyone in the West knows about them. Those who grew up in remote cults or secretive cults would be lumped in with the publicized experience, and saying "I grew up in a cult" would essentially translate into "I was a Jehovah's Witness".
This got sidetracked when my health took another dive a little over a year ago so I never went through revision. It got further complicated when I reopened communication with my family because I wanted, needed, to be able to speak to my niece again. Doing anything on the cult front now would likely be disastrous, and if there were any form of success in it I would likely sabotage it or at least not be able to meet the requirements for maintaining the success. My first draft was approximately 35,000 words.
In response to the OP, what's the motivation behind writing about your life? Is there something specific you want to tell? That would be your unifying theme, even if much of what you write is about something else.
Zkribbler
Deity
My collected words of crippled verse
On the internet, family and our universe;
Pointed pictures without much meaning,
A couple hundred pages not worth streaming.
On the internet, family and our universe;
Pointed pictures without much meaning,
A couple hundred pages not worth streaming.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
So like at least 20 pages you’re saying.You?
Sadly i don't think anything at all is :/ There aren't any notes on web stuff anyway.
yung.carl.jung
Hey Bird! I'm Morose & Lugubrious
you don't. life is an amalgation of tangentially related vignettes. every story you have is a slice of life, situated in a highly specific context of your personal development. there is no overaching theme, just write stories as what they really are.. not certain events that really happened, that are stored in your brain objectively, but rather stories that are your personal retelling of things long past
While 20 pages out of 17000 pages would be infinitesimal, i meant that there is zero.
I don't write about anything on the web. Which is why future biographers aren't likely to discover CFC even if some fossilized form of it is around in those future decades
