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Monday, January 29, 2024
Mama Wrote a Book!
A couple of years ago I stumbled upon an advertisement for a memoir publishing service. I decided that it would make a great gift. First, I would give my mother the gift of a subscription where the company would send her an email once per week for a year and she would write a memory or a story from her life. Then, at the end of the year, I could get a published copy to give her and a couple of copies to give my children.
The company whose subscription I gave to my mother is called Storyworth. (I am not being compensated in any way for this post.) I gifted it to her at Mother's Day. It was a really good experience for Mama and me. It worked out well that I got to pick through some questions that the company suggests at their website. I also could update some of the suggested questions to make them fit my mother's experiences a little better. Finally, I could just create a question on my own, if I wanted to do so.
It also worked out well for my mother in that she only got one question or prompt per week. They sent her an email on Monday and she had time to think about what she wanted to write and also time to actually write, revise, and update what she wrote.
Once she finished writing, we could upload photos that would accompany the story. I could add brief notes to expand the story and include a bit more information. I could also proofread her story to check for simple errors that we all make such as misspellings or leaving out a word.
As the year went along and Mama wrote her memories, sometimes when I read the new chapter, I would smile because I knew the story and had chosen that particular prompt or question so that the story would be captured and shared. Sometimes I would smile or even laugh out loud because the story or the accompanying photos would be something new that I had never known about my mother.
Of course, having a year's subscription meant that she wrapped up her writing in May of last year. Then, during the summer, we read and revised all her stories, when needed. We added photos and moved stories around a bit so that there was some flow to the book and so that there would not be blank white pages with no photos or stories. The platform provided by Storyworth was really user-friendly and the editing took a little time but was really easy.
Then, I ordered the complementary book that came with the subscription with the intention that I could read the hard copy and make edits, if needed. When the hardback copy came, I was so impressed with it that I didn't really feel the need to make edits. Oh, there might be some punctuation or capitalization errors in it but no more than can be found in any published book, really.
So, we ordered more copies. I ordered copies for each of my children and Mama got copies for my sister and her family.
I would strongly encourage anybody to take advantage of such an experience. In our case, the book turned out wonderfully. My mother is pleased with how it turned out. My two children were both excited to get their copy of the book. They have both read it and truly enjoyed recalling some of the stories that were a part of their lives and were glad to learn new things about their grandmother and the times in which she lived.
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