Samuel Pepys kept an exact record of everything he did, or said, or heard, or saw, or ate, or hoped, or stepped in. Yes, I mean everything. He did not think about it. He just did it. Everything without reservation or comment or anything. This is probably due to the fact that he felt, he really believed, that no one, not a soul, would ever read it. So he wrote it all. Everything. Now he did live in interesting times and he knew some famous people but he wrote it all down.
You do not need to do that. Consider the distance between his tell-all and what the normal, make them look good, normal telling of someone’s tales. You can fall somewhere between the two. Give it a whirl.
And remember, this is a book for yourself. So put in as much as you can.
John Aubrey, on the other hand, took a similar approach but for other people. He just kept notes about the people he knew. But how well do you know people? That adage about writing about something in order to know it, that applies to people, and there is nobody to say you are wrong.
So write it up. Leave notes to yourself about the things that you are not sure of or in the lives of other people you can make it up. But trying to write about people you know is a good start.
Remember this is a book for yourself. You can and should write it.
(Francis Turner) Palgrave’s Golden Treasury was is a shortish anthology of British lyric poetry. This was personal choices and something that drew critics. (They had plenty of room to criticize it, the book has been updated) But that is not the point. Put together a booklet of the best writing you can find. (Tangled up in Blue, anyone?) Gather them together for your pleasures. This is your booklet and you can put what you want into it. There is no reason to have some compilation of other people’s “Best of … ” Choices. Make your own.
For yourself, remember it is for you to write.
This dips into the first three of the six books you can and should write. If you are at all curious about the three books listed here, you can find them at Project Gutenberg. All are available in a variety of formats. (Kindle, EPUB for other readers, an HTML version, and plain text.)
My favorite book I can and have actually started writing will come tomorrow. Give it some thought and perhaps type in something to get started on it.
— MichaelRpdx :: h3k