Day 188

Everybody has one book in them

…

Generally, when it comes to advice on writing books, a lot of people who want to help you realise the writing cream, will tell you, you are one of the lucky people who have a book in them.

Here’s the thing…

Everybody has one book in them.

And generally, that will be about something you know very well. Whether it’s about being a mechanic, a gardener, or piloting a spacecraft, or just playing football. Deep down, you know there is that one subject that makes you an expert.

Me?

I’m a computer expert, and used to teach people how to use various computer languages, and certain applications used on PC’s. Programming is not easy; learning the fundamentals of a programming language is hard.

But where I used to teach, the company asked me to create several course manuals to aid the teach of the subject, so in a sense, I have already published.

So, I have a suggestion.

There’s nothing like writing about the history of your family.  Yes.  I know.  My family is as boring as hell. As much as you know about them, perhaps as far back as a grandfather or grandmother on either side if you are married.

More often than not, by the time you are ready to discover the story, a lot of the participants are dead, and their stories have gone with them to the grave. Ask around, and all you get is “nothing special here”.

I was 70 when I thought I’d poke around in the lives of my forebears.  I had a few names and a mother who had a lot of paper stored in a file.

Then…

What did you know about your parents?  My parents were dead, but even when they were alive, they didn’t share much.

How did it go?

I discovered I had another grandmother on my father’s side who was an adventuress.  Born in 1889 in Dorchester, England was the second child of parents who had earlier marriages, so she had five stepbrothers and stepsisters,

She was a single child, and the brother she could have had who died two years earlier.

She became a milliner/draper at an early age and worked/lived in a draper in Gillingham, Dorset.  Her father died in 1907, her mother in 1908, and with the proceeds of their wills, she had enough to travel second class to Australia in early 1914.

A 25 year old girl in 1914 travelled for over a month on a ship with 1,200 other passengers from Tilbury, England to Melbourne, Australia.  Oddly enought there was 57 other single women on that same ship.

I have only one word, Wow!

And that’s the story right there.  I traced a diary for the same ship, the same time of year, day by day.  I have plans for the ship.  I know everyone who had been on board and where they got off and got on.

The story is going to write itself.