After I finished my Aunt Ann's personal history a few years ago, Judy reached out to me again and asked if I would consider helping with her dad's book as well. I knew it would be a lot of work, but it felt like a good and worthwhile thing to do, so I agreed. Throughout the process, she paid me $1500, (which was so nice!), but for me it was much more about feeling the desire to use my skills to help them.
Uncle Armond had very little already written (about 10 pages total), and wasn't really up to writing any more because he's 91 years old! I knew that the process for his book was going to be very different than the one we had previously done for Aunt Ann who was an avid journal keeper and had many things already typed up. We decided to do audio interviews in order to get the material that we needed. Judy would ask him questions about his life and record what he said, and then I would transcribe them and somehow make them all fit together into a cohesive story.
We worked on it off and on for about a year, but then last winter he got really sick, and we had to put it on hold for a while. After he came through that, we knew we really needed to push hard to get it done. It was slow going at times, but I knew his life story was so important for his family to have, and I was determined to get it done.
Judy was awesome about doing recordings with him every Sunday until they were finished. Then I began the long process of editing, formatting, and designing. All through the summer, we went back and forth until we felt like it was ready to go. Around August, they finally decided on a title, "Armond's AUTO-biography." It was a play on words and a nod to the fact that he has always loved working on cars and is known for taking car of all the maintenance and problems with the automobiles. Getting the title and cover finalized was the last step. In September we ordered our proof copy of the book, and after a few changes, we were finally finished. In October, we got the final copies.
It is just so exciting to finally hold the end product in your hands and see all of your hard work come to fruition. Uncle Armond got to give his book out to his family and friends for Christmas, and it was such a wonderful feeling. He gave me a signed copy as well that I put on our shelf next to my other two.
Although it was a lot of work, I felt so much gratitude for the opportunity I had to help my Uncle and Aunt finish their personal histories. It was an undertaking that forced me to grow as a writer and editor. I tried hard to make sure that when people read their books, they will hear their loved ones voice and not mine. This meant that I wrote things differently than I would have done normally, but I felt it was so important to be able to hear their voices from the pages. I hope I accomplished that.
I don't know if I will ever write another book (I definitely need some time off before jumping in again!), but hopefully the lessons I learned from these projects will be valuable for the rest of my life.
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