Creating a Legacy Family History Book

August 5, 2016| Lynn| 0 Comments|

It’s time to stop procrastinating and start pulling your research into a family history book. Is the thought a little overwhelming? Not sure where to start?

Here at The Family History Writing Studio, we believe in helping you preserve your family history in a sharable and entertaining format. We want your family history book to be a book your family wants to read and pass down for generations to come.

It’s time to stop procrastinating and start pulling your research into a family history book. Is the thought a little overwhelming? Not sure where to start? We are here to help.

We have a brand new course starting in just a few weeks. We are excited to be delivering Creating a Legacy Family History Book. Take a look at our video, it’s just 6 minutes long and we’ll take you inside a Legacy Family History Book created with the MyCanvas software.

Your book could look like this! Watch the video!

Here’s What You’ll Learn

Week 1 – Introductions

MyCanvas Tour
Your First Decisions

Week 2 – Getting Ready to Build and Write

Importing Files from Ancestry and Beyond
Creating a Workflow

Week 3 – Handling Pictures and Documents

Prepping Your Pictures and Documents
Copyright and Permissions

Week 4 – Structuring Your Book and Stories

Structuring Your Book
Structuring Your Stories

Week 5 – Assembling a Page

Basics of Assembling a Page
Creating a Story Framework

Week 6 – More Pages, More Writing

Creating a Variety of Pages
Bringing Your Ancestors to Life on the Page

Week 7 – Polishing Your Book

Revision and Editing

Week 8 – Final Product, Now What?

Ordering Your Book
Recap and Final Questions

[button url=”https://www.familyhistorywritingstudio.com/product/creating-a-legacy-family-history-book/” class=”yellow” bg=”” hover_bg=”” size=”0px” color=”” radius=”0px” width=”0px” height=”0px” target=”_self”] I Want To Build a Legacy Family History Book [/button]

How the Class Works

Each week you will have access to one or two videos, each helping you to understand how to build a book using the MyCanvas software but also you’ll learn about structuring your book and your stories. We won’t just talk about the book we will talk about the skills you’ll need to write entertaining stories.

You can download the videos each week and watch them when they are convenient to you. If you have any questions over the course of the 8 weeks you’ll have to two teachers in the forum to help you with your project.

The homework is completely optional but we hope you’ll complete the homework so that we can help you with any questions you may have along the way.

Here are a few comments from some students who have already taken some of our classes, so you can be sure we will deliver quality and value for your money.

What Students Have Said about The Family History Writing Studio

Kim Said:

I thoroughly enjoyed completing this course in “Writing a Family History Scene” and would recommend it to all aspiring family history writers. It is inspiring when you can see yourself and your fellow students improve so much by the end of the course. Lynn’s teachings have given us the tools to carefully craft our stories for the enjoyment by our families. I have learned so much.

Denise Said:

This course opened my eyes to scene structure. My writing improved immensely once I had the right tools and guidance to build a scene properly. This is my second Family History Writing Studio course, and it will not be my last. Between Lynn’s excellent guidance and the input from the other students, it was an interactive learning experience I highly recommend to anyone who is thinking of writing a family history narrative. In order to do any job properly, you need the right tools and, in my opinion, this is the place to build your toolbox.

[button url=”https://www.familyhistorywritingstudio.com/product/creating-a-legacy-family-history-book/” class=”red” bg=”” hover_bg=”” size=”0px” color=”” radius=”0px” width=”0px” height=”0px” target=”_self”] I Want To Build a Legacy Family History Book [/button]

Now that we’ve answered all your questions click the link, add the course to the shopping cart and checkout. After checkout, you’ll receive an email welcoming you to the class. Closer to the date of the first class you’ll receive and email and some instruction for finding your way around the website and getting acquainted with the forum.

We look forward to seeing you in the classroom.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

5 Habits that Will Help You Build Your Family History Book.5 Habits that Will Help You Build Your Family History Book.

January 16, 2018| Lynn| 0 Comment| 11:41 pm

We’ve fleshed out the idea for our family history book. We’ve outlined the process with our milestone goals. We’ve identified the tasks we need to carry out our milestone goals in our project planner. Now it’s time to create a daily schedule and incorporate daily habits that are going to support your tasks in getting your book accomplished. It’s time to make this project fit into your daily and weekly schedule. Let’s move it from being a dream to a reality.

We can’t create more hours in the day- we are all stuck with the usual 24 hours- but we can get more out of each hour by making our time count. I’ve listed below 5 practices that you can put in place to help you move your family history book project out of the planner and into your daily calendar.

First, we need a calendar to complete this part. Decide whether you want to use Microsoft Outlook, or Google Calendars or a good old-fashioned analog calendar. I like the Ink & Volt Planner to merge by projects into my daily life. By the way, my newest love is this lovely erasable gel pen to use in my planner.

Once you choose your calendar of choice let’s start pulling your tasks from your Family History Book Project Planner into your daily calendar.

1.Plan Ahead

The first task we make a habit is to plan ahead. Sit down each night and plan out the activities for the next day. You’ll be amazed by how much more you can get done if you always know what you should be doing. Where you’re going next. Create a list of all tasks you wish to get done the next day. Include everything, not just your book-related tasks but taking the dog to the vet, grocery shopping etc. It will help you to balance the time you have for your book project and the time you have for life.

2. Prioritizing the Big 3.

This is key to your daily schedule. Otherwise, you might find yourself wasting away the day on a task that does not advance your book project. Each day name your big 3 priorities, the top three items that must be accomplished to advance your family history book. These tasks should be taken from your project planner that you created. When you first try planning your day, you may find it hard to decide which are the most important and should move to the top of the list. Sometimes it can feel like everything is crucial. But with practice, it will become easier. It is really about asking yourself, which items on the list will have the most significant positive impact if I get them finished tomorrow. Move them to the top of the list.

3. Schedule your tasks on your calendar.

Also, show how time much is required for this job. Write down exactly what times you intend to spend working on your three highest-priority tasks. Making an appointment with yourself and your project task is essential. You’re saying these are important to me. They don’t have to be completed in order of importance only that tomorrow you will finish them. They are a priority and are deserving to be on your calendar. Your schedule doesn’t have to be set in stone – in fact, you will almost certainly end up shifting things around as new tasks come up and old ones lose their urgency. This is why I love my erasable gel pen. Deferring things to the next day because sh*t happens is ok. But don’t make this a habit.

4. End of Day Review

At the end of each day, review your accomplishments. What got deferred, were there any new tasks that were added to the list. Begin planning for tomorrow, identifying your big 3 once again, and scheduling. Make this a daily habit, and you’ll soon find yourself checking off those tasks on your project planner one by one.

5. Weekly Review

At the end of each week, I like Sunday to take a few minutes to review my week. Review your project planner. Identify your big priorities for the upcoming week. Review what you accomplished on your project in the previous week. This habit is not so much for identifying your gaps but for no other reason than to give you confidence and to keep you motivated. Be proud of everything you’ve accomplished. Review your milestone goals and the tasks, are there any you can mark as completed? Move the next tasks in project planner to your weekly calendar.

If you continue to repeat these 5 steps each week and make them a habit, you’ll very quickly find yourself closer to the finish line of completing your dream project of building your family history book.

With a little organization, scheduling and daily habits, you can make your family history book a reality.

Part 1: Identifying Your Dream

Part 2: Fleshing out the 8 Milestone Goals

Part 3: Making an Action Plan and Project Timeline

How Scrivener Can Help You Complete ‘The Challenge’How Scrivener Can Help You Complete ‘The Challenge’

January 15, 2018| Lynn| 0 Comment| 11:41 pm

If you haven’t heard of Scrivener before or maybe you have, but you’re not sure how it works or what all the fuss is about, then I would like to take this opportunity to give you a brief explanation. Scrivener is a writing management software program that has amazing capabilities. It’s a fantastic app for writing long text such as family history stories but offers you many features that make it much more effective and efficient then let’s say Word.

Scrivener is built on four core ideas.

Write your story in sections as small or as large as you like and easily rearrange them.
Add synopses to sections, so that it is easy to work with an overview of your manuscript.
View research and other parts of your writing side-by-side with your writing.
Export your work using different formatting for different requirements.

Of course, this is stating the program very simply. While I’m confident, you can see how this program can benefit you in writing your family history stories. Let’s take it one step further and get a little more specific with a few tips on how it can help you in our upcoming Challenge.

Set Your Targets.

You can set a goal of how many words you want to write each day. Scrivener will keep track of your targets for you. Knowing you’ve met your target for today will make it that much easier to write tomorrow. You’ll find Targets under ‘Project’ the menu.

Incorporating Your Storyboard into Scrivener.

In our Challenge Prep Course, you learned how to create a storyboard, a story plan so that you know exactly what you are going to write each day during these four weeks. Create your storyboard in the Research section of your Draft. This will allow you to reference the storyboard as you go but will also enable you to have the freedom of keeping the storyboard as a separate entity from your draft.

Jump Between Sections.

It’s so easy in Scrivener to jump around and write different chapters or scenes as you see fit. You don’t have to write in chronological order. If you followed our Challenge Prep Course and created a storyboard then you can pull anyone of your scene cards and write.

Create Some Target Points.

If you don’t have a storyboard ready you can still create an outline to help guide you.

In the Draft folder in Outliner mode, create some blank documents with titles and short synopses for each of the critical scenes you identified for your storyline. This will help to tell you where you are going. Not as detailed as a storyboard but it can still be very helpful in keeping you focused. However, you can work towards filling in the spaces in between. They’ll sit in the binder and make sure you know where you’re going. If your story changes direction, you can change them or delete them as needed. Having a destination can help you to keep moving forward even if you decide to change course later.

Import Your Inspiration.

In Scrivener, you can split the editor, so that half of your screen is your story and the other half allows you to view your research. This can also be a great help when you are in need of inspiration. For example, when it comes to describing the setting of your story, take some time to search the Internet for some setting pictures of the location of your story. Upload them to your research files and then when it’s time to write that setting you’ll have inspiration at your fingertips.

Make a Research List in Document Notes.

This is probably one of my favourite tips. When you are writing the last thing you want to do is stop writing and get pulled on the Internet doing research. Keep your writing and research times separately. I like to use Project Notes to keep me on track. In the Inspector, under Project Notes, I create a new note that I’ll title Research List. As I’m writing and I come across something that I need a little more information on, rather than leaving my writing, I will make a small note in my manuscript where I want the information and then add the item to my Research List. When I’m not writing and I have some time, I can pull up my research list do some research.

Scrivener Special

This year during the Family History Writing Challenge, I am going to offer some small tips in our Daily Dose emails on using Scrivener and helping you to improve your use and knowledge of Scrivener. If you’ve been sitting on the fence about using Scrivener then this is the year you may want to give it a try.

A Discount From Scrivener

Scrivener has been kind enough to create a coupon code that will give you a 20% discount on the purchase of a standard licence for either Scrivener for macOS or Scrivener for Windows. For your discount use coupon code: FAMILYHISTORY

If you don’t yet own Scrivener, you can download the 30-day free trial. Click Here.

A Discount From Us

In addition to your Scrivener discount, we are offering a 30% discount off our eBook Scrivener for The Family Historian. It regularly sells for $9.99 we are offering it for $6.99. This price is in effect for the next 72 hours.

Extended to Monday Jan 22, 2018.

Use coupon code: challenge2018

If you’re still not sure about Scrivener, check out our Scrivener Video Page where you’ll find videos that will give you a look inside Scrivener.