Can I Finish It?

     I have signed up for The Family History Writing Challenge, which begins tomorrow.  In this challenge, genealogists are encouraged to put pen to paper (finger to keyboard) and write their family histories. Not more procrastinating!

     If you'd like to participate, you can sign up to received daily emails, which will include encouraging tips and advice, and sign up for the message boards, to chat with other participants.  With these tools, hopefully many of us will find the motivation to start and finish a writing project.

     For myself, I want to finish my Albea Family book.  I started a version of this book a few years ago, and then started over last year. I've got a great start, but I just haven't been able to finish.  I've been using Blurb to write my book.  I really like Blurb, because they have so many options and allow me to be flexible in deciding what type of book to make.  I can choose to write a basic, traditional book, or I can create a book that combines text and photos, in a variety of sizes, including ebooks.  My particular book will be a Standard Landscape (10x8 inches), which will contain as many photos and copies of documents as possible.  In a way, I won't be citing my sources, so much as including them all in the book.

     For me, the challenge is the actual writing. I've already formatted much of the book, including census and estate records, as well as photographs of people and places.  What I need to do is actually write the content.  I will do a sketch of each of my Albea ancestors and their families, back to my 6x Great Grandfather, Joseph Alby.

     I don't have a word count goal yet, which is something that I might want to create.  I have no idea how many words the book will be, or how many I can write in a day.  Coming up with a goal would help keep me writing.  Maybe somewhere between 500 and 1,000 words a day, minimum five days a week.  Or maybe a goal to spend two hours a day, five days a week on the book.  Ultimately, my goal is to finish this book and to order a copy by February 29th.

     I wish everyone else good luck with their writing goals this month.

     Here are a few screenshots of what I have so far: