VICDOC Winter 2022 - Magazine - Page 101
THE BOOK EVOLVED AS I CONTINUED TO
FOLLOW THE CLUES, IF YOU LIKE, THAT
EMERGED THROUGH THE PROCESS OF
RESEARCH AND WRITING.
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I started with basic genealogy — names,
places, dates of birth, marriage, and the
deaths of my parents and ancestors. I also
had a lot of information at home about
my father, including his old files which
I worked through, and I read his books.
For my mother, I researched her family
and parish that she came from in
England. There was a book published
about that parish, which detailed some
of the parish records. I visited Scotland
to find out where my great-grandparents
came from and collected books about
the area. My father died nearly 50 years
ago, so there weren’t many people with
memories of him but I spoke with some
family members who provided their
recollections. I also looked at newspapers
on the National Library’s site, Trove, which
keeps digitised versions of old newspapers.
THE MOST SATISFYING THING ABOUT
WRITING IS ACTUALLY GETTING
SOMETHING DOWN ON PAPER.
-
My process was to handwrite my draft
first and then dictate it into a Word
document using a voice recognition
system. It has been even more satisfying
to see it all printed in a book.
THE PROCESS OF GETTING PUBLISHED WAS
MORE DIFFICULT THAN THE WRITING ITSELF.
-
My family read through most of the book
and people I knew who had done some
editing or writing looked at some sections
and made useful comments. Thankfully, it
didn’t require a lot of editing. Once I was
happy with the manuscript, I submitted it
to publishers in Melbourne that I knew or
were recommended to me. The feedback
I got from all of them was that it was not
a commercial proposition, so it was up
to me to self-publish, or custom publish
it. A publisher in Canada accepted it. It’s
now available in local bookshops and in
other countries through distributors such
as Amazon. Copies have been sold in the
United Kingdom and the United States.
The most satisfying
thing about writing
is actually getting
something down
on paper.
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