This is the first entry of this site’s participation in April 2024’s A to Z Blog Challenge. You can read about all this at my theme reveal post. Basically I am using this opportunity to write parts of a book with the working title of: Permission to Write. Each entry is intended to provide memoir writers with an open-ended prompt to elicit a complex exposition about a thing or event rather than a simple answer to prompt question.This is intended to open up the things we connect and call upon as we write.
The letter A is a thought. A dream. A thing. A memory. A point in time. We can use that single thing to recall what is connected to it, what its context is. One thing can help is to visualize the thing, concept, or memory from which you want to work as being in a bubble.
For me I put a memory in a bubble, reflective and floating, passing through the scenes of my mind’s eye. Right now, it is floating several feet above, and just beyond, the end of a pier, on the shore at a childhood friend’s lake home.
I am remembering that single memory, but connected to it is a moment of summer. It is the warmth of the sun, the coolness of the water, the awareness that there are big swimmy creatures beneath the lake surface. I also remember becoming aware that the life my friend lives that is completely different mine. I see it all from the vantage of the bubble.
If I continued on using my bubble, I might remember:
This little elicitation tool helped me connect place, fears, economic context, and connected ecological spaces.
Now you try. Questions? Ask in the comments.
This is going to be interesting. I am also writing memoir.
I can’t find your blog on the sign-up master list though. Visiting back from the A to Z Challenge.
I’m there. Initially I was under the wrong category.
womenslegacy recently posted…A is for A Single Thing
As a fellow writer, this is an excellent way to GET INTO A SCENE. I am rewriting for my current project, so the creativity is minor…I know where I am going, But when you start with nothing but a symbol, a photo in your mind, a sentence, a word of love or a harsh word…everything is open to you creativity.
So today, out my windows are daffodils, bright and reaching, even in the rain. They shake their heads, they are actually smiling at me.
Exactly! And the stories of memoir are scenes too.
I am learning that memoir is just as much about story construction as nonfiction. Scenes are critical to success.
womenslegacy recently posted…A is for A Single Thing
I like what you have. I never knew you were afraid of water. I’m glad for the reminder that this exercise starts today–so here I go!
My mother never let me go swimming or allowed me to take swimming lessons. I just float on my back and paddle if necessary. So…
This is quite useful. I ghostwrite memoirs, among other things and am always looking for ways to improve my craft. I used the technique you’ve described here when writing my own memoir. In my case, it was a zoological memoir so my ‘thing’ in each instance was a particular animal I’d encountered or pet I’d owned.
David, I am pleased that you also use this tool in writing. The shifting of perception certainly helps me understand what our own world view might not allow us to see.
Memory bubbles. My grandmother’s apartment building. The black and white tiles in the lobby. The two cats of her daughter who lives with her-the black and white one who likes me and the grey one who always hides. The taste of real butter on bread-my Mom never buys real butter. I’ll have to see what else has been captured by the bubble.
Alana, sounds like some great stories from that time and place.
Snapshots of memory. Sometimes it’s a photograph or the name of a street I lived on and as i write I remember more and more.
Yes! Those little points of time and place that act as a nexus or vortex, or something!
This is very interesting. Looking forward to reading more about your thoughts and the way you convert it into writing. Please do check out my blog here: https://www.sundarivenkatraman.in/
Interesting flow of ideas.
Ronel visiting for A: My Languishing TBR: A
Abominable Wraiths
Thank you. Reservation Dogs depict her well.