I've never thought a whole lot about writing a memoir, but last weekend, I picked up a book by Natalie Goldberg that piqued my interest. It's called Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir.
Not sure what I was going to do with it, I thought that, at the very least, it could just help me get busy writing.
This morning I picked it up and read the first few pages. The first one jumped out at me beacause the title was: Read this Introduction. Interesting that she knew that I often times prefer NOT to read the introductions of books. AND! Interesting that I must not be the only one.
This morning I picked it up and read the first few pages. The first one jumped out at me beacause the title was: Read this Introduction. Interesting that she knew that I often times prefer NOT to read the introductions of books. AND! Interesting that I must not be the only one.
Her writing "hooked" me so I kept reading. I even read the next "chapter" called Note to Reader... which made me want to keep reading.
First chapter is called Go. In that chapter, the reader is given an assignment which is first to spend 10 minutes filling up ugly, ol' spiral notebook page(s) with the completion of the sentence: "I'm looking at..." Upon completing that exercise, the next assignment is to complete the sentence: "I'm thinking of..." Each time, spending 10 minutes just writing what comes to mind.
Her rules are to keep your hand moving. Be specific: Cadillac instead of car; sycamore instead of tree. If you get stuck, you should begin again with the sentence "I'm looking at..." or "I'm thinking of..."
The exercise was wonderful (even though my hand was sore)... It brought lots of possible story possibilities to mind. It intrigued me to think about all the stuff that's inside of me that I may not have touched yet with my writing.
Tomorrow's exercise is gonna be fun, too... "I remember..."
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