Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Bridget Whelan/@agoodconfession
In the broad daylight of our habitual memory the images of the past turn gradually pale and fade out of sight, nothing remains of them, we shall never recapture it. Or rather we should never recapture it had not a few words been carefully locked away in oblivion, just as an author deposits in the National Library a copy of a book which might otherwise become unobtainable. ~ Marcel Proust French writer 1871-1922
It is my pleasure introduce you to UK Author and Creativity Coach Bridget Whelan whose eBook, Back to Creative Writing School just came out on Amazon and Amazon UK. My book reviews can be found on Amazon and GoodReads.
Bridget is going to take us all back to creativity writing school in this post,“Time Traveling with a Pen.”
Welcome, Bridget!
Time Traveling with a Pen
The American philosopher Suzanne Langer argued that memory shouldn’t be thought of as a noun – a storehouse or recording machine – but as a verb, an activity. Revisiting our younger self and the world we once inhabited is not easy, but there are ways of unlocking the words that can trigger the past and bring it back, vivid, detailed and authentic.
Sometimes a chance encounter will do it. A scent carried on a breeze can transport us to a specific afternoon in childhood or an overheard conversation can spark a flashback to an acne-dominated adolescence. But as a writer, you can’t trust to luck.
I’m convinced that one of the best ways to stir your memory, snap it awake and fire it up, is with a pen in your hand. The very act of writing can produce where-did-that-come-from? moments that will help you add substance and detail to the faded pictures of the past that you carry around in your head.
The right exercise can let you travel back in time.
Try this one. The aim is to compile a set of notes that no one else is ever going to see. There’s a great freedom in deciding that before you start. You don’t have to worry about spelling or grammar, if a phrase is a bit of a cliché or if someone else would be upset by what you’re writing. You are just gathering the raw material. Later you will refine and reflect on it, but for now it’s notes that are for your eyes only.
Decide on a period in your life that you are interested in writing about. If you’re not sure, I suggest sometime between the ages of 6 and 16. Don’t generalize: pin down a specific year.
Choose five words to describe yourself at that age.
10 words to describe your family at that time.
What was your favourite thing to eat at this time in your life? Who made it/sold it? How often did you eat it?
Write a sentence to describe the house or apartment you were living in.
Write a paragraph describing the kitchen. Think about the floors and walls, the colour of the cabinets, the view from the window, the background noises and the radio playing. Think about the table and where you once sat.
Write down five smells you associate with the kitchen: remember we often do more than cook and eat there. It can be the powerhouse of the home – where clothes were laundered, shoes shined, games played, friends gathered and work completed
Right, note-taking’s over. Now you are writing for real.
Use your jottings and the memories generated to describe a weekday winter breakfast. Don’t limit yourself to what you ate. Is there condensation on the inside of the window and icicles outside? What can you see when you look out? Who is in a rush and who is already late?
You can’t cop out and say that you didn’t have breakfast back then. Of course you did – it might have been a doughnut at lunchtime, but if that was the first meal of the day write about it and about why you left home with only the taste of toothpaste in your mouth. Go off on a tangent if one occurs to you and see where it leads.
If you have no desire to write about an everyday breakfast and can’t see how it connects with your writing project, I ask for your patience and urge you to do it anyway. Thinking about the exercise is not the same as doing it. To work it needs pen on paper or fingers on keyboard, digging up those sights and smells in short bursts. Remember, if you can capture the routine of an ordinary day you will have gone a long way towards stepping back in time.
And food is very revealing.
A simple meal can define emotional relationships and economic status, disclose ethnicity and establish context. It can give the reader a sense of the time without having to give month and year, surprise with the unusual or offer a gentle hug of recognition
I hope that worked for you. I didn’t use that particular exercise in BACK TO CREATIVE WRITING SCHOOL so you can think of it as a Memoir Writer’s exclusive.
I did, however, start the book with one that is ideal for anyone engaged in autobiographical writing. It is about the names you’ve been called over the years, the nice names, the ones that you were happy to answer to, where they came from and who was allowed to use them. The exercise also introduces the merits of one of the most useful words in a memoir writer’s vocabulary: the word perhaps.
Amazon allows you to see the first couple of exercises so you can pop over and try without having to buy, although of course I hope you’re so impressed that you won’t be able to stop yourself from doing just that.
I believe passionately that the creative techniques we often associate with fiction and stories from the imagination can be used equally well in memoir and autobiography.
All good writing is creative.
Author’s Biography
Bridget is a London Irish writer living in southern England. She studied creative and life writing at Goldsmiths College – the leading creative university of the UK – as part of the MA creative writing programme. Two years later she was back lecturing in biography and autobiography. She is now teaches at many locations, including City Lit, the largest adult education centre in Europe. She has also been Writer in Residence at an inspiring community centre serving the unemployed and low waged
BACK TO CREATIVE WRITING SCHOOL is an ebook collection of 30 practical writing exercises covering such subjects as dialogue, description and magic for grown-ups, but it is more than just a set of prompts and how-to instructions. Novelist Lizzie Enfield observed: “..it’s a book which anyone could read and if they did they would probably find their pleasure in words and the world heightened.”
Amazon US http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GJN576E $2.99
Amazon Can https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00GJN576E $3.12
Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GJN576E £1.70
You can visit Bridget’s popular blog for writers and readers at http://bridgetwhelan.com/
Follow her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/creativewritingschool and Twitter@agoodconfession.
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Thank you , Bridget for sharing your thoughts on creativity and for taking is all “back to creative writing school”. You have given us a glimpse of what your new book has to offer all writers.
How about you? How do you tap into your own creativity?
Bridget has graciously offered to give away a copy of her ebook, Back to Creative Writing School, to a commentator whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week: ” When Historical Events Trigger Memories: A Memoir Moment”
Bridget offers wonderful tips to kick start creativity. I plan on trying a few of them in my freshman English class.
Thanks Pat – I’ve used these exercises on a university autobiographical course and they worked really well – hope you have the same experience.
Hi Pat, I agree Bridget’s writing prompts are very effective in stimulating creativity. I’m so happy you can use them with your English class. I’d love to hear how they work out. Thanks for stopping by.
Though you have a medical background, Kathy, you are a great teacher, always bringing in varied resources to enrich our writing lives. Thank you!
Like Pat, if I were still teaching, I’d use some of the prompts Bridget suggests in my classes.
Marian, your comment is “music to my ears” Sorry about the cliche but it works! I am so happy you feel you have found benefit in the resources. It is exactly what I have intended all along–to share what I’ve learned and continue to learn from one another. Interesting, my nursing profession was deeply-rooted in teaching. I have often felt that my nursing career was a great preparation for writing. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.
Thanks for visiting Marian and I agree you learn an awful lot from Kathy and her blog. Glad you like the exercises I outlined here.
What a useful and fun exercise, Bridget. Though I’m long past the point of adding stories to my memoir (I am buried deeply in tightening and cutting, these days), your exercise reminds me of the FUN of simple, creative writing. And I thank you for that. It offered me a lovely break and, who knows, I may just publish something someday on French toast at Mrs. Dunn’s house.
Kathy, I will second Marian’s comment that you continue to provide a wealth of opportunity and resources here for writers and for people — don’t mean to imply they are mutually exclusive 🙂 — in general. I’m concerned that once your book is published you will fade away to enjoy your royalties by a southern pool somewhere. Too many of us would miss you.
Janet, it is so true that if we keep writing , we will find other projects to work on. “French toast at Mrs. Dunn’s house”, as ordinary as it may sound, also sounds very intriguing. Bridget’s exercise are bound to help you bring that one alive on the page.
You are too kind and funny, my friend but I am most appreciative of your kind and generous messages of support.Thank you. I think I told you I had started a”You made my day” file and your comment , along with Marian’s will go in there to boost me up when I’m having a bad day–which we all have from time to time.Now I will take that poolside image with me into this frigid, winter day. 🙂
I want to know more about Mrs Dunn’s French toast already….! You’re right, there comes a time when you stop writing, wait, reflect and then look at what you’ve written with the cold eyes of an editor. Do you like the process? For me, writing is gathering the raw material together and while that is exhilarating, there is something very satisfying about shaping, polishing and yes, cutting. The last bit is hardest of all, but as George Orwell said, if you can cut a word, you should cut it. Tough love!
I used many of these tips in the first book of my trilogy. Actually had formal psyoanalysis and theraphy. Very helpful in a memior of the self. Who amI? The second story will take greater creativity. Why amI?
Welcome, Jim! I appreciate you stopping by and sharing your thoughts. Bridget’s exercises do help us to resurrect memories and use them in stories. It does take a lot of creativity to answer the questions,who am I and why am I in memoir. Tell us more about your trilogy and post a link if you’d like. Thanks!
You are dealing with enormously difficult questions that reach down into our essential being. I wonder if writing was part of the therapy – perhaps you were not only charting your journey into self-discovery but that through your creativity you were facilitating that journey.
I have to ask: if Who Am I? is part 1 and Why Am I? is part II what is the final question you want to tackle in your trilogy? Like Kathy I’d love to know more.
What an inspiring post…thank you so much!
Thanks so much for stopping by, Rhonda!I’m happy you enjoyed Bridget’s post. She has lots of great ideas to stimulate creativity.
What a nice thing to say – thank you for taking the time to comment. Glad you like this post.
I’m so excited to see all the new directions lifestory and memoir writing books are taking. Bridget’s looks like a splendid addition to the mix. Thanks for letting us know about it.
I’d like to suggest to those who have finished memoirs or are deep into editing (Kathy, this includes you), that writing the occasional fun short story with no specific audience in mind (beyond family and friends perhaps) is a great way to keep your juices flowing and preserve snapshots or slices of life that would otherwise be lost. Bridget’s prompts may trigger these stories.
Sharon, Yes, Bridget’s ebook is packed with pearls and prompts for all writers. And I hear you about writing an occasional short story just for the fun of it. Look what happened when you did just that and ended up writing your delightful “mini-memoir” Adventures of a Chilehead now available on Kindle:http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Chilehead-A-Mini-Memoir-Recipes-ebook/dp/B00GRJAVVG
I agree, Bridget’s prompts will trigger many stories. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your insights.
Love your comment Sharon.
I believe with a passion that writing is one of the creative arts that you do because you want words to sing on the page. When you’re working on an important project like a memoir it is easy to forget that and I applaud the idea of breaking off and writing just for fun, just because you have a great idea and want to get it down on paper.
In BACK TO CREATIVE WRITING SCHOOL I tell readers right up front that my book won’t tell you how to write a bestseller or find a publisher, but it will get you to write. That could turn out to be the stuff of a bestseller, of course, or it could just remind you how much you enjoy putting words together
This couldn’t be more timely. I’ve just started writing about the day my mother died and, quite frankly, it’s kicking my butt. I need all the help I can get. Thank you!
Welcome, Jayne. It’s nice to “meet” you. It takes courage to write about such a painful loss. I’m glad you have found Bridget’s post to be helpful. I hope you keep writing and find healing through your writing. I appreciate you stopping by and sharing your thoughts. Hope you’ll come back.
Writing is dangerous. It can go anywhere. It can trick memories and words out of you until you find yourself in a painful place that you hadn’t intended visiting.
It seems to me that the bottom line is you keep yourself safe: sometimes we need to withdraw, sometimes we need to go on and sometimes we need to seek out those painful places. That sounds where you are Jayne and I wish you well on your journey. It can be part of the process of facing loss, understanding what’s happened, making sense of a bewildering mess of emotions.
I wrote about my father’s death and his last cruel years of dementia. It wasn’t easy writing but it did me (and my family) a power of good…