Connie's Corner

Week 3 of 5

I listened to another unusual story from a classmate at my Wednesday Memoir Class.. She grew up in Jax, Florida, near the Trout River and told of a storm and a funny thing that happened when she was growing up. A cargo boat capsized in a Jax port nearby, carrying, of all things, Ivory soap. The title of her story was "It Floats", and she tells of how, after the storm, she and her father and brother gathered a couple of tubs of the soap, most still wrapped and sealed and floating. She admitted to this day she still uses Ivory soap!

We had a most interesting exercise in which we drew a circle with many lines (or spokes) coming out the sides of it. We were told to write inside the circle the name of someone who had impacted our life, then on the spokes we were to write a word or two of something we associated with that person. It was strange because when I first wrote the name of the person, I could think of only one or two things to put on the spokes, but in just a few minutes I had fourteen in total! What a memory-jogger. We were advised to do this whenever we start writing a story.

Another good idea Susie gave us was historical timelines. The library has several books on this subject, (Peoples Chronology, Book of Chronologies, Illustrated Almanac of Historical Facts, etc.), and for any who wants to buy, she gave us a great website, abebooks.com, who advertise "cheap, fast, and easy". That's for me!

An idea starter can begin many ways. For example, I remember--choosing, getting, wanting, riding, finding--insert your own "ing" word and things will pop into your head like magic. Or firsts in your life, good, bad, dull or not, can trigger memories...job, car, boyfriend, heels, bra, lobster, movie, and on and on.

For next week, we are to write a story using an "I remember..." phrase, complete another handout about our school days, continue working on our personal timeline (The Life of Me), and finish Chapter 4 of our manual, Aids to Writing.

I read my story to the class. I was breathless by the time I finished...I get so darned self-conscious, I must remember to breathe. Since we were to write on smells, I wrote about my adventures at the fair (the State Fair was held every summer in my hometown). I got some laughs and I think everyone liked it. Susie said I should try to get it published because it was about something almost everyone can relate to. I got embarrassed .

until next time...c