REVISITING....
Last week I ventured to another library and ran a memoir writing workshop for Seniors Week. It was a lot of fun (and boy was I nervous!) and I'm glad to say not only was there a good turn out but I received some very good comments. In fact one lovely bunch of women would love me to come back each week and help them step by step through their writing.
I did make them write and the majority were more than eager to share their work. It was so interesting to discover that while most people know exactly what they 'want' to write about, when it is said out loud it does sometime lose it's glamour. It becomes a bit humdrum. What we discovered during these two hours was the glory of the aside.
People would say 'I''m writing a story about this time when this happened and this happened and I remember vividly this happening". All nice, all great social commentary...but then they would say something like 'and that's when she got the gun out and tried to shoot him.'
What? Sorry? A gun!
It happened time after time. People would say 'My story is about the five years I lived at .....and then I ....... and when we went to .......' Great travel memoir, especially for the family who didn't really know much about what they did. But yet again, as an aside they would add 'but then the police came and he was hauled off to prison. Seems this little old man was key in the drug industry.'
Time after time I told them it was the asides that made their life stories, their memoirs come alive.
As I said it was great fun but also made me revisit my 'travel memoir' about our time on the Rickshaw Run.
I offered up a few snippets of this piece, when we talked about timeline and about how memoirs are very visual and sensory. We have to use all of our senses, not simply state facts and data.
We also have to have an emotional charge.
I had a great response to those snippets I shared. So many questions about the food and the people, and then I was asked where they could buy this book (hmmm, send it out Vicki).
So my writing workshop when I endeavoured to help folks begin their journey into memoir, has spurred me on back into my own work.
Yep, definitely time to revisit the piece.
Watch this space.
Vicki
I did make them write and the majority were more than eager to share their work. It was so interesting to discover that while most people know exactly what they 'want' to write about, when it is said out loud it does sometime lose it's glamour. It becomes a bit humdrum. What we discovered during these two hours was the glory of the aside.
People would say 'I''m writing a story about this time when this happened and this happened and I remember vividly this happening". All nice, all great social commentary...but then they would say something like 'and that's when she got the gun out and tried to shoot him.'
What? Sorry? A gun!
It happened time after time. People would say 'My story is about the five years I lived at .....and then I ....... and when we went to .......' Great travel memoir, especially for the family who didn't really know much about what they did. But yet again, as an aside they would add 'but then the police came and he was hauled off to prison. Seems this little old man was key in the drug industry.'
Time after time I told them it was the asides that made their life stories, their memoirs come alive.
As I said it was great fun but also made me revisit my 'travel memoir' about our time on the Rickshaw Run.
I offered up a few snippets of this piece, when we talked about timeline and about how memoirs are very visual and sensory. We have to use all of our senses, not simply state facts and data.
We also have to have an emotional charge.
I had a great response to those snippets I shared. So many questions about the food and the people, and then I was asked where they could buy this book (hmmm, send it out Vicki).
So my writing workshop when I endeavoured to help folks begin their journey into memoir, has spurred me on back into my own work.
Yep, definitely time to revisit the piece.
Watch this space.
Vicki
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