This weekend I was watching a movie when it jolted a memory of my past. Although the movie had nothing to do with the idea, it created the entire picture in my mind of another episode.
When this happens I tell my husband to place the movie on hold, be sure to write down the thought on paper – so I won’t forget.
I wanted to share with you the scribbles made on the back of a magazine – “What do you do when your family, one by one, is snapped away and the full house with friends, everyone from your neighborhood disappear? It happened when Mom died, I went upstairs to my Grandmothers flat, to make sure she was doing alright, hugged her, held her hand, and told her to be strong.” She was strong for 90 years, strong from the time her own husband died when she had three young boys, she will be strong I told her, because there is a reason for you to be here, now, for us.
You see this is not only part of ones’ life, something that actually happened, and easily can be turned into Poetic Memoir, but it fits into my novel, based on a true story, a Memoir. So when you are working on Poetic Memoir you are really writing in short verse what life was, then, now, and how you handled things.
Far too many writers are cautious when it comes to real life. Yet when you think about how popular memoir is today, people are facing their life with your words. No one is flawless, to be perfect is not human. So I say strike back that person on the inside, knock them out of the picture and become the writer you are without personal hangups. Nothing in life is ridiculous, foolish, because we have all lived life, and those things we once believed to be foolish are not either entertaining, and seen to the reader as educational, permitting them to accept what once wasn’t accepted.
If you are writing about life, in memoir, or poetic memoir, I ask you to do this – forget about the fear from the past, emotions bring out the writing in all of us, no matter if it is from what we hear on the news, and disagree. It may come from a conversation in a coffee shop, and disagree. It maybe from a thought from twenty years ago; so instead of wondering why it still sticks on the inside and hasn’t reached the surface, bring it out. As I have said, carry around that paper and pen, or kindle keyboard, anything you use day to day and use notes.
You are giving yourself permission to stretch the horizon – by living the truth – which could span a lifetime or it happened yesterday. How many times do you cross the same street and see something you never noticed? Your mind was caught up in the moment, and the detail slipped by like the cars. Identity to your surroundings, your distance to the truth – is really right in front of you – all you have to do is accept it.
Promise me the next time you feel like ripping apart your poetic memoir, in short verse, poetry, etc., face it – hand it to someone else – what is imperfect to you is substantial to them.
