Memories Don’t Fade Like Hair: Memoir Writing Help for You, Our Elders, to Tell Your Story

~~~Old age, for the ignorant, is winter; to scholars,
it is harvest time. ~Yiddish saying~~~

You can tell the story of your life through a biography, which is a whole
book that starts at the beginning and ends at (or near) the
final. But if you don’t want to take on such a big task,
you can tell your story in bits and pieces, through memory
writing.

Memoir writing consists of, like the word, from the Latin
memory, indicates—individual memories.

The convenience this gives us is this: –we can start at
anywhere in our lives we want — we can write about an event,
moment, idea, person, place or object… in isolation –we
we don’t need any order or convention to inhibit our getting
words on paper… for starters.

Let the writing of memories come

Don’t worry about grammar, punctuation, or any formatting or
structure. Just write down the first thing that comes and goes.
with him, whether it takes you to another story, a
description of other things, or your opinion.

Over time, we’ll cover different ways of remembering,
different ways of writing, and then, later, ways of putting the
pieces all together, if you wish.

For now, let’s start with a kind of written memoir that
you can use in every piece we write:

Description

We need description. Our readers need description. And we
we need to get that description out of our heads and into
details.

Details that our readers can perceive

Our goal (and power as writers) is to convert what we remember
in what readers can feel, see, taste, touch and hear, so that
we can bring them as close as possible to our memories.
a way to describe

This is fun with a friend, but you can also do it alone and
email me your results.

Get the following items from your pantry or cooler (or have
someone bring them to you):

peanuts with lemon peel plain chocolate bar/drops/chips
Pop Rocks kiwi marshmallow candy or Alka-Seltzer tablets.
a small knife a notebook and a writing tool

Immediate

Work with one item at a time. 1. Look at the article. How
it looks? Write the texture, color, size, shape,
and other words you think of when you look at the
Article. 2. Touch the item. How does it feel? What are you doing
the temperature you feel, the texture, the weight? 3.
Smell the food. How does it smell? 4. Listen to the
Article. Does it have a sound? How about when you add it to
water, put the knife on it, bite it, or put it in your
language? 5. How do you know?

Here is the challenge:

With every word you use to describe, try to make an effort
(or your partner) to go beyond the obvious descriptive
words. For example, if you find that the marshmallow is
smooth, what kind of smooth is it? Is it smooth as fresh?
Are the clothes soft? The kind of soft on whipped cream? It is
the candy a sweet candy or a sweet pickle candy?

Imagine you are describing the item to someone who has
I have never seen/had one, someone from another planet, and you
you need the person to retrieve the item for you to keep
his life. (In the same way that you would need to describe a
medication, so the person doesn’t bring you a heart pill
instead of a blood pressure pill).

Be as unique and original as you can with your words.

Refuse to be satisfied with just “crunchy”, “sour”, “cold”.

So when we move on to the next task, you’ll be ready
to relive the details of your past, the story of your life.

Note: Did you notice that trying to describe what
you feel inevitably evoked comparisons. final descriptions
themselves to metaphors. Writers use metaphors to convey
and express. You are now a writer!