Archive for January, 2011
Accomplishments | Memoir Prompt
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Chapter 14 of Lou Willett Staneks book — Writing Your Life — is called “Accomplishments”. Yes, no matter how big or small, we all have them. Writing your life means including acheivements. She says: “Don’t fret if you have been elected to [Read More]
Let’s Have Fun Writing | Kick Passive Ass With Active Voice
I know that all of you who have been following along since Let’s Have Fun Wiring | Practice, are now well beyond the painful cramping lobster claws and are grabbing time stingily every day to write. Kudos! You are well on your way to a fruitful habit. We dove into the [Read More]
Flying Like An Eagle In 1976
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This post is my answer to this week’s Music and Memory memoir prompt given to us by Extreme Writing Now’s Memoir Editor, Mandee Sears… Fly Like An Eagle. Yeah, that’s what the summer after I graduated high school was like. The whole album played out over [Read More]
Music and Memory | Memoir Prompt
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Let’s prime the pump to the well of your memories with music. We’ve all had a song come on the radio that reminds us of a certain time or event in our lives. I can be shopping at TJ Maxx and hear Rod Stewarts “Tonight I’m Yours” song come over [Read More]
Claiming A New Route
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This 55 word flash fiction piece is my birthday gift to Christa Rucker (@PhyreAcid) on twitter. Just because we foster patterns and make them thrive, we are not beholden to them; especially when forcing pieces so they conform to the puzzle nets disaster. Enjoy! She was [Read More]
I’m a Dreamer | Memoir
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This is my answer to the prompt “It Happened When…”. A day I will always remember is December 10th, 1980. My family was just finishing our first year on the island of Guam in the Pacific ocean. My dad was stationed at the Naval Hospital but we lived on [Read More]
Let’s Have Fun Writing | Defining Creative Writing
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Last week, we opened the Let’s Have Fun Writing series by talking about writing practice and how that habit will help writer’s find their heart and use it when the pen anything. I hope some of you are swearing like sailors at me. I hope your hands are all cramped up, [Read More]
The Boss | Memoir
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I was nervous. It was time for us to leave for the annual New Years Eve Dinner at the club. Tim was his usual laidback self sitting on the bench at the end of our bed. He was chortling as I struggled with the nearly impossible task of fanagling my 6 month pregnant self into [Read More]
S.W.A.K.!
A crisp, sunny afternoon in March found my kids and I enjoying our yearly visit to the Celtic Faire. Food, music, fun and local characters always make it an event to remember. But this time, it got the better of me. My oldest daughter and Valkyrie-in-training had been [Read More]
A New Year’s Day I’d Like To Forget Because I Forget
Whew, this is my response to this week’s memoir prompt, It\’s A Wrap. This was tough, not to write, or because I had to go dark places, but because I have a life of miscue segments and the choice was very diffcult… My life has been punctuated by [Read More]
It’s a Wrap | Memoir Prompt
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I have been enjoying re-reading Lou Willett Stanek’s book “Writing Your Life – Putting your Past on Paper” to come up with weekly memoir prompts. This week I was reading Chapter 13 titled Shame, Embarrassment and Confusion. Ms. Stanek opens the [Read More]
Emptiness
What follows is my entry for the Poetry Slam 1 contest currently held here at Extreme Writing Now. What I find amazing is that I am a self admitted slayer of rules and on the edge player, yet I find solace in the strict structure of 55 word flash fiction and [Read More]
My First Love | Memoir
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I went to Cocoa Beach this Summer. It was the first time I got to really sit and get lost in the movement of the ocean in years. My family splashed in the waves and built sand castles at the edge of the water and I sat there with my beer, daydreaming as the memories [Read More]
The Man You Might Have Become
Twenty one years ago, you came into our lives. For all the false alarms and doctors’ protests, you took your sweet time showing up. But we were so happy when you arrived that it really didn’t matter. You looked up at me with those big bright eyes, and sighed. We [Read More]
Dying To Live
Like Cracked Mirror, this piece of flash fiction was rejected for publication at one site. Of course I love this tale, but I can’t expect everyone to see it as I do. The three editors who commented on it all said the same thing, that it begs to be expanded, which I [Read More]
From A To B
A big part of my life is coming to an end. I’m not sure I mourn it, but I’m not happy about it, either. I entered into it willingly, but leaving is more out of necessity than desire. I’m not a bridge burner, but I think there are times when a relationship becomes so [Read More]
Let’s Have Fun Writing | Practice
Far be it from me to stake any claim to being a writer with enough talent and skill to sit on a high throne and give sound writing tips, yet I believe that this site needs a weekly ‘Writing Tips’ column, so I am going to take up the yoke in hopes that WE all [Read More]
Leaving Only Traces
The original is coffee-stained, but it’s been scanned and copied, and committed to my heart: “Never had a friend like you/ Shove you in a hole, and you bury me/ So what’s it going to take, come break me…” You wrote that on the close of… [Read More]
Dear Tony
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This week’s memoir prompt, Looking Back, gave me no choice but to reflect upon a relationship that that hasn’t existed in over 20 years. But then again, my letter to Tony makes me think that relationships really never die… Dear Tony, It’s been a god [Read More]
Superman Grows Up
I had been proud, since my church nursery days, of having a brother who was Superman — even though his super powers diminished the further he got from the home base of my room. He didn’t have x-ray vision, he had lazy eye, and he struggled to learn to read. In [Read More]
