Hi Writers!
I have been writing my newsletter for a little over a year now and whew baby has it gone through some changes! And so many of you have been with me the entire way right from the beginning. Thank you for allowing me to grow and change as I found my way toward what I wanted this newsletter to be.
I am so excited for everything I have in store for you all next year! (Don’t forget to upgrade to paid by January 10th to be included in the Mail Club trial.)
All December I’ve shared flash essays with my “Drop-In December” free writing workshop folks. So let’s close out the month with a writing prompt from the grand dame of flash memoir herself, Abigail Thomas.
I was first introduced to Thomas’ work by my grad school professor Susan Straight. At her suggestion, I read Thomas’ “Safekeeping.” It’s a slice of life memoir written about one woman’s journey through motherhood and marriage(s) as told through a series of vignettes. It’s the kind of writing many attempt, but few do well. Most are missing that je ne sais quoi that transform the everyday into something enlightening.
Earlier this year, I came across a thin little book about craft that Thomas published with… AARP…? (Srsly, this book is slightly more than 100 pages. It’s like a Little Golden Book for the senior citizen set.)
A used copy of “Thinking About Memoir” didn’t cost much, so I ordered it. There was a writing prompt in it that I shared with my writers in an essay class I taught for the Porch this winter. They got a lot out of it. So I’m sharing it with you all. What better time than the end of the year to stir up a bunch of reflection about your life?
“Writing memoir is a way to figure out who you used to be and how you got to be who you are.”
Abigail Thomas’ Writing Prompt
“Take any 10 years of your life, reduce them to two pages, and every sentence has to be three words long—not two, not four, but three words long. You discover there’s no where to hide in three-word sentences.
You discover that you can’t include everything, but half of writing is deciding what to leave out. Learning what to leave out is not the same thing as putting in only what’s important. Sometimes it’s what you’re not saying the gives a piece its shape.
And it’s surprising what people include. Marriage, divorce, love sex—yes, there’s all that, but often what takes up precious space is sleeping on grass, or an ancient memory of blue Popsicle juice running down your sticky chin.
When you’re done, run your mind over everything the way a safecracker sandpapers his fingers to feel the clicks. If there is one sentence that hums, or gives off sparks, you’ve hit the jackpot.
Then write another two pages starting right there.”
Let me know if this prompt leads you anywhere interesting 👀
— Minda
