I’m going to spend some time with a novel that needs a revision, but I’m also doing a side project. Somehow I ended up on The Highlights Foundation email list and every so often they send me “A writing tip from [someone famous]”. A few months ago, the tip was from Jerry Spinelli. I wish I’d saved the actual email, but I’m way too anti-clutter (even in my in-box) to do that, so it’s long gone. The gist of it was this though. Make a list of all your HAPPY memories from as far back as you can until you’re fourteen (or some age…I’m actually doing through high school since I write YA). Anyway, you make this list of memories, over however long it takes you, writing down every one that you can think of, and once you’ve got the list, you put it in somewhat chronological order. Then you take your list and you write a narrative based on your memories. He said it will probably end up about a hundred pages or so. Spinelli says this is a great way to generate ideas for stories. It sounds totally fun to me and I already have four yellow legal pad pages of memories. Some of my favorites so far are:
- The time my mum took us trick or treating and we thought we’d play a joke on my dad and knock on our own door, but the joke was on us because he answered in my mum’s dress, head scarf and of course, he had his full beard. I must’ve been about five and this still makes me giggle.
- Making cinnamon toast with my Aunt Lila.
- Cutting my friend Debbie’s hair (in the early 1980s) and having her say over and over, “Don’t cut off the slant!” She meant of her bangs because they had to feather!
- Finding ash on all the cars the morning after Mt. St. Helen’s blew.
- Going to NYC with some kids from drama in high school…oh, and our teacher that we never saw the whole time we were there!
- Shopping with my mum (a rare experience as we both hate to shop) for costume jewelry for my first speaking role in the play My Sister Eileen.
I could go on and on…in fact, I have! But I’ll stop here for now.
What memories from childhood make you laugh? Uh…yours, I mean. Not mine.
Later – My mum and I are a lot alike, but one way we differ is while it makes me crazy to have even four or five emails in my inbox, she saves ’em all (neatly organized). So…ask and you shall receive. From the aforementioned email from Highlights, per my mum:
[Jerry Spinelli] – Write your book. Underline your. (Not someone else’s). That’s one of those things that sounds so obvious that it’s not even worth saying, but in fact it is.
Writing your book simply has to do with tapping into whatever we have. We all grow up, and all we’re doing is simply making use of something that is as common as gravity—memories. When we grow up, our past is not irretrievably lost to us, like the juice squeezed from an orange. The past stays with us. Tap into it for your writing.
If I were training you to be writers, I would say pick your best experiences and write at least a hundred pages, covering your life up to age fifteen or so. You’ll be giving yourself a lifetime’s worth of material to draw on, like ore in the ground. It’s just a matter of extracting it, refining it, and purifying it until you’re laying out pure wrought iron.
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