After the age of 50, many people begin to think about recording their memories but are hesitant to start. Of those who do, about five percent actually see it through because it seems like such an overwhelming endeavor, Gail says.
Before signing up for “The Joy of Writing Your Life Story,” one woman said that she doubted she’d be up to the task. Gail encouraged her to “just come and see how it goes.” Three years of class sessions later, the woman became one of her most focused students and has self-published her life story.
Profile
In the first class, students fill out a profile form with questions such as, “Who will be reading your autobiography, what is your purpose in writing it and what prompted you to begin writing it now?” Purposes can be to set the record straight, to instruct, to leave a legacy or simply to do something productive with one’s time.
Gail can more easily give guidance after she learns this information. One first time student was prompted to write after she copied some old home movies onto a compact disk and her family began asking for more details.
Ways to Spark Memory
In the first hour of the two-hour class, Gail conducts exercises to help prompt the right side of the brain where memory is stored. Several paper bags containing items with recognizable scents such as spices, baby powder and nail polish remover are lined up. Students pick up a bag and smell the contents without looking inside.
If a smell triggers a past memory, they are to write it down immediately, and if not, to go on to another bag. One woman, who didn’t see the sense of this exercise, took a whiff of nail polish remover and was reminded of ether. This brought her back to the time her tonsils were removed as a child and she was then able to write a vignette surrounding her memory of that event in her life.
Clustering
Another exercise is called clustering. A subject is written down in the center of a sheet of paper. Any and all offshoot ideas are jotted down around the subject until there is a whole page of ideas to begin shaping into a story.
Class Feedback
The last hour of class is spent sharing writing which the students have done at home between classes. This is when Gail enforces her only two rules - the story must be read, not told and there are to be no interruptions from the other students. After the story or vignette is read, feedback is encouraged. This helps determine what is interesting to readers and what is not. If most of the group response is the same, it is worth the writer’s consideration.
In Gail’s class the emphasis is on writing for personal satisfaction and not publication. As she says, there is no way to be wrong.”
For another resource on this subject visit the website of Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler to sign up for Top 10 Reasons to Write Your Memoir.
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