Memoirous

Have you written any 50-word memoirs this week? If not here is your chance with Hot Flash Friday. The day where I give you a prompt and you flash. A lot of the time my prompts are mundane. The stuff of the ordinary.   Your job is to get inside, core down, dig wherever it leads. Today’s prompt is: Frozen Food Aisle. That’s it. What is the story? What bubbles to the surface? What about those foggy doors after you’ve rooted around inside. How long have you stood and studied the individual flavors of ice cream, wishing life could be as various and exciting? What does the frozen food aisle tell you about yourself? Maybe it’s where you met your mate. Or where you first considered going for your MFA. Get inspired.

Last week I introduced blog readers to the 50-word challenge—today’s blog has to do with Hippocampus. The hippocampus is the area of the brain where long-term memories reside. If you can’t recall a name on the tip of your tongue, blame your hippocampus. Hippocampus Magazine is an exclusively online publication dedicated to creative nonfiction. Each month it publishes 8-10 new CNF pieces: essays or memoir excerpts from established and emerging writers. A few years back I really enjoyed reading a winning essay by Jim Gray entitled Sweating the Sweater about a dad thrift store shopping with his daughter. This piece really resonated with me because 1) I shop Unique Thrift and had no idea it was a chain. I thought it was just in Chicago. Come to find Unique isn’t quite so unique. 2) I have a daughter and probably once a week for the first 20 years of her life we went to Unique. That’s all we had to say, Unique. It was a noun and a verb. Shopping together hasn’t been all fun. S

The State of the Union—it might be crazy out there and dang cold, but Michelle was HOT in her sleeveless Narciso Rodriguez dress. BUT here is the question: What color was it? wearing a marigold dress I’ve been reading Mark Doty’s The Art of Description , a small book on craft, where he discusses color and the sensations it evokes. One could have said Michelle wore orange. No, that’s not it. We sat around the living room for the next ten minutes dissecting the color. Was it mustard, pumpkin, tangerine, coral—not so says the Washington Post . I guessed saffron, a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the “saffron crocus”, usually known for how much it costs. It is sold by the gram just like cocaine. A thread or two is enough to enhance any meal. Why wouldn’t Michelle be wearing saffron? Within 20 minutes it was sold out. When writing I have at my fingertips the world wide web to bring up a palate of colors, but sometimes it is a word I’m lo

The 50-word challenge: bite-sized fiction everyday! http://fiftywordstories.com/ was something started in February 2009 by Tim Sevenhuysen. The goal was to post a 50-word story EVERDAY for one year. Well, that was 6 years ago and the rest is history—he’s still going. With a little help from reader submissions. What is a 50-Word Story? From the website: A 50-word story is a piece of fiction written in exactly 50 words. That doesn’t mean “roughly” 50 words; it doesn’t mean “as close to 50 words as possible”; it doesn’t mean 50 words or fewer. It means  exactly 50 words . As with any other form of fiction, a 50-word story should have a beginning and an end, a plot and character development (even if they are only implied), and a theme, meaning, or purpose of some sort. Many 50-word stories are built around twists or climactic moments. To submit your stories for possible publication, see the  Submissions page . A $10 prize is available for the best submission eac

" In January After Ibn Sahl The yard has sopped into its green-grizzled self its new year         whiteness. A dog stirs the noon-blue dark with a running shadow and dirt         smells cold and doggy As though the one thing never seen were its frozen coupling         with the air that brings the flowers of grasses. And a leafless beech stands wrinkled, gray and sexless–all bone         and loosened sinew–in silver glory And the sun falls all on one side of it in a running glance, a         licking gaze, an eye-kiss And ancient silver struck by gold emerges mossy, pinkly         lichened where the sun fondles it And starlings of anthracite march into the east with rapid jerky         steps pecking at their shadows." — James Schuyler, “In January” James Schuyler, 1970 or '69  He wrote poems for friends, to mark a day or morning, to say he was still alive. He wrote for himself, for Joe Brainard, for Frank O'Hara, for Joe and Jane Hazan, for a

Update to My Update: What Would Happen A few weeks back I told the story of Ted who traveled to Africa—a trip arranged by a Sudanese Lost Boy that Ted helped out by sending money to when Lual Pach Pach was in a refugee camp. Some would have thought that that would be the end of the story. But a relationship developed and finally Lual was in a position to properly repay Ted for all his help. America has a tradition of honoring people say with a trophy or Golden Globe or a plaque or silver punch bowl—but in Africa honoring a person, especially one you owe your life to, is an elaborate affair. The pic I posted earlier (and now again) only shows a fraction of what happened the day Ted arrived. He was greeted at the airport and draped with a heavy beaded Sudanese cape. He was also given 2 sticks, one with feathers (also part of their tradition) and then photographed with Lual’s immediate family. Lual had rented a shuttle bus to get them all across town where the rest of

Abandoned houses. Abandoned houses/buildings awaken something in all of us. Could it be mortality? Some people have made a hobby of exploring abandoned warehouses and industrial sites. There is something melancholic about these old buildings/houses. A faded grandeur, a real sense of loss. “The Ruins of Detroit” (2005- ) (image from thestapleton.com). Photographer Kyle Fleischhaker Remember as a kid coming upon some ruin and wondering what used to be. In the woods near my house were several dilapidated farmhouses—abandoned since a proposed bypass 675 was soon to be constructed. The houses were all scheduled for demolition. Unless, of course, they just collapsed all by their self. I can still recall the strips of ancient peeling wallpaper, roses faded into the weathered and aged paper, until the image is barely visible. A soiled mattress in the corner, stinking of urine and mouse infestation. The wind-swept corners piled with litter=remains=the midden* of l

I’m more than just a little bit in love with Nyles DiMarco’s interpreter. Of course it helps that Nyles himself is a wonderful piece of work. But I just love his interpreter’s voice. For those of you not caught up with reality TV and pop culture, Nyles DiMarco won cycle 22 of America’s Next Top Model, which I’ve never been a fan of. I mean I might catch an episode here and there, but I was not a follower. Until this season. Until I saw a video of Nyles signing and thought—this guy is going to win it. And he did. He was only the show’s second male winner and the first deaf winner. He is a graduate of Gallaudet University , the only university for the deaf. So how does someone with a language not easily understood by the hearing world communicate on a reality TV show? They hire an ASL interpreter who signs for Nyles and then becomes his voice. I’m not sure if Ramon Norrod was assigned to the contestant or how the match was made, but I cannot look at pictures of Nyles wit

This year I also want to introduce a kind of structure—which may or may not become quasi permanent—and that is Hot Flash Friday. Not just for post menopausal women! On Fridays I’ll send out a prompt—this prompt is not about writing only but to prod memories, disturb them from their sleep, awaken your memory. With a hot flash it is here, then gone—but while in the sizzle and heat of the moment, let yourself go to unfurl words. Soon you will have a whole collection of these flashes. Perhaps enough for a flash portfolio that might serve as building blocks to a longer piece such as a memoir, a short story, a vignette. Admittedly you might have to be of a certain age to immediate latch onto the nostalgia, the history behind some of these prompts, but all in all I believe they are universal. They all will touch a place inside of us longing, longing for . . . . Today’s Hot Flash Friday is: the Sunday newspaper. Remember the Sunday newspaper, delivered to your doorstep, tossed

Here is just a sampling of what you’ll find in 365Affirmations for the Writer —if you like this little sip, take a long drink and download the whole thing. eBook from Amazon and other outlets JANUARY January 1 You Determine Where You’ll Go You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go... ― Dr. Seuss , from Oh, the Places You’ll Go! January 2 Books Books are the grail for what is deepest, more mysterious and least expressible within ourselves. They are our soul’s skeleton. If we were to forget that, it would prefigure how false and feelingless we could become. ― Edna O’Brien, from It’s a Bad Time Out There For Emotion January 3 Books A room without books is like a body without a soul. ― Cicero Can you recall the first book you read? Right now write about that experience and what keeps you

Greetings 2016! Welcome to a new year of memories. Last year about this time I was making memories by riding self-supported by bicycle Jacksonville to Key West. In fact 2015 saw 3 such trips, the 2 nd being Minneapolis to Chicago and the 3 rd Pittsburgh to Washington DC.   2016 is sure to hold many more cycling opportunities . . . since I got a new bike! Torker Interurban Mixte From Uptown Bikes, on sale $600 Last year at this blog I posted 135 entries=the most ever since I started it in November of 2010. Consistently I get about 2,000 pageviews per month and a total of 72,483 since inception. Last year also saw the January ePublication of Writing is a journey. Every time we sit down to begin a piece or write the first chapter or the first line we are venturing into uncharted territory. 365 Affirmations for the Writer is about listening to those who have gone before us and letting them guide us with their insight, their own trials. By reading what other