March 13, 2024 Stepping Stones Legacy Writing PROMPTS FOR WRITING HISTORY stepping stones. mary roach smith the memoir project. how to bring structure into writing.

 Journal and method for healing and self discovery, called a journal intensive. A lot of techniques involved with the aim toward healing. Ira Progoff technique: a specific point of momentum along life. Per Brenda Hudson, like stepping stones to cross a river. Helpful questions, what are those pivotal moments. Event, etc.

Questions: (divorce, education, added family member, loss, love, etc., quiet interior yet significant moments where your view on life may have shifted, "I learned to become a better friend", example of not showing up in friendships the way she should. 

1. Did this event or decision irrevocably change me/my life:

2. Is this even still impacting my life as I am living it today?

Think of your own life....

Can some be combined, are there themes that run throughout them. 

 firstStart creating a list of 12 stepping stones. Tripping stones. Climbing stones. Jumping stones. Skipping stones. Collecting stones. 

i was born can be first, decade by decade

life happens and we live in between

cancer diagnosis

broken bones

child loss

child birth

happy dog

friend for life

fairweather friend

fairweather loves

catching a bass while flyfiashing with my sister

spreading the ashes of my dog

losing my parents but gaining their stories through my sibs

my aunts story

my great aunts story

my uncles tory

my bicicle when i grew uo

my best friend gentry her life and death

my best friend gay and music

my dogs love of play

my grandson

my granddaughter

my daughter

my son in law

my aunt hazel

1919 

Favorite Teacher in High School Miss Teddar

Adults who impressed me as a child (rock collectors, peony growers)

I was born

#1

"It was a time when........15 minutes......my daughter was an infant, and I would go everywhere with her, we were inseparable, but one of my favorite trips was to visit my great aunt Viola, who by then was in her 90s, and had a smile that would fill a room. Sometimes I think I might have dreamt her, she was the only living relative of her generation that I knew of, by then my grandparents had passed away and little by little my aunts and uncles were drifting, I guess that is how it felt because the memory I had of them was fading just as their lives were fading. Viola had what I would call a generous laugh and even more generous smile, it would fill her small house with love, and I felt that love every time I visited her. It was if she had been waiting her whole life for me to show up. Oh, she wasn't sugar sweet, she had an ascerbic wit about her and pulled no punches. After all she had outlived all of her husbands, siblings and unfortunately even her children. Only one or two grandchildren were left. Yet, when she asked people to  come.by for a family reunion, she had written a life story that she handed out to everyone, and people flew in from all over the world to that small town in northern Minnesota. That type of magnetism on a place called the Iron Range, was phenomenal. One time a nephew of hers came by to visit, he had become a charismatic minister and started preaching to her. She looked straight into his eyes and said "you know, I knew you when you were a teenager," when he ignored her she continued, "remember, I knew about your girlfriends," that quieted him down immediately. I still laugh inside when I think of her in that comfy chair, one that was difficult for her to move from, and still commanding a presence, that I think I have yet to develop. 

Proctor, Minnesota, the last town before you start the hill into Duluth. Such an amazing hill, once with my Prius I tried to record miles per gallon going down that hill, and I clocked 100 miles per gallon for that almost vertical hill leading into the Harbour on Lake Superior, I imagine her on that hill, looking around, maybe wondering how she did, or perhaps not even amazed: renting half the house out when her first husband died, and taking in sewing to make ends meet, and then opening the house back up, when the need resolved. Waiting, loving as I do, the occasional visitor to brighten the day, not worried how things, look, vision slowly clouded by cataracts and mobility lessening as time and heart conditions dictated. 

HIGHLIGHT COMMENTS AND THEMES FOR FURTHER WRITING

Steppingstones for Structure

Good way to explore life. 

Some ways to use this:

    1. Look at the title after the other, can read like a poem.

    2. Play around with the placement of the stepping stones as a stand alone poetic piece

    3. Look at each one: important people, place, lessons under each. Use these to flesh out and structure your piece(s). 

    4. Look at them across the stepping stones, a couple of people are prominent and then they are not, helps to take a longer look without words, who are these people, places, what you learned from them.

    5. Use steppingstones as chapters. 

    6. Final chapter from a reflection write reviewing all your Steppingstones. Maybe a piece to yourself about what you learned from your life. Or maybe a short paragraph at the end of each stepping stone. 

HOW TO BRING STRUCTURE INTO WRITING

1. The Bagel Method (Mary Ann Roach-Smith), could draw a circle and at the top, start with image or idea. Images are a nice way to start. Last week we did cars. This week people. Then provide  evidence, illustration of that idea. Add ideas all around circle. at the end reference it. Way to think about what to include in the story, to keep you on track, as you provide evidence of starting point. OPen and close with the same idea. Can play with it visually.

NEXT take one of your steppingstones as a PREWRITE, BEGIN WITH AN IDEA OR IMAGE; LIST EVIDENCE,ILLUSTRATION; COME BACK TO THE IMAGE/IDEA. What would be the things around the edges to support the main idea. 

LIVE HAPPENS AND WE LIVE IN BETWEEN

CANCER DIAGNOSIS using Bagel image

Living for years with borderline mammogram and thinking it was just made up, then having the word "suspicious for cancer" cross my CareChart results list, being send down a cascade of events, biopsy, second biopsy, surgery, radiation, starting chemo/medication therapy/ disintegrating day by day, weaker and weaker, vision worsening, stamina disappearing, emotional connections turning to mush, inability to reflect or plan. Walking from 6 miles to 4 miles to 2 miles to 1 mile, to 20 steps, each harder to do. Being blinded by the light of the day as my vision worsened. Unable to walk the dog more than 15 steps without having to stop and rest. Losing all interest in anything around me. Developing a slow sense of fear as my balance disappeared and every time I moved becoming a time for a potential fall. Then excuciating pain and unable to stand without crutches, unable to make a decision about what to do next. Figuring out how to drive to be seen still while using crutches, not thinking I could wait and ask for help. Being told I should follow up with an Orthopedic specialist, but being reassured that I had not developed bone cancer or broken my leg. Starting around the clock heating pads and tylenol. Signing up for physical therapy afraid every day that I showed up that my bones were going to turn to dust before my very eyes. Thinking "dust to dust", being the first person I had met who could experience being present and being the dust that is blown by the wind around me. Cancer had organized my life. 

I say that life happens inbetween but perhaps the events have the same consequence as the inbetween.

ONE MORE; THE ALGORITHM This is a piece about XXX and the illustration is XXX. 

Marianne Roach: to be very clear you are writing about a particular aspect of your life. Not your whole life. Also say what the story is really about, take yourself and your whole life, what is it about your life that your life is about. MEMORY LIFE LOVE SURVIVAL humorous? tragedy? You yourself are not the center of the tale, but it is the theme. Shift the story to a new center, not you, but what is the main attraction, this is a piece about X and the illustration is Y, and how you in turn have become that illustration. Example: This is a love story, and illustration is the moment my adopted daughter was first laid in my arms in China. This is about the triumph of hard work, as illustrated by my 50 year marriage to be given to wife on our anniversary. GOOD for a collection of stories, good for short pieces. 

This is a story about how short cuts can trip you up. The illustration will be of a steep hill with loose stones. Sometimes in life you can see the end point, sometimes you cannot. So I'm thinking of a time when I wanted to climb along the north shore to the Lighthouse, because at the base of the Lighthouse, were some special stone we could collect. When I looked at my feet, I wanted to make sure I was sure footed and so I was wary of the slippery ones, the ones that looked like a mirror reflection of the sky. I had a feeling I could run across the rocks all the way there to the lighthouse. I felt my foot slip out from under me, but I knew where the next dry rock was so I could find sure footing there. I had the impression that I could almost fly there. I looked around, and everyone else had given up. They were gesturing to me to return, then I realized I had to return somehow back to where I began. I am the illustration. I am walking along the rocks. 

NEXT WEEK: Essential Honesty, how to tell truth on a page, and look at dialogue also.