{"id":7897,"date":"2018-12-07T01:00:40","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T08:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=7897"},"modified":"2018-12-06T13:44:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T20:44:03","slug":"this-happened-prompt-402","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/this-happened-prompt-402\/","title":{"rendered":"This happened . . . Prompt #402"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-7898 size-medium alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Box-of-chocolates-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Box-of-chocolates-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Box-of-chocolates-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Box-of-chocolates-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Today\u2019s prompt is inspired by a talk <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ianthe_Elizabeth_Brautigan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ianthe Brautigan<\/a> gave on March 5, 2001.<\/p>\n<p>Memoir is a journey. Just because it\u2019s your life, don\u2019t think you know the end. A beeper could go off and change everything.<\/p>\n<p>Life is like a box of chocolates . . . you don&#8217;t know what you got until you bite into it. Sometimes your life makes sense after you write and digest your findings.<\/p>\n<p>Ianthe suggests writing a memoir in an unusual way, not \u201cthis happened and then that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To start: Write excerpts from your past. Write your stories. Don\u2019t worry about where they will go.<\/p>\n<p>Tell your story as if sitting around a campfire.<\/p>\n<p>If you need inspiration:\u00a0 Make a collage from magazine articles\/photos about what you want to write about. Look at these when you need a nudge to write.<\/p>\n<p>Once you start writing, let go of how you should write. Relax into your writing. Your heart knows what to write about. Allow it.<\/p>\n<p>Ianthe suggests thinking of the clothesline structure:\u00a0 Two strong posts at ends. One is for the solid introduction. The other post is for the solid end. Then play around with insides. Move your stories around as you desire.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Writing Prompt: Think about your childhood. Write about whatever your mind flashes on.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Prompt:\u00a0 This happened to me . . .<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Examples of excellent memoirs:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Have-Not-Frances-Lefkowitz\/dp\/1596923547\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1544127155&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=frances+lefkowitz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">To Have Not<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.franceslefkowitz.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Frances Lefkowitz<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Imperfect-Endings-Daughters-Story-Letting\/dp\/1439148317\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1544127349&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=imperfect+endings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">imperfect endings<\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zoefitzgeraldcarter.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Zoe Fitzgerald Carter<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Underside-Joy-Sere-Prince-Halverson\/dp\/B00D1G9YPM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the underside of joy<\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/sereprincehalverson.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ser\u00e9 Prince Halverson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today\u2019s prompt is inspired by a talk Ianthe Brautigan gave on March 5, 2001. Memoir is a journey. Just because it\u2019s your life, don\u2019t think you know the end. A beeper could go off and change everything. Life is like a box of chocolates . . . you don&#8217;t know what you got until you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[213,6,376,870,105,1159,1160,342,214,10,11],"class_list":["post-7897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prompts","tag-frances-lefkowitz","tag-freewrites","tag-ianthe-brautigan","tag-imperfect-endings","tag-just-write","tag-sere-prince-halverson","tag-the-underside-of-joy","tag-the-write-spot-blog","tag-to-have-not","tag-writing-freely","tag-writing-prompts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-23n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7897"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7904,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7897\/revisions\/7904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}