Collecting the Memories of a Life: An Introduction to Writing Your Memoirs
February 22, 2010 by Bo Mackison
Filed under Memoir Space
Have you ever thought about writing your memoir?
“Nope, it’s way too hard,” you think.
That is exactly what I thought, too, until my 85 year old mother unintentionally gave me the nudge I needed.
My mother has always been quite secretive about her life, never one to share stories. On a visit several months ago, she mentioned running into an old friend. When I did not recognize the man’s name, my mother admitted he had been an old beau whom she had known years before she met and married my father. I remarked that I knew nothing of those times of her life, and she coyly hinted that she could list all of the boyfriends she had ever dated. As she started reciting names and memories, I grabbed a nearby notebook and jotted everything down. In ten minutes I learned more about her late adolescence and early adulthood than I had learned in the previous five decades. Effortlessly.
Later I prompted her on other topics. “What trips did you take before you married?” “Who are the five most famous people you’ve met in your life?” Each time I asked a question, she responded with a list full of quirky details. By the end of the weekend, I had several pages of stories about my mother.
I had the opportunity to try the listing method for retrieving my own memories a few weeks later. My younger daughter’s job at a movie theater has given her unlimited access to movies. As she was getting ready to go to yet another show, her third in a week, I remarked I had seen perhaps a half dozen movies prior to my high school graduation.
“Really? You only went to six movies as a kid? What did you see?” It only took me a minute or two to recall the movie titles. Amanda sat down in amazement and asked me about my movie experiences. I told her a few of my memories and as she listened, her eyes widened in surprise at how different movie-going in the 1960s was from movie-going today.
Once I had recalled the movies, I filled out the list with details. Here is an example from my first list.
from “Movies I Saw in A Theater”
. . . when my friends and I were just sixteen, and beginning to accrue driving privileges, the movie Romeo and Juliet was released with much hype. To our dismay, it was not playing at the local movie theater. No, it was at the drive-in theater on the outskirts of town! I had never been to a drive-in and I doubted I would be given permission to go.
But my girlfriends and I were determined to see this movie. Maybe it helped that Romeo and Juliet was a Shakespearean classic. Maybe it helped that I would be going with five other girls crammed into one father’s trusted Oldsmobile. And I’m certain it helped that my best friend’s parents also went to the show, parked their car next to ours, and kept a watchful eye on us the entire evening. Jan’s dad brought his pipe, her mother brought her knitting, and I don’t think they looked towards the big screen even once. . .
I was surprised at the memories I thought I had long forgotten. Not only was list making an effective aid for recalling details, it was easy and fun, too.
You too can use the same technique to jump-start your writing. You will find that list making leads to memory making.
Here is how to start:
- Think of a topic. Use the movie prompt or one of your own. It will be easier to write if you give yourself tight guidelines. For example, instead of listing all of your favorite books, list five books you were required to read in high school. Or instead of writing about a summer vacation, list the highlights of your first weekend trip to the big city. Remember, it is easy to expand a narrow topic if you are so inclined, not nearly as easy to pick a huge topic and find the beginning.
- Once you have a list of a few items, start filling in with details. The list acts as a prompt for retrieving memories you didn’t know you remembered.
- During the next few weeks, be alert for ideas for new lists, and write them down as they come to you. Topics may come from family conversations, from newspaper or magazine articles, from a radio or television program, from any part of your daily life.
- Don’t over-think this project. Keep several small notebooks or index cards in your home, car, and purse. You can jot down key words or details as you recall them.
You may be thinking of reasons why you can’t write your memoir. Here are three things that may help you get started:
- You are creative. Though you may fear you are not creative enough to write your memoir, you are the only person who can write about your life from your point of view.
- You are writing your story for yourself. Perhaps you will share it with family members or friends, or perhaps you won’t, but the person you are ultimately writing your memoir for is yourself.
- Writing is a way to explore and connect with your past, perhaps even to resolve issues. Your writing is what you want to make it. The simple act of putting down the words of your story or doing the other memoir projects provides you with an opportunity to make meaning in your life.
Each month at the Memoir Space I’ll present a new technique or project — writing prompts, simple photography projects, ideas for inventive interviews, creative research techniques, suggestions on how to physically contain your expanding memoir stash, and much more. Imagine how quickly your memoir will grow, month by month.
I invite you to join me in this multi-media memoir project at the Calm Space. After all, if you don’t write your life story, just who will?
Photo Credits:
Top: Driving Home, © 2009, all rights reserved, Bo Mackison
Bottom: Memories Created at the Movie Theatre © 2010, all rights reserved, Bo Mackison
Bo Maybe this is the kind of venture that would lend itself to using voice thread! http://voicethread.com/#home
I must say that tho i love writing I just can’t imagine writing my memoir. Mainly because i can’t imagine anyone being interested!
So i look forward to more on the theme to see if it changes my attitude!
Hi Bo .. great news and I’m so pleased you were able to glean so much. My mother has been terminally ill for 3 years – 3 strokes – but she doesn’t open up much .. but bits drip through. I do have a box of memoirs from her first husband, who was killed in the early part of the war, but I don’t want to open that til later. I don’t have children .. but I love the way you’re bringing your own memoirs to life and your children can join in, asking the questions that interest them. I’ve already been told by my sister-in-law that I’m recording bits of history – which is obviously true ..the first cheap flights across the Atlantic, one of which I took to go to NY for a friend’s wedding in 1978. I’m sure we all have snippets of interest.
Bo, what a fantastic idea!
Many years ago I had many long talks with my husbands grandmother, as no one in the family seemed to know much about her life. She really started to open up to me! And what she told me was so incredibly interesting. :)
I’ll start on this project straight away. Even if no one ever reads what you have written, I know it will open up your heart – even if only to yourself.
When my mother died in August 2000, I was devastated. I was already married for 21 years and my children were 18 and 16 years. Although I had those relationships to fill and sustain me, I felt lost.
Two years later, I was inspired to write an essay about my mother, which has been published several times over. The mere act of writing that essay was cathartic. It help me to releasing the pain and embracing the memory of the legacy of creativity she lived and left.
Hi Chris,
I do hope you’ll stay tuned. There will be lots of ways to “collect your memoir” and there’s no need to do it for anyone but yourself, if that’s your inclination. Never know where this kind of project may lead – interesting and fun places I might imagine!
Hillary – collecting those snippets of memories can be priceless. I remember reading a quote which I’ll paraphrase – comparing the shortest pencil to the longest memory. Once details are documented they are easy to retrieve if and when you want to.
I hope you’ll join in the fun and do some of the monthly projects. I’m really excited thinking about the different collections of memoirs that will come to fruition. Yay!
Hi Bo .. ah – I see it’s about me .. it’s alright .. lots going on here with my ‘dying’ mother and my own challenges in various ways – so my thought processes don’t really flow. They do for the things I need them to do – but much else is stretching my energies just now – but we’ll see how we go .. in the future it won’t be a problem –
Some of my posts already include memories – the blog is just a different perspective on life .. I’ll work my way round things .. I’m around!! England doesn’t go away!! Bye for now .. H
Joanne,
So happy to hear you’ll join in the project. Maybe you’ll share a bit… :-)
Hillary – yes, there are many ways to collect memories, and a “season for all things.” My best to you now.
Welcome to the Calm Space! It’s a wonderful place to meet new folk and I can see from your lovely intro piece why Karen asked you to become one of the team. Seeing life in terms of memoirs is such a powerful tool on so many levels. It reminds us that we’re here on earth to leave a legacy and that everything’s meant, even if we don’t ever get to see how many threads we’ve woven or lives we’ve touched. Sometimes it’s only when we look back that we can see all roads were actually leading to something we were unaware of; sometimes, our interests as youngsters were actually the first signs of our gifts and of our destinies. It’s always empowering to see ourselves as the authors of our own lives and experiences.
My dad’s 85, too, and he’s started forgetting that he’s told me stories before. I have his sister’s funeral tomorow, so there will be lots of stories flying around. Another great reason for thinking in terms of memoirs is that for writers – any kind of writer – everything is fuel; nothing’s ever wasted.
I hope you have a great time here at the Calm Space!
Bo this is lovely. Ny great-uncle died last year. He was the patriarch of our family which has been in this area for 150 years or more. He was so full of the tales of what life was like in days gone by and of local history that I wanted to catch it all. Sadly we didn’t and now it is too late.
I love your idea. Thank you so much for talking to us about it.
Janice, Thank you so much for your kind welcome. I love your comment about each of us having a legacy we may be unaware of, and that we are the authors of your lives, we interpret our experiences. And you are so right, no bit of writing is ever wasted. Fodder, fuel, a bridge. It is all worthwhile.
We all have many excuses for not writing. “No time” is a biggie, though I wonder how many could turn the TV off for a half hour once a week and commit to writing then. Even tiny amounts add up.
Though I think I’m preaching to the choir, hmm? LOL.
Janice, I read your comment about your 85 year old father, who repeats his stories & it reminded me of my own father. He was 78 when he went, & during his last 12 months he constantly repeated the same stories, mostly about my mum, who had already been gone for 4 or 5 years at the time.
No matter how busy I was I always made the time to listen (again) to his stories. I did this mostly out of respect for him, because I just loved him so much!
When he was gone, I wished that he was still here to repeat his stories to me again! Eleven years have passed now & I still miss him every day.
Treasure your father, Janice. And his constantly repeated stories. You won’t regret it. :) Isn’t it wonderful that Bo is offering us all inspiration here, to record our stories, told to us by those we hold so dear & also some about our own lives. :)
Looking forward to this, I’ve done Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and had to go back to stages of my life with pen and paper and had many insights. Thought many times of doing it as a memoir, maybe this is the time.
Claudia, writing certainly can provide many insights into life. It’s a great practice, hope you’ll find this memoir series helpful.
Bo, I just want to say a huge welcome to The Calm Space. I’m thrilled to have you here with this wonderful project.
I have to admit, I’ve always thought I was too busy living to write down my life. My journals are definitely not fit for public consumption, and get shredded regularly, so apart from blogging, there is no record of my life. When others have talked about writing memoirs, I’ve thought – yeah, maybe one day.
We all know about ‘one days’ – they never come!
And then, along you come, breaking it down into delicious, bite-sized pieces. And suddenly, one day could just be right here and now.
I was inspired by your talk of movies, and remembered the time my first boyfriend and I went to the drive-in movies, me driving my mother’s car – I was 17. I don’t remember what movie we saw, but it was a long one, and the theatre was on the other side of town. What I do remember is the fuss his mother made because we were later home that she thought we should have been! I’m off to write that story now…
Thank you and welcome!
The one thing I have always regretted, I did not keep a journal of my life while growing up. Wouln’t be wonderful to be able tp read this later in life and remember all the details as your reading all the enteries. Each of us have a legacy to share.