Memoir Monday~ "Galileo in Walmart"

Good morning friends and welcome to my little corner of the web 

for another Memoir Monday!

If you are a new visitor, 

here is a little background on the reflections and  stories

 some of us have  been sharing within the craft of memoir.

And, blogging friends, 

please link up your memoir posts below...

I am honored to host the grace and beauty of the posts shared

 during previous Memoir Mondays.

Also, please check back in tomorrow when 
I announced my blogoversary book giveaway title!

Rather than a personal reflection piece today, I'm sharing with my friends

 some wisdom from a book I've been lucky enough to find

which guides the writer through crafting memoir.

 Whether is it a blog post, a note slipped into a birthday card,

 or a chapter within a book one  is authoring, 

the piece by piece guidance within 

The Memoir Project

is worth its weight in gold.

The author is an accomplished writer who has taught a memoir crafting course for quite some years, sharing her insight and solid tips chapter by chapter.

I've been carrying this gem in my computer bag for some time and "never"

have time to take it out and delve in.

Well, this Saturday at practice before the season's first baseball game, 

I took myself and my little garage sale fold up in a bag chair

 and huddled in a freezing-wind -whipping- pull-your-jacket-around-you-even-tighter- how could-this-possibly-be-April  kind of  huddle behind the bleachers.

Literally behind the bleachers, with a notebook, my Dixon Ticonderoga and this gem.

It helped that one kid was off having a catch with friends, 

his game being over at this hour  and that the hubby 

was busy coaching our other kid's team. 

So no guilt on the 'please don't talk to me, I'm indulging my creative side' front.

We have so many grand friends in our baseball league and then so many friends who are kind and pleasant in a walk along the periphery of our lives way.

Yet I knew if I didn't make time and a place to lift a delicious morsel of 

memoir writing-with-intent  tactics, I'd scream.

A frigid baseball field during practice was it.

My soul really needed to be guided and nourished  so as to be at least fractionally

 better able to capture the small moments meaningfully and not rife with drivel.

The drivel I feel is creeping into my reflections.

Because as  Mrs  Smith cautions on page 41,

"It's the little stuff that matters. Never disrespect its power."

Not that you, my friends, are feeling the twaddle creep into your posts or your journals at all.

Yet maybe you are.

If some of my readings can enrich your writing life as well, wonderful!

In so doing, it helps me to gather and organize my thoughts as well.

So here are a few pearls I found  huge. 

A few words of advice lifted off her pages.

Perhaps we all  might  savor and write off of our lives,

 bringing precision to the indistinct with a touch of this wisdom.

 "Play hurt"

Mrs Smith refers to a landmark book on creativity, 

The War of Art,

in which the author states that real athletes 

learn to play hurt, doing "their jobs" even when injured.

How does this apply to memoirists?

Well, do we fully intend to write a piece of memoir just as soon as

 we understand the meaning of our lives?

As soon we get it?

The potential writers within us 

"suffer needlessly since the marvelous truth is that you can take on life in bits, at any age, under any circumstances."

To write a compelling piece, we need only be amazed by "mere flashes," for that is all the understanding we need bring to the writing table.

"Galileo in Walmart"

Imagine the master amid the coffee filters, icicle lights, eye shadow, iPad displays and 

Tombstone pizza of the mega store.

He need only one small part to perfect the telescope,

 thus convincing us to see the world the way he does.

He requires one small thing to prove one big theory and our assignment as 

memoirists is no different.

We must carry a "custom made magnet, attracting merely the smallest, precisely charged metal shavings. Mastering the skill of a good quick-grab is essential to our success."

Just like Galileo, we need a pair of "custom made lenses through which to choose only those items we need to tell a precise tale."

...which, Mrs Smith says, is "precisely why people write badly about life's big events."

I suppose that how we look at what we live 

consists of individual moments through which to tell life's truths.

There are so many, many "guidelines" such as these.

But these few are probably enough for us to process, digest and apply for now.

I'll definitely share more during another of our Memoir Monday hops.

Thank you for stopping in to share life's stories 

and 

 our lives' stories.

here at my home on the web! 

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Until next time,

~Chris

I am thrilled for you to link up!

Please do so, below.

I must humbly ask though, that you link back to my blog somewhere in your post

 or that you grab the  sidebar button for display somewhere on your blog.

~Thank you, friends.~