The places where monks used to go to write back in the days when only a chosen few knew how to write, were called “scriptoriums.” These were sacred places, and the work they did considered holy. For years we’ve read about garrets and studios and hidden away cabins in hidden away woods where writers go for quiet and solitude. Some of us even make pilgrimages to these iconic places. I’ve longed for my own private cabin with a magnificent view, a fainting couch, and an inkboy to grind my ink.
Category Archives: writing craft
Has this ever happened to you?
This morning my writing sent me from beginning a fresh draft of a new chapter in my memoir to my notebook so I could hand-write a section that felt too tender to write on the computer. A paragraph or so into the piece, I shied away from going deeper and, sticky-noting the page in my notebook, went back to the loose-leaf binder where the draft resides and decided before I could go any further, I needed to research the actual route I took from London to Tiel, Netherlands, but memory was handing me “Utrecht,” so I had to go to my original journal to confirm whether Tiel was the location of a scene I intended to write and there, in my decades-old journal, I discovered it was Tiel and I got there via Utrecht but before I could settle in to write, memory took over again and next thing I knew I was in Amsterdam. Now, having put the whole thing away, I’m at my desk eating trail mix and apple slices wondering where the morning went.
Stirring Up Memories
Yesterday at my “Finding Theme and Structure in Memoir” workshop, we talked about using writing prompts to stir memories. I mentioned that never-fail memory stirrer-upper I first learned from Natalie Goldberg’s book, Writing Down the Bones. Just start with “I remember…” and follow the pen where it leads.