A Reminder and a Writing Exercise

Today’s reminder is more important than this week’s writing exercise/prompt, but then maybe the latter is a solution to the former.

Here’s the reminder, from Picasso: “Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.”

And the exercise: (another weird one, but then do you expect less from me?)

This exercise/prompt has its roots in another project I’m working on and begins in the literal with a friend I know who suffers gaps in his memory, most likely from repressed memories of childhood trauma. I want to focus on this question: Is your life still your life if you can’t remember it?

Think about that question in any way you see fit, and then create a work-in-progress means to unwrap it with one or more of the characters you are are developing (if you are writing fiction) or with an incident from your past which you don’t know if you remember accurately (if you are writing memoir). All I ask is that you stay away from the Hollywood go-to list of things like sudden, convenient bouts of amnesia (you are a better writer than that). There are plenty of ways people suffer very real distrustful memories (and maybe crises of identity as a result): cases like my friend with origins in trauma; unconscious bouts of self-deception where we begin to believe the myths we tell ourselves; those who suffer brain injuries; people who must use prescribed medications (or recreational drug use) that create memory erasure or difficulty differentiating reality from imagination; or the universal difficulty identifying memory versus stories we have been told with such regularity that they seem like memories.

Have fun. Take this wherever it goes. But think about the core question as well. Happy writing.