Mini-Memoir – Great Things Come in Small Packages

In a post on the U.S. edition of the British Guardian website, journalist Anna Baddeley cites several mini-memoirs published by celebrity authors. In conclusion she opines that mini-memoir is “An exciting trend in journalism that one hopes will soon take off over here.” I hope so too, as a reader (what's not to like about a book you can finish in three hours or less), as a writer (what's not to like about a book you can finish in two or three months rather than years?), and as a teacher (more of my students can publish!).

So what is a mini-memoir? Basically, mini-memoir is the non-fiction equivalent of a novella. To date, this short form has not received much attention, though you can find a few in Amazon if you search on that term. One of the titles that pops up on this search is Adventures of a Chilehead: A Mini-Memoir with Recipes, by Yours Truly. The term seems to be used in two ways. Some use it to recount memories limited to a tightly focused topic. Some overlap the definition of mini-memoir with flash memoir, the topic of my most recent post.

I couldn't recall hearing the term before when I popped it onto the cover of Adventures of a Chilehead. As far as I knew, I was coining a phrase, one that seemed apt for a concise collection of short stories crafted around a unifying theme.

Here's how the book evolved: A dozen years ago I wrote two stories featuring adventures I’ve had eating hot chile. About four years later I wrote a third, "Great Balls of Fire," within days of the featured event, almost before my mouth quit burning. I considered that story to be my declaration of independence from stomach-scarring scoville levels.  For eight years I referred to these three stories as my "Chilehead Trilogy." I wanted to do more with them, to turn them into what I refer to in The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing as a "story album" (otherwise known as an anthology).

Last year the light dawned. I could publish that trilogy as a Kindle book, just for the heckuvit. Just for fun. When I began working toward that end, I thought of more stories. Three stories evolved into ten chapters, plus the section of recipes. What began as a simple Kindle compilation expanded enough to work as a print version.

Weaving the eight stories into a cohesive whole, ensuring adequate background without repetition was a challenge, Drafting the introduction and concluding chapters even more so. But as typically happens with memoir, while massaging those stories and reflections, my love for this pungent fruit grew even deeper, along with my understanding of the way it grounds and roots me in the land I hold dear after  fifty-some years away.

Aside from the subject matter and recipes, this book differs from full-length memoir in an important respect. It's focused more sharply. It's about chile and me. Nothing more, nothing less. I mention relatives and relationships, but they stay in the background. I mention place, but only in passing. Yet within that strict focus, you can see changes in my thinking. Learning and growth did happen. I wrote as much as I have to say about chile, and let it go at that rather than forcing the issue and straying from truth, chasing elusive word count.

Just as tiny memory fragments power flash memoir, themed memory clusters illuminate mini-memoir, a great hit with busy readers. With Kindle and maybe CreateSpace, you can transform stacks of loose stories into themed mini-memoir for friends and family — and the rest of the world if you wish.

Write now: pull together an assortment of related stories. Look for the common thread linking them together. Find a logical order, reduce repetition and add elements to showcase that thread. Share with friends for feedback, add a cover and the requisite promo material and you're good to go to Amazon.

Adventures of a Chilehead — Formal Debut

Today is the official debut of Adventures of a Chilehead. It’s a quiet affair. No big party – it’s too cold and icy right now. No champagne – but I will celebrate and toast the book with a bowl of chile, complete with guacamole topping  and a beer.

Books are much like debutantes —  when they make their formal debut, the whole community has watched them grow up and mature. Likewise, regular followers of this blog have read a number of posts about this book's progress.

You know, for example, that it began as a simple anthology and grew organically into a true memoir. You know that I learned many lessons along the way, and one that’s seldom discussed is the matter of length. People often ask how long a memoir should be. As with any story, a memoir should be as long as it needs to be to tell the story.

This book is short. You can read the stories in a couple of hours. And yet it does have all the components of a formal memoir:

• It has a story thread or theme, my love of hot chile, that runs through and ties individual scenes together.
• It remains tightly focused on that theme.
• It has a story arc, progressing from my first public involvement with surprisingly hot chile to the present, demonstrating change of perspective along the way.
• It is comprised of scenes, with a new adventure in each one.
• It hits the highlights without becoming mired in the mundane.

The book is short because it does remain focused tightly on its topic. If I’d wanted to make it longer, I could have pulled in other stories, or broadened the topic to food or cooking in general. But that was not my purpose. This is a tribute to  my beloved chile, and to the goddess Capsacia, who revealed herself in the process of writing. I said all I had to say on that topic. Thus I coined the term, “mini-memoir.

I think of this term as the memoir equivalent of a novella, a written, fictional, prose narrative normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. Novellas have no specific word count. They are generally more highly characterized than a simple short story, but less layered and complex than a full-length novel.

Although I had not heard the term “mini-memoir” before, I found it a delight to work with. Like a novella, it’s long enough to sink your teeth into, but short enough to avoid becoming bogged down. Especially with the advent of eBooks, mimi-memoir offers great potential. I chose to do a print version of this one, primarily because several people asked for one. They want to have the recipes handy in the kitchen. But a series of short eBooks would work just fine.

If you have several minis, you may eventually want to bundle two or three into a single print volume. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. If you haven’t already read it, pop over to Amazon and order a copy. If you order print, the Kindle version is included for free.

Write now: look through your pile of finished stories and find a cluster of related ones. Consider ways of organizing them into a mini-memoir, using the “Story Album to Memoir” post as guidelines to help you organize your thoughts. If you don’t have more than a couple of finished stories, think of a theme, make a list of story ideas, and start writing, one story at a time. Don’t fret about weaving them together until you have them all finished.

Memoir with Recipes

Although few things bond people like food and sharing recipes, I didn’t intend to include recipes in my mini-memoir, Adventures of a Chilehead, for several reasons:

1) Some of the stories are set in restaurants and I couldn’t include recipes for those.
2) Recipes for things like frijoles, chile con carne and enchiladas are easily found on the web.
3) When I cook, I use recipes as mere suggestions and cook by the seat of my pants based mostly on what’s in the kitchen at any given time. How do you write recipes for that?
4) Some ingredients, like chile powder, are unreliable in strength.

The finished book bears the subtitle “A Mini-Memoir with Recipes.” Obviously I changed my mind, primarily because most people who read early versions of the manuscript told me they wanted recipes. Since I value their input, I accepted their inspiration and set about writing creative recipes for food the way I make it. The way I make it varies from one time to the next so in addition to the standard list of ingredients and preparation steps, I had to include variations.

That resulted in long, involved instructions that explain a process rather than serving as a formula, but once I got started, thinking through all the factors involved turned out to be fun. In fact, it gave me a reason to make those dishes a time or two to be sure I had not missed anything, so we had lots of yummy dinners.

I explained things like where to buy good chile powder (perhaps online). Chile quality and potency is fickle, so I had to explain how to test the heat level of a new batch, and how to adjust recipes to individual tolerance levels. The recipe for homemade corn tortillas is over three pages long and gives guidelines for when it’s not worth making them as well as what brand of masa you’ll do well to avoid, and how to use grocery bags to simplify rolling or pressing them flat.

Most memoirs that include recipes put a single recipe at the end of each chapter. For example, Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone and Judith Newton’s Tasting Home follow this pattern. Since some of my stories take place in restaurants or feature hot pepper sauce, and some stories spin off three or four recipes, it didn’t make sense to put them with the chapters. Besides, the length of the recipes would interrupt the flow of the stories.

Once I got rolling with the first few, I was having so much fun that I added many more favorites. Over half the recipes in the final list are not mentioned in the memoir section.

I’ve received a pile of emails from happy readers who have tried recipes with good success, and my family is delighted to have those recipes they grew up with documented for all time.

You don’t have to write an entire memoir, mini or full-length, to write about recipes. Next time you share a recipe, take the time to tell the history of the recipe, including some favorite memories, to go with it. Sharing its story builds the sort of bond I write about in the last chapter of Chilehead when I tell of feeling a link with centuries of women who have prepared chile for their families.

Write now: select one of your favorite recipes, perhaps one that has been handed down in your family, and write a story about how you came to have the recipe and memorable occasions when it has been served by you or others.

Chili or Chile? Check It Out

Adventures of a Chilihead is the title I chose ages ago for what I intended to be a story album or themed collection of short stories about my experiences eating hot chili peppers and other blow-your-head-off food. As usual, getting the book pulled together is an adventure itself as it morphed from loose stories to mini-memoir, and part of that adventure includes resolving a quandary about the proper spelling of the main subject.

More years ago than I can remember, my father sorted me out on the proper spelling of chile. “Chile is a country in South America. We eat chili!” He grew up in New Mexico, staying there until he was a grandfather. He’s a reliable trivia consultant and can always back up his opinions, so as far as I was concerned, that settled it. I consistently used the correct spelling in my manuscript.

Or so I thought. I follow a couple of Facebook groups populated with people who grew up in Los Alamos. On a whim, I posted a request for comments testifying to their love of chili. Results were completely unexpected. A few posted short comments about their love of chili, their favorite varieties and so forth, but far more made sure I know the New Mexican way to spell CHILE!

The word was originally adapted by the Spanish explorers from Mexico’s native Nahuatl term, “xilli” o(alternately spelled “chilli”). The Spaniards adapted it as chile, which was subsequently rendered chili in American English. The Brits, whether by design or fluke, stuck to the Nahuatl spelling, chilli. Although most of the United States accepts chili as the proper spelling, many southwesterners assert that the word is of Spanish origin, hence the Spanish spelling should be retained.

New Mexicans are especially assertive about this, and on November 3, 1983, Senator Pete Domenici, R-NM, had a statement read into the Congressional Record 129 (149) entitled “The correct way to spell chile.” However, I know of no resolution introduced or legislation passed, so the question continues to loom.

Not relying strictly on a well-informed, but possibly biased, sample, or grandstanding Congressional hoopla, I turned to my own definitive resource, a decades old publications from the New Mexico State Agricultural Extension Service. The title says it all: CHILE.

You may wonder why I’m taking such pains to detail all this. Why I don’t just quietly make the change? Because of the cover. I’d like to be true to my roots, but I also want an instantly recognizable title. So, I’m asking you to help me decide. Please look at the two images below and leave a comment to tell me if you see any reason to stick with Chilihead rather than changing to Chilehead.

Stay tuned for more of the writing adventure.

Write now: make a list of colloquial terms specific to the area where you live or grew up. Select a couple of related ones to include in a story, and consider how to make them clear to your readers while remaining true to your roots and voice. Do any necessary research to support your usage. Involve others who share those roots.

Lessons Learned on the Amazon Path

No, I have not been on vacation to the Amazon recently, though I wish I had – except not right now during its rainy season. I’m referring here to the unexpected twists and turns on the path to the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) arm of Amazon.com  as I completed my journey toward publication of Adventures of a Chilehead.

I wrote about early details of this project in three posts in June: “Chile or Chile? Check it Out,” “Lessons Learned”, and “Story Album to Memoir.” In July that early manuscript flowed through email to a team of beta readers. After incorporating their sage advice about need for further detail, spots that needed an edit and more, I thought final layout was all I needed to do before the book was ready for publication.

That predictably became complicated, and pressures of preparing for classes I was teaching in September resulted in setting the project aside for more than two months. When I reopened the project in late October, I was stunned. I read a paper copy of the manuscript and realized it still needed a lot of work. Here are a few of the lessons I learned (or relearned) in the process:

Wine, cheese and stories improve with proper aging. This is not news to me. I often open story files I haven’t looked at for months and years and see dramatic improvements I could make. We get too close to our work to be objective. Setting it aside and immersing our thoughts in something else for a time allows us to return with fresh vision and perspective.

In the future, I’ll schedule in these breaks before final publication. I always underestimate the time required anyway.

Expect unexpected glitches. This time the unexpected glitch was a section break meltdown in my print version of the manuscript.  Since this was a print document, having the precise type of section break (odd page, next page) was not as important as having some section break to control page header changes. I did an end run and arm-wrestled that gator to the ground. Then, after all was said and done, I checked online and found the solution.

In the future, I’ll turn to Google right away. 

Proof-read in many modes. Again, this was not news. But sure enough, a paper printout looked different from anything digital. When I read the.mobi file proof from the KDP site, I found several more rough spots that needed further sanding. When I ordered my print proof copy, I filled it with flags. Not until I saw that final print version did I realize I’d failed to check for stragglers (those stray single words at the ends of paragraphs) after reducing the margins by .2”. As long as I was making those changes, I found even more opportunities for improvement.

In the future I’ll print a paper copy of the final pdf version before uploading.

Remember that stories of any size are always a work in progress – like life itself. At some point it’s time to realize it’s as good as it’s going to get. Click the Publish button and get on with it. You can go back and make changes later if you want, but at some point it’s time to turn loose and move on.

So, it’s done. My path finally led to the river. You can purchase your copy of the Kindle version of Adventures of a Chilehead: A Mini-Memoir with Recipes on Amazon right now. The print version should be ready for orders by December 6. I had so much fun writing this book, I hate to see it finished, but it is time to set it free and hopefully watch it soar. I’ll tell you more about some of the elements that made it such fun very soon.

Write Now: If you are working on a story that’s driving you nuts, set it aside. Let it age for two or three months. Pull out an unfinished story or project that’s been sitting around for a few weeks or longer and work on that.  Your old story will sound fresh to you and you’ll quickly find ways to improve it. Meanwhile, your problem story will stir around under the radar and reemerge with fresh energy.

Thoughts on the Writing Process

Today’s post is part of a group effort. Last week in a guest post on Linda Austin's blog, Moonbridgebooks.com, I was invited by Mary Gottschalk, author of the memoir, Sailing Down the Moonbeam and a forthcoming novel to join a collective discussion on personal aspects of the writing processes. I found the questions useful in clarifying my thoughts on this matter and urge all writers to do likewise.

1) What am I working on?

I’m dabbling in flash memoir. I’ve spent the last few months intensively studying techniques for evoking emotion in readers, and one key concept that snapped sharply into focus is the need for laser precision in determining what details to include in any story. Flash memoir is a perfect vehicle for practicing focus. Soon I plan to write more about my experience as a square peg in a round hole world.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My most recent published project, Adventures of a Chilehead, differs in one significant way: it’s a mini-memoir, far shorter than most published memoirs, and it includes a slew of recipes that explain process rather than relying on set formulas. I kept the memoir part purposely short because I wanted to focus exclusively on my life-long love affair with hot chile, showing its origins and the evolution of this evolving relationship. I did not want to dilute that focus by including “padding” material. I said what there was to say and called it a book.

I write more instructional material than memoir, distinguished by combining a bit of humor and conversational tone with clearly defined, step-by-step instructions with more information on technology than others include.

3) Why do I write what I do?

I write memoir primarily for family and friends. I write these stories as a legacy of personal history, to entertain my  readers, and to clarify my thoughts about the past and what it means.

I write instructional material because learning is more rewarding when shared with others. My main metaphor for  life is that of a wilderness explorer who later leads others on a tour. Few things are as rewarding to me as helping others become stronger writers.

4) How does my writing process work?

Different ways on different days! In the first chapter of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing I emphasize the importance of finding your own best work style for writing. In her fantastically helpful book, The Plot Whisperer, Martha Alderson uses the terms "plotters and pantsers." Plotters plan everything out before writing. Pantsers write intuitively, "by the seat of their pants."

I'm primarily a pantser, forming a rough idea what I have to say, dumping my thoughts onto paper and organizing them later. Sometimes I'll begin jotting key concepts on paper, but always turn to the keyboard before finishing half my list. Writing by hand works well to unjam my thoughts, but I need keyboard speed to let them run free.

Once I get that draft on the page, I edit like a fiend, questioning every word. Typical questions I ask myself include:

• How can I streamline this?
• How else can I describe or say this?
• Does this detail add to the story or do I just love it?
• What else does the reader need to know?
• Is this the best place to say that/

If I plan to publish it, the story (or book) goes out to beta readers. After I get their input, I start editing again. Usually life intervenes and two or three months pass before I get to final publication. By then the material is cold enough it seems new again, and I do another round of tough edits. Last week I shared a flash memoir with an online writing group. I kept track of the number of times I resaved the pdf version: 43 at last count. The story has 482 words. That's pretty typical

Write now: take some time and answer these four questions for yourself. You may be surprised what you learn. If you have a blog and decide to post your responses on it, please link back.

How and Why to Write about JOY

This advice to talk about our joys struck home with me when I saw it the other day. Not surprisingly, I immediately thought how it applies to writing – specifically to life writing – and how happy stories spread joy.

In The Heart and Craft of Lifewriting, I discuss the way many people tend to shy away from discussing success and joy.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging,” some people say. “I don’t people to envy me,” or “I don’t want them to think I think I’m better than they are,” or “I don’t want to make people sad because they missed out.”

These are valid concerns. Compassion for the feelings of others is important. But let’s look at the flip side, at what is lost if you soft-peddle success and happiness:

You are only writing part of your truth. If you are writing for posterity, or for the world at large right now, your success is part of who you are. Surely it’s something you’re proud of. Let them know.

Happiness keeps your story authentic. People who know you’ve achieved something, financial or business success, a happy marriage, or some other positive state will know something’s missing if you downplay the sunshine in your story. It tends to come across as false humility and lack of trust. This is, of course, assuming you were happy. Not all stories are, though we do hope for a glimmer of happiness by the end. Add it where you can.

Reading about how you achieved success, happiness and joy inspires others. We hear and read about gloom, doom and suffering constantly in the media. We need to hear good news. It gives us hope!

People can learn from your example. Explaining in more detail or less how you managed to achieve your fortunate condition may provide a clue for others to follow your example.

Writing about happy things is good for YOU! A quick web search will verify that simple lists in gratitude journals help dispel or fend off depression (in at least some cases) and generally improve your state of mind. They help you stay positive and foster creativity. You don’t even have to share the contents or turn them into story to get these benefits.

Have I convinced you to write some joy? Hopefully into your story? Follow these guidelines:

Include shadows with the sunshine. Everything brilliant emerges from some sort of struggle or stretch. Tell of the tribulations and challenges you encountered along the way. Report feelings of fear, doubt, or dismay. Don’t leave out your concern about not wanting to brag.

Be honest about jubiliation. Who would believe you weren’t popping champagne corks, real or figurative, when you got that big promotion?

Give credit where credit is due. Nobody scales Mt. Everest without a team of Sherpas. Give your Sherpas credit.

Use humor. Poke fun at yourself. This doesn’t mean putting yourself down, but keep both heart and fingers light.

My latest book, Adventures of a  Chilehead, is the story of my life-long love affair with hot chile. It’s full of humor and joy, and I had a ball writing it. The capsaicin in chile releases endorphins. Writing about those happy memories released more. So remember some joy, write yourself happy, and share that good stuff with the world.

Write now: write about a happy experience you shared with at least one other person and write that story in an email or letter. Send it to that person. You’ll both feel happy you did.

Story Album to Memoir

Adventures of a Chilehead initially began as a simple story album – a term I use in The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing to describe a collection of free-standing short stories. But a funny thing happened as I began assembling the loose stories into a document: they evolved into a memoir. Here’s how.

I began with three stories, two of which appeared in The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. I’d already written the third back then, but decided to save it for later. Through the years I wrote other stories on this theme. When I put the collection together for this album and arranged them in chronological order, I thought of a couple more. As I wrote and edited, I shared each story with a writing group.

“Great story, but tell us more about this, this and that,” they said. “This line would sound smoother like so.” I love my writing group. My writing is always better with their help! Although they hadn’t said it in so many words, they wanted more reflection, They wanted to know what I was thinking, what the experiences meant to me. They wanted reflection. Oh, yes! That’s something I teach and advise others to include. But it’s easy to overlook in my own stories.

Adding reflection forced me to explore simple stories and memories more deeply, to dig for more significance. I had to confront the key question: why do I love chile so much? Why do I keep scorching my mouth? And what else was going on that made those stories stick in memory? The answer was a little different each time, and it made the stories richer.

Another aspect of the collection the group didn’t see was overlap among the stories. Some stories have short flashbacks to previous memories. In a collection, such shared stories should be told in full only once. Later stories can refer to them in passing as “the time my father …” without repeating the details. I pruned that overlap and tucked in a few mini-memories to add further insight and interest.

As I continue to fine-tune those stories, working on the reflection and thinking from one story to the next along the time line, a story arc gradually emerged. My thoughts and preferences have evolved over time. I have evolved from girl to grandmother with the perspective of several decades. With no specific intention, this project has organically morphed into memoir with continuity, focus, and evolution of the story.

At first I was reluctant to add much reflection. The original stories were funny. I often read the unpublished third at public events and it’s hard to keep from laughing myself. Would I lose that comic edge?

Simple story albums need no conclusion, but an integrated collection or memoir needs resolution. That concluding chapter gave me fits. Then I had one more adventure that I would never have recognized as such if I hadn’t been working on this chapter. After a dozen false starts, a very different story emerged. Meaning became laser clear. Whether anyone ever reads this memoir or not, my life is richer for that.

More work remains to be done before the project is finished. I’ll keep you posted.

Write now:  select an assortment of stories you have written and assemble them into a story album. If you have several on a theme, so much the better. Or maybe you have several from the same time era. Read through them all at one time and see what else comes to mind. Perhaps it will remain a simple short story collection, but you may find it becomes something more.

Lessons Learned

That curve ball I reported in the previous post about my book title has been tossed all over the field. I appreciate the comments many left there. An update is in order about  principles validated, lessons learned, and conclusions reached.

Principle 1: Do your research.

When controversy arose over the spelling of chile or chilehead, I did do lots of research, and I learned many fascinating facts about chile/chili quite apart from the spelling lessons and history.

Principle 2: Check your references

When I called my father to double check my memory of what he told me, I was in for yet another surprise. Without knowing why I was asking, he turned my memory inside out. In his considered opinion, replacing the “e” at the end of chile with an “I” is an affectation that became fashionable about the time people began naming baby girls Christie rather than Christy. I never did understand how he could be at such odds with local custom, so although chagrinned at this outcome, I’m relieved to find him in character after all.

Lesson 1: Involve lots of others

I was beginning to wish I’d never mentioned this project to the Facebook group, considering in retrospect that asking forgiveness would have been easier. I had no intention of stirring up such a flap. But … I was using what I remembered as my father’s guidance in the first place, and his opinion trumps the rest. Had I not stirred up that Facebook pot, a permanent cloud would have hung over that book when I learned of my flub. This way I can still fix it. Community matters. Crowdsourcing helps.

Lesson 2: Double check your sources.

Memory is a tricky thing. We all know that. My memory error was legitimate and defensible. And I could have asked that question sooner. I just never thought of doing that. So, learn from my example and think about it. Root out and check out your assumptions to keep that egg off your face.

Conclusion 1: I need a new title!

It’s time for creativity. I’m considering options and open to suggestion.

Conclusion 2: It’s chile, not chili.

Case closed on that.

The story of compiling this collection from loose stories to memoir goes far beyond the title. I’ll continue the tale in the next post.

Write now: Think back through your old stories, or perhaps one you are currently writing and look for underlying assumptions. In my case, this was an assumption about spelling and remembered advice. Yours may be quite different. When you find an assumption, check it out. This is especially important when your assumption is based on things other people said or did. Mine was resolvable. Yours may not be. But it’s always worth a try.

Photo credit: Clotee Allochuku

Thanks for Reminding Me

Remind: to cause a person to remember; to bring something to (someone else’s) mind.

Thank goodness we have people to bring to mind things we have virtually forgotten, even when they turn our faces beet red. I just found this 15-year-old story scrap in a log of posts to the now defunct Lifestory Yahoo Group. It illustrates both the power of collective memory and the value of keeping a scrap bag of story pieces.

---

The other day my honey told a story that totally cracked me up. When I finally quit laughing, I said, "Well, I guess nobody can accuse me of taking after my mother when it comes to having a sense of humor."

My mother is widely considered to have lacked a sense of humor until the last few years of her life when her brain began melting down. Then a childlike sense of humor emerged, and she laughed at the drop of a hat, even at the silliest things.

"Your grandmother had a sense of humor, why wouldn't your mother?"

"My grandmother had a sense of humor? You've GOT to be kidding!"

My grandmother was born ornery, and she was occasionally downright mean. Actually I do remember her giggling at things when we were alone. She had a cute tinkly laugh. But I don't recall ever hearing her laugh around other people. As the oldest grandchild, I enjoyed special status, and I saw a side of her others missed.

"What about the time before our wedding when you were showing off your honeymoon nightgown and negligee?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't remember how embarrassed you were when she laughed and told you how nice it would look pulled up over your head?"

I nearly fell on the floor. Until he mentioned it, I’d forgotten all about that, including telling him about it. I never ever would have recalled that story on my own. So much for not remembering that Grandmother did laugh in public. All the women in the family were gathered around, and I had to have been the color of a ripe tomato when she said that. Embarrassing as it was back then, today it seems hysterically funny. Impossible as it seems, I'm ten years older now than my grandmother was when she said it. Maternal generations in my family were short.

---

My honey is helpful that way, remembering things I forgot decades ago, and I help him out the same way. He remembers large chunks of what I've forgotten, and other relatives remember things beyond that. Lifestory writing is even better when it's a team sport! Unless your memories collide in a combative way, and that can get tricky. But that’s a subject for another post.

In a different vein, I recall half a dozen stories from that summer of our wedding: The Breakfast Fiasco, Can You Bring a Gun To My Wedding?, The Case of the Missing Room Reservation, Dashed Expectations, and a couple more yet to be written. Perhaps I shall polish these and piece them together as a sort of paper patchwork memory quilt, much like I’ve already done with Adventures of a Chilehead.

Finding that scrap was a good reminder of the value of saving bits and pieces of story, even if they lack the conflict or other elements of full-fledged stories. Short anecdotes can be thought-provoking or fun to review later, and often come in handy. You might want to finish them later as full-featured stories. Or you can tuck one into a larger story or an email or a blog post, or even post it on Facebook.

When I posted stories to that group, mostly a handful of paragraphs and fewer than 500 words, to post in that online group, I pasted each one into a Word document for safekeeping – which turned out to be an excellent idea because the group suddenly went poof! I have over 500 stories and anecdotes in those archive documents. Each was quick and easy to write, usually prompted by previous posts.

Follow my example. When you write a new story in an email, copy it and save it in an ongoing document as I did with this one. Those accounts form a sort of journal, and your scrap bag of stories will grow. Who knows? In five years you may find that you’ve written a book, one email at a time.

Do you have examples of long-buried memories someone else reminded you of? I’d love to hear about them in comments!