🌈 memory mining

your creative weekend prompt

one of my “memory mining” journal pages from 2017

Since posting on Monday about my summertime favorites, I’ve been having nostalgia about summers of the past. A flood of memories has come to me this week, wanting to be explored and written about.

This made me think about one of my favorite ways to mine for memories that we may not even know we have… seriously! This freakin’ works! I’d love to share this fun, casual, powerful writing exercise with you to try this weekend.

I first learned this technique back in the 90s in an in-person workshop I took with Lynda Barry in NYC. I’ve tweaked it to make it my own over the years through lots of my own practice. This technique is the way I was able to recall many of my childhood stories I wrote in Midlife Emergence, like the time I first shaved my legs or the time in second grade when I overheard what sex was in the cafeteria at my school for the gifted. It’s super powerful, so…

…let’s get into it!

here’s what you need:

• Paper to write on (I like to handwrite these, but you can type if you prefer.)

• A pen you like

• A timer (The one in your phone works fine.)

• At least 10 minutes of time (That’s just for one round, and it’s pretty fun, so you’ll likely want to do it more and more.)