Tim, the fourth of the eight Kennedy siblings, has been writing memoirs and "life reports" on trips and family events for over a decade now. As a dogged blogger, I appreciate his efforts and admire his "voice" on the page. I have saved all 116 of his short essays (so far)... and honestly don't know what I will do with them. Perhaps a published volume for a special occasion. I have the storage on my desktop computer, so why not? And it's easy enough to publish a book with all the printers looking for work.
Today, he sent out a request through our sibling text chain asking for all of us to contribute a story about our father, to be compiled by Tim and published in conjunction with the anniversary of dad's passing, which is approaching. I love a good compilation and will certainly put something together.
As with any memoir, it would be difficult to confirm most of my memories. They have been sorted and edited and filtered through my head over so many years that I honestly couldn't differentiate myth from reality... well, I would like to think I have the facts right, but who knows?
It occurred to me to use this blog to share some of those random stories from an increasingly distant past, for myself and any loyal readers. I will try to do so, when time permits.
But the timing of Tim's request is perfect as my Metro class is now working (well, they have the assignment) on a "next draft" of their Significant Moment essay which they wrote two weeks ago. The students were all over the place, with some understanding that a "moment" does not constitute weeks, months, and years, and some demonstrating that they read my samples of short memoirs and my own instructions and examples.
The word count was about 800, just to give the students a ballpark as to the detail and depth they would need to do well. Some wrote fewer and many went over the limit. Interestingly, this is a classic case of writing MORE not necessarily leading to more success. For inexperienced writers, writing more is often just expanding the possibility of error or logic problems or simply wandering off and writing about stuff that might be true but has nothing to do with the point.
If I had a nickel for every student who begins a short memoir by describing getting up and driving to work or to a game or to school or to a date, usually making certain to emphasize that they had no idea something sad, happy, crazy, or tragic was about to happen... well, I would have quite a stack of nickels.
Not enough to offset the tariffs I have paid lately, but still.
My standard advice is to think like a TV writer and drop readers into a dramatic or funny or provocative moment (in media res), hoping that first scene can be intriguing enough that viewers will return after the commercial break.
I don't ask for a "next draft" all the time, and the exercise is not a strong fit for an asynchronous online writing class, but at least some of them will read my many comments and think about my suggestions concerning recreating dialog or developing key characters or simply lmiting themselves to one morning in their life.
I will use Tim's request to practice what I teach, so to speak. That is always a good practice for a writing teacher. I suspect that lots of teachers are fine creating assignments and fine assessing them, but actually writing the essay or poem or report? Not so much.
The first step for me will be to list some key moments and incidents and situations or teams, and also to consider varying time periods. That "gathering of material" is an important step in the writing process, of course, and I always emphasize to students that they should try to "write from abundance," as famous writing coach Donald Murray always said.
The next step is to choose what portion of that abundance will become part of THIS assignment. I have often had to remind young writers that they don't need to try to change the world in one short essay. I hope I will pay attention to that advice. Choosing one key moment is the key, and it won't be easy.
The good news is that there is always a chance to write a "next" essay or memoir. Put enough together and you have an entire book.
Tim's ongoing saga is now at approximately 300 pages, a personal history that informs and entertains and analyzes. And now he is pushing his siblings to "sign on" to a shorter but related project.
Good for him, or as our dad would say, "Good go."
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