Today, I read the bit from Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott about school lunches. Made me think. not about school lunches and the was those lunches were judged and also who made them. What my twisted mind went on was remembering of things from the past. When you're writing do you ever take time away from the story to explore what you remember from days ago. I do.
What sort of things figure highly in those memorie?. One thing is people's reactions, mine and theirs. I remember the panicked look on my mother's face when she found me at four years old holding my two month old sister against the screen door and refusing to move. That look of panic has been featured in some of my stories.
Another memory is of scents. Fresh baked cookies is one of my favorites. There are some not so pleasant aromas in my past since years ago I was a nurse. These are memories that help when one is writing a delicious or an unpleasant scene.
Colors are another triggering idea that brings back memories that can help a writer bring their craft to a new level. Along with taste. It's not only your feelings that are evoked but also what you see on the faces or the actions and reactions of other people.
Set yourself a task when you're writing and step back and use the memories of some incident or something like school lunches or maybe even the day you sent a parent into a panic.
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